Oil!

“Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching? And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake! I drink it up!”
-There Will Be Blood


The top oil producing areas in this country are states like Texas, Alaska, and California (home of Daniel Plainview). On PolicyMap, you can look up the top areas of employment in the oil and gas extraction industry:

However, when it comes to home heating, that oil goes through a straw acroooooooss the country, and it’s the Northeast that drinks the oil:


So to your list of Northeastern stereotypes, you can add something new: Northeasterners use oil or kerosene to heat their homes more than anywhere else in the country.

Here are the top ten oil producers (by employment) and consumers (by household) in the United States:

State/Jobs in Oil and Gas Extraction Industry in 2009 (County Business Patterns) State/Households That Use Oil or Kerosene in 2005-2009 (ACS)
Texas    41,361 New York            2,317,069
Oklahoma           14,493 Pennsylvania     1,089,944
Louisiana             8,466 Massachusetts  877,154
Colorado              6,615 Connecticut        657,247
California             6,004 New Jersey        464,008
New Mexico      3,551 Maine   410,296
Wyoming             3,543 New Hampshire               269,329
West Virginia     3,067 Maryland             266,013
Pennsylvania     2,987 Virginia 264,014
Kansas  2,866 North Carolina   250,325