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Common Sense Energy: Drilling for thee but not for me
Your Weekly Dose of “Common Sense“ Energy News
Presented by: The Empowerment Alliance
September 24th, 2021
Alaska’s Senators and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) are looking to build bipartisan support to uphold a 2017 law that provided leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It was reported that the trio are “actively exploring avenues to ensure the still-in-flux reconciliation bill does not restrict drilling in the ANWR.” For the record, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that drilling in the ANWR would generate over two billion dollars of revenue over the next decade, half going to Alaska and half to the federal government.
America’s natural gas storage tanks are below the five year average and prices are going through the roof. Biden’s direction for the Department of the Interior to suspend the leases that Congress passed into law by bogging them down in redundant processes is making the problem worse and it is going to hit Alaskans who were depending on these leases for work and steady income. We are glad to see the Senators and Congressman from Alaska taking the common sense approach to build bipartisan support to enforce the law.
The Bottom Line: America needs more natural gas and Alaska needs the economic boom that ANWR drilling would bring. Kudos to Sen. Murkowski, Sen. Sullivan, and Rep. Young for putting people over politics.
Speaking of the natural gas crunch, gas shortages in Europe are creating painful spike in energy prices but instead of promoting U.S. companies, President Biden and the IEA are begging Russia and OPEC to meet the demand. It’s important to remember that this is the same President Biden who removed Nord Stream 2 sanctions, handing Putin more energy leverage over Europe.
If he is trying to increase the global supply of gas, why not increase the U.S. production? Domestic fracking reached all-time highs ever since the shale deposits were tapped and we could help meet the global demand if we take advantage of the resources in Alaska.
When supply doesn’t meet demand, prices go up. It looks like the President is willing to increase costs to Americans on everyday goods just so that he can say, ‘They drilled. Not me.’ While this is an unsurprising approach to appeasing the far left climate activists, the hypocrisy hurts.
The Bottom Line: POTUS is protecting his left flank by asking foreign nations to increase oil and gas production rather than Americans. This hurts his own constituents the most, but Biden is apparently more concerned with his political standing amongst the fringe left.
President Biden addressed the world this week at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly. Unsurprisingly, his remarks focused green new deal initiatives and climate change. However, he missed the mark by a “green” mile. The answer to bringing the world out of poverty is improving access to energy. Right now, 940 million people worldwide do not have access to electricity and 3 billion do not have access to clean fuel for cooking or heating.
America should lead by example in extracting and using clean natural gas as a base source of energy while also providing access to energy impoverished nations. Solar panels don’t connect communities to the grid and are disastrous to the environment, whether it be the carbon-intensive mining process for extracting needed minerals or the disposal when they reach the end of their short (yet useful) life. Maybe next year he will understand the energy economy a little better and promote American resources and capabilities on the world stage.
The Bottom Line: In terms of global prosperity and environmental action, the most important action is to provide third-world nations access to low-cost, reliable, abundant natural gas. Sadly, Biden didn’t mention this point in his UN speech.
Gasoline prices held steady this week at $3.19/gallon, but that’s still one dollar higher than they were a year ago. As of today, Mississippi leads the nation in the lowest average at $2.81/gallon.
House Reconciliation Deadline: Monday, September 27, is the self-imposed deadline Speaker Pelosi set for a House vote on reconciliation and the Biden infrastructure bill. Pelosi has said, “We are on schedule…our work’s almost done,” despite a week of infighting between House moderate and progressive factions.
Public Hearings On Mountain Valley: The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will hold two public hearings on Monday, September 27, and Tuesday, September 28, on a permit to allow the Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross streams and wetlands in Southwest Virginia.
FERC Jurisdiction Hearing: On Tuesday, September 28, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing “to examine the administration of laws under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.”
FERC Reliability Technical Conference: On Thursday, September 30, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold an Annual Commissioner-led Reliability Technical Conference “to discuss policy issues related to the reliability of the Bulk-Power System.”
