This section addresses the potential for the alternatives to result in impacts on economic conditions in the Planning Area, including direct, indirect, short-term, and long-term impacts. Laws, executive orders, regulations, policies, and guidance considered in the analysis of economic conditions are identified in Appendix B.

Potential impacts include changes in regional economic output, employment, and earnings, and in tax revenues for the local, state, and federal governments. The economic modeling analysis assumes direct and indirect impacts occur simultaneously even though in reality these impacts may take time to work their way through the economic sectors in the analysis area. For example, an action to permit gas exploration and production may result in the direct infusion of money into several economic sectors and indirect infusions into related sectors, such as retail, accommodation, and food services and education and other social services. In economic modeling, these impacts would be assumed to occur instantaneously. Continued direct infusion of money into the Planning Area’s economy created by the decision to lease oil and gas would be analyzed over the life of the project, which in this case is likely to represent a multi-year period of production. As a result, the analysis of impacts to economic conditions is designed to account for the economic activity produced by planning decisions over time. The impacts are estimated on an annual basis through 2028 based on the estimated annual direct impact of the alternatives.