Drilling rigs all over the oil patch have been stacked, and frack trucks are lined up in the service company yards, all looking like so many sitting ducks in a carnival booth.

Recently, George Rogers, chairman of the board of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, pointed out the stark facts on the ground in Texas: The drilling rig count is down by 68% from 2014, drilling permits are off 70% and Lone Star oil and gas completions have each declined by about 60%, he said. In the U.S., the industry has laid down 1,300 rigs since the peak in 2014.

For now, managers would appear to have a lot more time on their hands, because they are certainly fielding fewer calls every morning about how deep the drillbit is that day. What are they doing instead?

Their main chores now are more likely to be all about poring over balance sheets, spread sheets and other charts, and figuring out how to fund buying back some more distressed debt, or considering which prized assets need to be put up for sale.

Despite the downturn, or perhaps because he doesn’t know how bad it is (!), President Obama shocked the industry in early February by announcing he wants to impose a $10.25/bbl tax on U.S. oil producers already struggling with $30 oil. This is so ludicrous that it defies logic. Why now? Why didn’t he think of such a tax when oil was $80 or $100, and the industry was flush with capital and at the peak of production? (Not that I am in favor of a windfall profits tax.)

We say: Relax. Congress will never allow this. House Speaker Paul Ryan immediately declared it dead on arrival, unlikely ever to reach the floor for a vote.

The only good thing this proposal achieved was fostering a much-needed public discussion on how to fund the nation’s transportation infrastructure, which is sorely in need of repair and expansion. Even so, the industry was appalled to be threatened at a time when $30 oil could last all year.

Frankly, in a single day’s announcement, OPEC did more damage to the oil and gas industry than anything the Obama administration has done over the past seven years.

I spoke with Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources Inc., recently. Among other things, he thinks we should instead impose a tariff on all imported barrels, which is another way to raise money, kill off more imports and give U.S. producers a reason to produce more. This is an idea he has touted several times before. It’s a replay of his Save Domestic Oil organization, which in 1999 asked the government to stop the flood of oil imports.

What about exports from the U.S.? Cowen & Co. analyst Sam Margolin said in a report that as long as crude prices are low and U.S. production is falling, oil exports are unlikely to grow.

“However, in the event of a recovery and a potential restoration in Lower 48 oil production growth, a $10/bbl tax would render U.S. barrels noncompetitive, and essentially nullify the concession to producers to allow exports” that was only recently passed by Congress, Margolin said.

Meanwhile, producers must cope with worsening conditions. Its stock swooned and the blogosphere lit up when ConocoPhillips announced further cuts to the company’s 2016 capex and a drastic and unexpected cut to its dividend. But when everything around you deteriorates, you cannot conduct business as usual. I salute CEO Ryan Lance for making the hard call.

“First, current prices are much lower than we expected at the time we announced our 2016 operating plan,” Lance said on the conference call. “Brent is currently trading 40% lower than 2015 average prices.

“Second, we believe this downturn could last a while longer. Just a few months ago, we thought the market would rebalance by the second half of 2016. Now, it looks like that can stretch into 2017.

“And third, greater concerns about global growth suggest it could take longer to reach an equilibrium mid-cycle price after balancing occurs.

“These actions also lower our breakeven price to roughly $45 per barrel Brent. And what we mean here is that we can keep production flat and pay our dividend for many years at $45 per barrel, without needing to sell assets or increase our debt levels.”

Sounds like a plan. It’s being done by several other companies, too.

By the way, all is not lost. A few companies have actually increased their distributions, not reduced them or killed them. Sanchez Production Partners LP hiked its distribution slightly, to $1.62 annually from $1.60; and Diamondback’s Viper increased its distribution 14%.

Hey, we’ll take any positive news we can find these days, right?

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