The student-run Kansas University energy club hosted a symposium on Tuesday that looked at the present and future of that all-important resource: energy. Pictured here from left to right: David Gelvin, president of the KU Energy Club; author Jay Hakes, who served as head of the Energy Information Administration under President Bill Clinton; Rep. Dennis Hedke, R-Wichita; and Gene Tunison, retired manager of the global regulatory affairs and research planning division of ExxonMobil Refining & Supply Co.

Jay Hakes, who has worked on energy issues for three U.S. presidential administrations and at one time served as head of the Energy Information Administration, will offer two different caveats about oil development depending on his audience.

When speaking to industry groups, he tells them, “We can’t drill everywhere.” When speaking to environmentalists, the statement flips. “We can’t drill nowhere.” It’s a turn of phrase that represents just how dicey the issue of energy can be.

On Tuesday Hakes was speaking to neither industry nor environmental groups, but rather an audience made up mostly of Kansas University students. Hakes came to campus as part of the fourth annual energy symposium organized by the student-run KU Energy Club.

The event drew about 130 registrants as well as a panel of speakers that included Rep. Dennis Hedke, R-Wichita, and chair of the Energy and Environment Committee, as well as high-level current and former employees of companies working with oil, wind and other energy forms.

The energy club tapped Hakes to give the keynote speech after picking as this year’s topic “the emerging energy independence that America is trying to turn toward,” said David Catt, a conference coordinator and KU senior in civil engineering.

Hakes wrote a book on the topic, titled “A Declaration of Energy Independence,” in 2008, before a spike in shale oil production altered the national conversation about energy.

Over the course of his career, Hakes has seen America’s energy landscape go through several major transitions. Today he thinks energy independence — a term that signifies a reduction in oil imports in favor of domestic energy production — could be closer at hand than it has been in decades.

Dramatic reduction in oil imports in recent years has followed new oil and natural gas development in places like North Dakota and Pennsylvania, as well as a reduction in oil use due largely to high gasoline prices and new fuel efficiency standards.

“People argued that we just couldn’t do it, and it just wasn’t important to do it; after all, we import most of our running shoes — why does it make a difference that we import most of our oil?” Hakes said.