What keeps us safe? Some of us might think that it is a tightly locked home? Some people invest in alarm systems to keep them safe. For others, maybe it’s a large vehicle with all the latest safety features.

What makes one of us feel safe might not matter to another, but more likely, it’s likely a combination of those things (plus many others), but I’d argue its people, and the things they create and monitor, that make us safe.

I’m talking about the men and women in uniform, like our military, police, firefighters, first responders, and even energy employees that help keep us safe.

For example, energy plays two important roles in our military. First, our service men and women are constantly operating tactical equipment, from tanks to aircraft carriers and from masks to parachutes, while running operations and military bases, as well as other sophisticated technologies, which are all focused on keeping them, and us, safe.

This, of course, requires massive amounts of energy to ensure our defense system runs strong 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year — without interruption.  It is estimated that the U.S. Department of Defense employs nearly two million servicemen and women and is the largest single consumer of energy in the world. For example, the Air Force alone uses an estimated 2.5 billion gallons of fuel at a cost of $9 billion per year.

To power that many service men and women around the world requires energy from somewhere, and there are two obvious sources, either domestically from within our own borders, or from imports. Of course, the more energy we can produce here at home means less importing or fighting overseas to gain access to energy. In short, America’s safety, and that of our friends and neighbors depends on reliable energy.

Our military isn’t the only group that keeps us safe, at the local level, it’s our police, firefighters, and first-responders. From their vehicles to their equipment, energy is needed to keep our neighborhoods and inner cities safe.

But did you know that these local services are also funded from taxes on the energy industry? That’s right; tax revenue from local energy production — called a severance tax on mineral resources and property tax for renewable resources — goes to local communities to pay for things like their police and fire departments, as well as the roads they use to get to from point A – B (sometimes, even in an emergency.)

Rules also keep us safe. And to the extent you believe that our government is composed of people – voted for by the people and for the people — then regulations are also meant to keep us safe. Federal, state and local government work together to help ensure energy is developed responsibly. That means energy is produced in a manner that protects our environment, and our people at the same time.

The BP Statistical Review of World Energy, a leading resource on carbon dioxide tracking, revealed that since 2005, annual emissions have declined by 758 million metric tons. That’s the largest decline of any country in the world and is nearly as large as the decline for the entire European Union during that same time. In February this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared gross greenhouse (GHG) emissions decreased by 2 percent between 2015-2016. Now, GHGs are just 2.6 percent above 1990 levels, 11.6 percent below 2005 levels. Another EPA report even states that “All told, total greenhouse gas emissions are approximately 13% below 2005 levels, or roughly halfway to the U.S.’s abandoned Paris Agreement target of 26% below 2005 levels by 2025.” That means organizations, companies, and people are working hard to meet our climate goals while also considering the benefits energy brings to everything around us, including our safety.

So the next time someone tells you we’re ruining the environment and our safety is in jeopardy, share these facts and let them know we can produce the energy we need while keeping our families safe.

Did you know, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the U.S. is the number one producer of natural gas in the world, leading Russia, Iran, Canada, and Qatar?  A basic lesson in economics reminds us that when you have a large supply of something, the price is usually pretty low. Natural gas is no different. Right now, one million cubic feet of natural gas trades for less than $3.00.  But how much is a million cubic feet of a gas?  Convert it to gallons and you’re looking at around 32 gallons – the equivalent of a garbage pail you’d put out for your trash collector. That’s a lot of energy for a pretty small price.

But that wasn’t always the case.

Energy prices in the U.S. used to spike when global events, often in the Middle East, would cause a disruption in supply. Now anything from natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and other unusual changes in weather, capacity constraints from lack of infrastructure or a curve in the supply chain can also interrupt our energy supply. And when there’s a low supply of anything – and in this case energy – the price can get pretty high.

In the last decade, as more natural gas has been produced here in the U.S., the cost of this commodity has plummeted and has also continued to remain relatively low. Experts predict they’ll stay low for a long time and that means utility bills will continue to decrease. That’s good news for small businesses, families and especially low-income households. Individuals and families aren’t just saddled with decisions about whether to go grocery shopping, pick up that medication they need or make rent on time. Often times it’s wondering how they’ll pay the energy bill and keep the lights on.

There is help, and that’s because paying the bills isn’t just hard for a few, it’s hard for a lot of people. Whether it’s food, healthcare or energy, Benefits.gov, a government-run organization has made it their mission to “reduce the expense and difficulty of interacting with the government while increasing citizen access to benefits information.” Their site includes a Benefit Finder with information on energy assistance called the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provides support to families for their home energy costs. As they point out, “Home heating is a high-cost basic necessity. For people with low incomes, the decision to pay the utility bill may mean deciding between being warm in the winter or having well-balanced meals.”

In addition to LiHEAP, local utilities also have programs to help people who are having problems paying their energy bills. While each utility is different, it never hurts to look up what programs they can offer, from billing assistance to home energy audits, there are other ways to save.

There are also several state-specific charitable groups that help raise money for families who need assistance with their energy bills. One organization noted total residential natural gas bills for the six winter months (November through April) have dropped from a high of $745 in the 2005-2006 heating season to $475 in the 2012-2013 heating season – a reduction of about 36 percent. That could mean a 50 percent reduction if you follow the trend through to today.  That dramatic decline in natural gas utility bills has made a big difference to many vulnerable seniors, families and disabled people – or simply for people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. For some households that were unable to pay their utility bills in years past when the price of natural gas was much higher, today they have a better chance of paying those bills due to the availability and price of fuel.

Now, as winter turns to spring, we can thank low-cost natural gas for allowing us to turn down our furnaces and turn up our air conditioners with confidence knowing that low-cost energy will get us through the summer months.

Many people outside of the energy world may not know this, but the United States has surpassed Russia as the world’s largest natural gas producer.

It’s important to remember what energy production actually means. It means we are drilling for, and “making” natural gas. It’s also important to think about that in terms of consumption.  If we are consuming more than we produce, than we have to continue importing to meet our needs, and vice versa if we are producing more than we consume, we have the ability to export excess natural gas.

When many of us think about exports, we typically think about goods like consumer products, or agricultural products like soybeans, maybe even technology like computers and intellectual property. But rarely if ever do we think about energy. The last time we exported more natural gas than we imported was in 1957. Eisenhower was President, the average cost of new house was $12,220, and Elvis had just released Jailhouse Rock.

Now, over 61 years later, we’re right at the tipping point. The U.S. is transitioning from being a net energy importer to a net exporter because we are producing more than we need.

This places the U.S. in a far better bargaining position on the international stage, especially for our ally countries in Western Europe that receive much of their natural gas from Russia.

And boy does our country know about Russia, especially since it’s been all over the news for the past year. What you may not know about Russia is that one its largest state-owned companies, Gazprom a natural gas company, has routinely been instructed to turn off natural gas to countries across Eastern and Western Europe, who in 2014 made up 40% of the companies revenues. In the past, people in places like Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Turkey and Ukraine have all been victims to their lack of energy security, and millions of people suffered, and even died.

Here in the U.S., we have the ability to avoid situations like that because we are not beholden to foreign nations for our energy supplies. That’s due mostly to the Energy Revolution, but also to American ingenuity and the hard-working men and women employed in the energy industry. With these advantages, we have the ability to not only gain energy independence but to help our allies in Eastern and Western Europe when they need energy supplies the most. And it’s not just Europe.

Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy, recently met with officials in India to discuss exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) and other forms of energy from the United States to Asia.

“India is obviously a huge market” for United States energy, Secretary Perry has said. “Our ability to deliver U.S. innovation and U.S. natural resources into that country is a great opportunity. That’s the real driving factor of why we’re headed that way. We’re exporting to our allies in Europe the opportunity to truly have a choice of where [they] buy energy from. That’s freedom. And that kind of freedom is priceless,” Perry said.

Energy grows a lot of things, one of those is our economy. It’s also changed our place in the world marketplace in terms of trade and opportunity to help our allies who in many instances didn’t have anywhere else to turn. While there is talk to halt exports by many in the anti-development moment, stopping our ability to help these allies, in the end, it would behoove us to leverage our resources and grow our economy while also helping others. And that’s a good place to be.