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Welcome to the distinct downside of cheap oil.

While drivers enjoy prices south of two bucks a gallon at the pump, U.S. oil producers are in crisis, with production slipping and new drilling at a virtual standstill. That’s because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has spent months flooding the market to drive prices down and cut off attempts at American energy independence.

That “price war has resulted in an OPEC-Saudi Arabia victory without question,” according to Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and a former research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Southwest U.S. production has hit bottom.”

Most drivers would likely be shocked to learn that around 50 percent of the gasoline they pump comes from the Middle East. New Mexico and West Texas producers say the only option is to change the battlefield and ban foreign oil imports except from Canada and Mexico. They hope to make a regional movement a national one.

In southeastern New Mexico, the current system of cheap OPEC oil means drill rigs in the field have dropped from 104 in late 2014 to about 20 today. That, in turn, means fewer jobs – jobs in drilling, fracking and well maintenance. Fewer jobs in real estate and construction. Fewer jobs in service industries. It means fewer hours and lower salaries for the jobs that struggle to survive, because it also means more business closures and bankruptcies.

In real-life numbers, it means at least 6,000 people who were employed aren’t any longer – make that 12,000 to 18,000 if you count all the non-drilling jobs that dried up as the drilling did. In Lea County alone, the unemployment rate jumped from 5.9 percent in May 2015 to 8.7 percent May this year.

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And that means New Mexicans have less money to pay their bills and need more help from government. And it means local and state government has less money to provide that help because tax revenues are down, too.

In Lea County, gross receipts fell 39 percent through April, compared with the same period a year ago. State lawmakers are looking at a deficit of $150 million to $175 million for the fiscal year that just started – on top of a budget that was virtually flat because of declining revenues.

It makes the push to restrict crude imports from overseas worth very serious consideration. Because OPEC gas at less than two bucks a gallon makes filling up a dream for drivers but a nightmare for just about everyone else.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.