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Biden Goes After American Energy Producers With Punitive Tax Proposal

March 15, 2023 by Leave a Comment

President Biden is planning to harm the domestic oil and gas industry and make them less globally competitive despite asking them to produce more energy. Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 is for the astounding amount of $6.9 trillion and includes withdrawing tax deductions from oil and gas businesses that other manufacturing entities receive and would harm the small mom-and-pop companies whose production is critical for meeting demand. Biden’s proposal claims that eliminating “special” tax treatment for oil and gas company investments, as well as other fossil fuel tax preferences, would save the government nearly $31 billion over 10 years. Biden’s budget demonstrates the contradictions in his energy policy because while Biden calls for increasing American oil and natural gas to meet consumer demands, he fails to issue leases, closes areas to exploration and discourages future investment by proposing new discriminatory taxes in his budget.  Then to top it off, he proposes removing tax deductions from the oil and gas industry. Removing these routine business deductions will lower domestic output while further raising already high oil and gasoline prices.

Oil and Gas Tax Deductions

The White House in one of its budget fact sheets states, “The President is committed to ending tens of billions of dollars of federal tax subsidies for oil and gas companies. Even as they benefit from billions of dollars in special tax breaks, oil companies have failed to invest in production.” What Biden’s budget calls “subsidies” for the oil and gas industry are tax deductions that are mainly targeted to small independent oil and natural gas producers, rather than the major integrated oil companies usually described as “big oil.” Independent oil and gas producers develop 91 percent of the wells in the United States – producing 83 percent of America’s oil and 90 percent of America’s natural gas. There are about 9,000 independent oil and natural gas producers in the United States, operating in 33 states and offshore who employ an average of 12 workers. Independents can be small family companies or publicly traded companies but they are vital parts of their local and regional economies, spinning off wealth and job creation and contributing to their communities.

The two tax deductions that primarily affect small independent producers are the percentage depletion allowance and expensing of intangible drilling costs. As the oil and gas in a well is depleted, independent producers are allowed a percentage depletion allowance to be deducted from their taxes. While the percentage depletion allowance sounds complicated, it is similar to the treatment given to other businesses for the depreciation of an asset. The tax code essentially treats the value of a well as it does the value of a newly constructed factory, a new vehicle or a new tractor, allowing a percentage of the value to be depreciated each year. This allowance was first instituted in 1926 to compensate for the decreasing value of the resource, and was eliminated for major oil companies in 1975. This tax deduction is estimated to save independent oil and gas producers about $0.5 billion in the fiscal year 2022.

Independent producers are also allowed to count certain costs associated with the drilling and development of wells as business expenses. The law allows the small producers to expense the full value of these costs, known as intangible drilling costs, every year to encourage them to explore for new oil. The major companies get a portion of this deduction—they can expense a third of intangible drilling costs, but they must spread the deductions across a five-year period. This tax treatment is also similar to that of other businesses for such investments as research and development. This tax deduction is estimated to save oil and gas producers about $0.4 billion in the fiscal year 2022.

Another tax deduction is the Domestic Manufacturing tax deduction, which allows all industries and businesses (not just oil companies) to deduct a certain percentage of their profits—for the oil and gas industry, it is 6 percent, for all other industries (software developers, video game developers, the motion picture industry, and green energy producers, among others), it is 9 percent.

According to Reuters, the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan panel of Congress, has estimated that eliminating intangible drilling costs could generate $13 billion for the government over 10 years and the percentage depletion tax break, which allows independent producers to recover development costs of declining oil gas and coal reserves, could generate about $12.9 billion in revenue over 10 years. However, doubling the tax deductions over a 5 year period shown in the above graph for those provisions does not produce the numbers cited by Reuters.

Some of What Biden Wants Instead

Biden’s budget proposal includes $375 million for grants to assist weatherization of homes and $800 million for efficiency upgrades through LIHEAP– the Department of Health and Human Services’ Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Another $300 million would target energy efficiency and climate resilience in public housing, and more than $5 billion would go to fund climate and energy-efficient technology research at various agencies and bureaus, including the Interior Department, the Commerce Department, NASA and the National Science Foundation. Another $35 million would be put toward creating a new laboratory at a historically Black college or university through the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

The Biden budget also calls for increased funds for federal agencies’ activities in offshore wind.  It requests $64.5 million for the renewable energy program of the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) – $21.6 million more than for FY 2023. This includes a $12 million increase to support permitting associated with moving the current offshore wind leasing path forward, despite calls from environmentalists and local officials to halt the program because of an increase in dead whales.  The budget proposes $92.8 million for BOEM’s Environmental Programs, an increase of $10.4 million, which includes funding for environmental review associated with renewable energy projects. The budget earmarks $60 million to expand offshore wind permitting activities at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency under the Department of Commerce which last year joined BOEM in Biden’s goal to reach 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030.

Conclusion

Biden is on the oil and gas warpath again. He wants the oil and gas companies to increase production while taking their tax deductions and future opportunities away. Biden began his anti-oil and gas policies on inauguration day and he has continued them non-stop since then with the latest being the removal of 16 million acres in Alaska from oil and gas exploration. Instead, he wants to electrify everything and have the United States run solely on renewable energy. Today, after years of government incentives and mandates, renewable energy represents only 13 percent of the U.S. energy system while fossil fuels represent 79 percent. When will the U.S. government realize where it should put its money for energy development that is reliable and affordable?

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

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Biden Blocks ‘West Virginia Sized’ Piece of Alaskan Land From Development

March 14, 2023 by Leave a Comment

The Biden administration announced major restrictions on offshore oil leasing in the Arctic Ocean and across Alaska’s North Slope supposedly to temper criticism from environmentalists over a pending decision on an oil drilling project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve known as Willow and to form a “firewall” to limit future oil leases in the region. The Interior Department said it would issue new rules to block oil and gas leases on more than 55 percent of the 23 million acres that form the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and bar drilling in nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea — closing it off from oil exploration.  The restricted area of over 16 million acres is about the size of West Virginia. The Willow project, if approved, would take place inside the petroleum reserve, which is located about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The National Petroleum Reserve was established in 1912 as a backup source of oil for the federal government, originally for the Navy, as it was at one time referred to as the Naval Petroleum Reserve. Four sites in the country comprised the Naval Petroleum Reserve. The fourth site is on the North Slope of Alaska.

President Biden is to declare the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean off limits to new oil and gas leasing and make over 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska off limits for new leases. Drilling restrictions would extend to the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon, and Peard Bay Special Areas. The action completes energy withdrawals for the entire Beaufort Sea Planning Area, building upon President Barack Obama’s restrictions. In 2015, President Barack Obama halted exploration in coastal areas of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, and he later withdrew most other potential Arctic Ocean lease areas — about 98 percent of the Arctic outer continental shelf thought to be rich in energy resources.

The new rules would not affect the Willow project because ConocoPhillips already owns the leases. The $8 billion Willow project would produce up to 180,000 barrels a day of oil or about 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years—oil that the United States and its allies need as U.S. exports of oil have hit record levels and as bans exist on purchasing oil and oil products from Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.

Alaska lawmakers, unions and indigenous communities are arguing for Biden to approve the Willow project because it would bring jobs and billions of dollars in taxes and mitigation funds to the region located about 600 miles from Anchorage. The space that the Willow drilling project would need would be about the size of a postage stamp on a football field—that is, infinitesimal. Alaska’s Senator Dan Sullivan called Willow “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.”

According to Mike Dunleavy, Governor of Alaska, “Unfortunately, the federal government under this administration has declared war on Alaska. We have at least 42 actions against us by the Biden administration.  I think if you really take an objective look at how we’re treated by our federal government, one could quickly surmise that we are actually treated worse than some foreign nations such as Venezuela and Iran.” Further, he says, “If you care about the environment, we need to produce resources in Alaska. If you care about social justice, we need to produce resources here in Alaska. If you care about enriching people and not dictators, we need to produce resources here in Alaska.”

The Department of Interior distributed the revenues of the respective state collected from oil, gas, renewable energy and mineral production on federal lands within the states’ borders and from offshore oil and gas tracts in federal waters. Alaska received $45 million in fiscal year 2022—less than 60 percent of what Texas received despite having massive federal lands rich in resources while Texas has a small percentage of lands in federal ownership. New Mexico received over 60 times as much in revenue from energy than Alaska did in fiscal 2022.

Conclusion

In order to appease those who want the United States to keep American energy in the ground, President Biden is proposing to close an area the size of West Virginia to oil and gas drilling.  In return, he may allow a small project—Willow– to move forward in what should have been a caveat-free executive decision.

Europe is clearly in an energy crisis that the United States can lessen through the production of domestic oil and natural gas. The Biden administration says it wants more oil production, but at every turn it squashes the industry’s ability to produce more. President Biden should be focused on strengthening U.S. energy security and supporting the responsible development of federal lands and waters – not acting to restrict it. The United States has one of the best environmental records on oil and gas production, as this IER report indicates. Biden’s restrictions on the development of Alaska’s oil and gas resources will just move the production to countries that have poor environmental records and increase prices for U.S. consumers and its allies, all in the name of appeasing his climate change base.

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

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AEA Applauds Bipartisan Vote to Stop WOTUS Overreach

March 10, 2023 by Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON DC (03/10/2023) – The American Energy Alliance (AEA), the country’s premier pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, and free-market energy organization, applauds members who voted in favor of H.J. Res. 27, the Congressional Review Act resolution disapproving of the revised definition of “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act.

Nine House Democrats broke from their party on Thursday to overturn the Biden administration’s water regulation that stretched the legal definition of navigable waters in the U.S.

AEA President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement:

This bipartisan vote halting the federal bureaucracy’s overreach is a welcome check on President Biden’s extreme environmental agenda. The Clean Water Act clearly spells out an extensive state role in the regulation of water sources. The federal statutory regulatory role is overseeing navigable waters of the United States. The repeated attempts by federal bureaucrats to stretch this definition to cover nearly all water sources in the country is an illegal power grab.

This most recent rule from the Biden administration is yet another version of the same old power grab that has been repeatedly struck down by the courts. The definition of “waters of the United States” in this rulemaking is so broad that it deeply intrudes on state responsibilities contrary to the express intent of the Clean Water Act. It will be used as a pretext to insert federal bureaucrats into industries and areas that are already well-regulated by the states themselves.

With the Supreme Court set to reach a decision that will hopefully better clarify how the term “waters of the United States” should be construed, this rule should not have been rushed out at all. That the bureaucracy pressed forward with this power grab regardless only emphasizes why it was so important for Congress to act.


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Biden’s Illegal Offshore Development Delay

March 10, 2023 by Leave a Comment

President Biden’s oil and gas offshore lease plan is late and will be even later as the Interior Department argues it needs until December to finalize the plan. It told a court it needs the rest of the year to complete an analysis on the delayed five-year program, which will replace the expired 2017-2022 program. There is currently no active offshore leasing program providing for new lease sales despite the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act mandating that the Secretary of the Interior ‘shall prepare’ this program to ‘best meet national energy needs.’ America’s energy future is on hold as the Biden Administration deliberates on how to comply with the law at the same time it is working to “end fossil fuels” as President Biden promised. Senator Manchin, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the administration is “putting their radical climate agenda ahead of our nation’s energy security” with the delay and what is even more terrifying is that on top of this disturbing timeline, Interior refuses to confirm if they intend to actually include any lease sales in the final plan. The draft proposal released last July had an option of no lease sales.

Federal law directs the Interior Department to issue an offshore leasing program detailing the year and location of potential oil and gas lease sales over the course of a five-year period. All previous administrations have finalized new programs to take over expiring plans basically on time. Biden’s Department of Interior proposed its new five-year program in July 2022 when the previous plan expired but has yet to advance it further. It expects to publish a proposed final program in September 2023, which triggers a mandatory 60-day review period for the President and Congress, after which the secretary may approve the program. That schedule makes it 18 months late.

According to attorneys for the Interior Department, litigation brought by Republican states and oil and gas industry groups is a factor causing the delay. Before Interior can finalize a new five-year leasing plan, the administration has to respond to 760,000 public comments. It also needs to complete an analysis that includes greenhouse gas emissions and the economic impacts of alternative leasing scenarios. For the latter, the Interior Department says it needs data from the Energy Information Administration that should be available this month. It also needs to conduct analyses on leasing benefits and air quality, among others.

Inflation Reduction Act

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) directed the Department of interior to reinstate three offshore lease sales in the previous five-year program that Interior canceled in May 2022. Interior attorneys claim that this creates a temporary avenue for continued Outer Continental Shelf leasing until the end of September. The Biden administration held a lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico that was originally invalidated by the courts and another off the Alaska coast. Interior’s Bureau of Energy Management will hold another Gulf of Mexico lease sale on March 29, 2023, but environmental groups who oppose oil and gas leasing filed a lawsuit against that sale on March 6.  The IRA also linked continued oil and gas leasing to the development of renewable energy on federal lands and in federal waters. Senator Manchin said, “I will remind the administration that the Inflation Reduction Act also prevents them from issuing any leases for renewables, like offshore wind or onshore solar, unless there are first reasonable lease sales for oil and gas that actually result in leases being awarded.”

Background

President Biden’s Department of Interior released its draft offshore lease plan late on July 1, 2022—just before the Fourth of July holiday and when American families were paying historically-high gasoline prices. A final plan was due by June 30, 2022 when the current plan ended. Biden’s draft plan lays out several options for public input regarding the number of offshore oil and gas lease sales that should be held over the next five years, ranging from zero to eleven. In total, the draft plan had ten potential new leases in the Gulf of Mexico and one in the Cook Inlet off the southern coast of Alaska. There are no new leases in federal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Biden’s plan is in sharp contrast to President Trump’s proposed offshore lease plan that had 47 new offshore drilling leases, including in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. President Trump had proposed a vast expansion of drilling sales to cover more than 90 percent of coastal waters, including areas off California and new zones in the Atlantic and Arctic.  This was part of his “American Energy Dominance” policy, which sought to make the United States stronger.

Biden’s Abysmal Lease Record

When Biden became President, he immediately placed a moratorium on lease sales supposedly for agencies to review their practices due to climate change. During his first 19 months in office, President Biden leased fewer acres for offshore oil and gas production than any other President before him since the inception of offshore drilling rights. Not since Harry Truman have fewer acres of federal land or offshore rights to develop oil and gas resources been leased by a U.S. president. Under President Truman, offshore drilling was just beginning and the federal government did not yet control the deep-water leases that have made up the largest part of the federal oil-and-gas program. It is clear from the graph below that the Biden administration is withholding U.S. energy development at a time when the world is facing an energy crisis and consumers are experiencing very high energy prices. President Biden is withholding resources that Americans own, resulting in gasoline prices reaching an all-time high of $5 a gallon in June 2022 and remaining over a dollar per gallon above the gas price when he took office  The following graph from the Wall Street Journal indicates how few acres have been leased during Biden’s first 19 months in office despite the law requiring oil and natural gas lease sales.

Source: Wall Street Journal

President Biden’s Interior Department leased 126,228 acres for drilling through August 20, 2022. Under Biden’s stewardship leasing is down 97 percent from the first 19 months of President Trump’s term. No other president since Richard Nixon in 1969-70 leased out fewer than 4.4 million acres at this stage in his first term, and that was in the wake of the Santa Barbara oil spill of January 1969. Harry Truman was the last president to lease out fewer acres—65,658—in 1945-46, but as noted above the offshore program was just starting during his term. During former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, leasing was at record highs in the 1970s and early 1980s in response to geopolitical oil crises. Mr. Reagan still holds the record, leasing nearly 48 million acres in his first 19 months, almost three times as much as any other president.

Source: Wall Street Journal

The U.S. Department of Interior awarded 203 leases for oil and gas development during Biden’s first 19 months in office while former Presidents Trump and Obama each approved 10 times as many leases during that time period. Going back into prior Presidencies, the 203 leases under Mr. Biden amount to just 3.2 percent of what all the Presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to Donald Trump awarded on average in the same time period.

Conclusion

“No more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling including offshore—no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill—period,” Biden said when he ran for office. That’s the President’s plan and he has succeeded so far in placing delays and other obstacles in the way of leasing. The draft offshore leasing plan required by law will be at least 18 months late when it is finalized at the end of this year. And, it may state no lease sales since that was one of the options released in the proposal of July 1, 2022. About 15 percent of U.S. oil production was produced in the Gulf of Mexico in 2022 on leases that the American public owns, using American technology that has been deployed in other places around the world. Biden is doing his best to reduce that number by limiting new supplies.  This is setting the stage for energy price hikes in the future, which Biden has typically blamed on the people working in the oil and gas industries that he is stopping from exploring.

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

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The Unregulated Podcast #123: Why Are Conservatives Bad Mommy? – Guest Gov. Mike Dunleavy

March 10, 2023 by Leave a Comment

On this episode of The Unregulated Podcast Tom Pyle and Mike McKenna are joined by Governor Mike Dunleavy, (R-Alaska) for a discussion on the Biden administration’s war on American energy.

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AEA to Congress: Just Say No to President Biden’s Reckless Budget Proposal

March 9, 2023 by Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON DC (03/09/2023) – Today, President Biden released his federal budget proposal, seeking billions in additional spending for green corporate interests on a host of programs across the federal government.

AEA President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement:

This budget proposal signals that President Biden has looked at the inflation and energy price increases of the last two years and decided that he wants more of both. Since President Biden took office, gasoline prices are up 44 percent and the average retail price of electricity is up over 20 percent.

As President Biden’s destructive policies continue to mount, it’s obvious that there is no plan to correct course. Instead, President Biden tells us that if we want relief from his inflationary policies we should buy electric vehicles, which average over $58,000, or install an expensive heat pump. For a man who fashions himself as a champion of the working class, President Biden doesn’t appear to be sensitive to the needs of American energy consumers.

Fortunately, real relief could be had if President Biden were to end his war on domestic energy producers and abandon his green industrial policies. America is the best in the world at delivering reliable, affordable, and clean energy to consumers. Washington needs to get out of the energy business. This budget does the opposite. Congress should reject it.


President Biden’s budget proposal includes:

  • $16.5 billion in climate science funding and “clean energy innovation”
    • This includes $3.5 billion of the $8.8 billion total for DOE’s Office of Science and $1.6 billion at NSF
    • $1 billion for fusion energy
  • $4.5 billion in additional “clean energy” spending
  • Pledges to more than quadruple international climate finance and provide more than $3 billion for the President’s “Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience”
    • This includes a $1.6 billion contribution to the Green Climate Fund and a $1.2 billion loan to the Clean Technology Fund
  • $1.8 billion for the EPA to advance “environmental justice”
  • $1.2 billion for the Department of Energy’s industrial decarbonization activities
  • $64.4 million at EPA to implement the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, a corporate giveaway program


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Anti-Pipeline Activism Creates Expensive Consequences For American Families

March 7, 2023 by Leave a Comment

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that interstate natural gas pipeline capacity additions reached a record low in 2022 based on data collected since 1995. In 2022, 897 million cubic feet per day of interstate natural gas pipeline capacity was added from five projects, according to EIA’s latest State-to-State Capacity Tracker, which contains information on the capacity of natural gas pipelines that cross state and international borders. The five projects that increased interstate natural gas capacity in 2022 focused primarily on upgrading compressor stations, with only one project adding a relatively small amount of new pipe. As natural gas is our cleanest hydrocarbon and the United States has it in abundance, this represents a historic impediment to future economic growth.

The 2022 gas pipeline capacity additions are just 3 percent of the record amount added (28,040 million cubic feet per day) in 2017. Since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has to approve new interstate natural gas pipeline capacity, the news speaks loudly regarding its motivations as does President Biden’s promise to cause the demise of the U.S. oil and gas industry stated during his campaign. Regulatory hurdles are clearly stymying growth in pipeline capacity and thus to natural gas production, which points to much-needed permitting reform for interstate pipelines.

Source: Energy Information Administration

EIA Report

EIA notes that capacity was added to intrastate pipelines and to existing FERC-administered interstate pipelines as expansions that increased intrastate capacity in 2022. Since 2017, about 70 percent of the growth in natural gas production came from the Permian and Haynesville regions, located near liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals along the Gulf Coast. In Texas and Louisiana, intrastate projects, rather than interstate projects, increased takeaway capacity and connected natural gas production to LNG export terminals.

Building large-scale, commercial natural gas pipelines that cross state boundaries involves a number of contractual, engineering, regulatory, and financial requirements that involve addition coordination and that take longer to complete compared with intrastate pipeline projects. Some of those interstate gas pipelines have been in the works for years but due to rising costs from permitting delays have had to cancel projects. One such project was the Atlantic Coast project, a pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina along a route that had to pass through the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. In the summer of 2020, despite a major win on the right-of-way issue at the U.S. Supreme Court, the developers of the pipeline scrapped the project due to ongoing delays and major cost overruns.

Mountain Valley Pipeline

The 303-mile Mountain Valley pipeline was originally set for completion in 2018 and while it is now 94 percent complete, it is being stonewalled by activists in federal court. Permitting delays and court action have increased the pipeline’s cost from the original estimate of $3.5 billion to $6.6 billion. Recently, the pipeline received a positive report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that indicated 5 federally protected species of bats, fish and a plant would not likely to be jeopardized by the pipeline.

A ruling from the Fourth Circuit is expected soon in a lawsuit in which environmental groups are contesting a stream-crossing approval by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and a similar approval by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality that is expected by early summer. If all goes well, Equitrans Midstream Corp., the lead partner in the project, hopes to have the remaining work done in time for the pipeline to begin transporting natural gas by the end of this year, along a route that would take it from northern West Virginia, through Southwest Virginia, and connecting with an existing pipeline near the North Carolina line. This pipeline alone would add more than double the capacity of total U.S. interstate pipeline additions last year.

FERC’s Jurisdiction and Biden’s Edict

During the first days of his Presidency, President Biden embarked on his environmental goals to “end fossil fuels,” pushing FERC to consider changes to the way it reviews applications to approve and construct new natural gas infrastructure projects by addressing greenhouse gas emissions and environmental justice concerns in its decisions. Last year, FERC released a new certificate policy statement, which would govern the process for approving new natural gas infrastructure projects and an “interim” policy statement on how it would consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts from new natural gas infrastructure.

Originally, FERC intended to apply the policy statements to both pending and new applications, effective without a comment period or transition schedule. But, after receiving backlash from Congress, FERC changed its issuances to “draft” policy statements rather than “interim” policy statements, made the policy change apply only to new proposed projects, and held a comment period. The proposed revisions to the certificate policy statement are significant, having the potential to pause or stop the development of new projects and major expansions. There is no timeline by which FERC must act, leaving some developers to question the viability of new natural gas infrastructure projects. While the comment period has expired, FERC has not released final actions regarding the policy, so project decisions are in limbo.

New England Imports Natural Gas

The U.S. Northeast is importing LNG from foreign producers to meet its natural gas demand because of insufficient pipeline capacity to bring natural gas from neighboring Pennsylvania where the Marcellus basin holds large natural gas deposits. New York state has been particularly hard on pipeline construction under Governor Cuomo, and those policies have continued under Governor Hochul.  Due to regulatory hurdles and lengthy court battles, pipeline companies have not built pipeline capacity needed in the region. Rather than add pipeline capacity, “band aid fixes” to New England’s gas supply such as suspending the Jones Act to temporarily ease receipt of more LNG imports and federal assistance in paying for New England consumers’ energy bills are being used by the Biden administration, which are not lasting or affordable solutions to addressing electric reliability concerns. Further, the Marcellus basin could be supplying LNG facilities with natural gas if the new interstate pipeline capacity could be built.

Conclusion

EIA data show that interstate pipeline capacity is being held hostage by regulatory hurdles and court proceedings as the least amount of interstate natural gas pipeline capacity was added in 2022 since data collection began in 1995. Lack of pipeline permitting reform has resulted in spiraling costs that resulted in pipeline cancellations. Those pipeline projects that persist have costs skyrocketing as can be seen by the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s costs almost doubling. President Biden wants the domestic oil and gas industry to be gone and is doing all his administration can to cause its demise, even pushing an independent agency that has control over interstate pipelines to do its bidding. If consumers use natural gas, they should be aware that there is a war against their fuel choice underway, which has the potential to radically alter their lives.

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

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The Unregulated Podcast #122 Hug A Nurse

March 6, 2023 by Leave a Comment

On this episode of The Unregulated Podcast Tom Pyle and Mike McKenna discuss the biggest news of the week and the wildest soundbites to come out of the Biden White House.

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Bipartisan Rebuke of ESG Agenda

March 2, 2023 by Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON DC (03/02/2023) – This week, the House and Senate voted to cancel a Labor Department rule that encourages retirement plan managers to weigh environmental and social issues when making investments.

AEA President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement:

“Today, Congress firmly rejected the Biden administration’s extreme environmental agenda by voting to cancel the Labor Department’s implementation of their ESG rule.

ESG issues are about political and policy beliefs. These personal political opinions of the managers and leadership at financial firms should have no bearing on how they manage their customers’ 401k investments unless a customer has specifically chosen to invest in a fund or program that prioritizes those beliefs.

The financial institutions that manage 401k and other retirement plans are fundamentally stewards of other people’s money. They cannot and should not be using other people’s retirement funds to push their own political agendas. The last thing that people want is their retirement fund pushing progressive politics down their throats.”

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The Unregulated Podcast #121: Recalibrating Our Radars

February 24, 2023 by Leave a Comment

On this episode of The Unregulated Podcast, Tom Pyle and Mike McKenna discuss a busy week of headlines and the lackluster response from the White House.

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