Giving Compass' Take:

• Governing magazine reports on how the surge in oil and gas production throughout Southwestern states may be helping to drive a current national economic upswing.

• What does this mean for those involved in energy policy and advocacy? Will more oil production have a deleterious effect on clean energy solutions?

• Here's more about how to achieve universal energy access and what we don't know.

The nation’s 4.2 percent growth in GDP, estimated last month by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, is the highest quarterly growth since 2014. State estimates aren’t due until mid-November, but many experts see oil and natural gas drilling, driven by higher prices, as a leading reason.

“The states that contribute most might be the ones with strong increases in energy production,” including Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, said Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan and an economic analyst for the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. GDP measures gross domestic product, or the value of all goods and services produced in a given period of time.

Oil and gas industries benefited from rising prices over the past two years, prompting more production and jobs. Production increased by nearly half in New Mexico over the past year, 29 percent in Texas and Colorado, and 19 percent in North Dakota and Oklahoma, according to federal figures as of June. Natural gas production surged in Louisiana as well.

Tech companies, the leading driver in California’s recent economic growth, also show no sign of slowing down, said Lynn Reaser, chairwoman of the state treasurer’s Council of Economic Advisers. Tech also boomed in New York, Colorado and Pennsylvania earlier this year, and nationally it continues to surge to levels not seen since 2001.

Read the full article about the energy boom in the Southwest by Tim Henderson at Governing magazine.