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The Department of Energy recently announced plans to create a government designation for “clean” natural gas. This is exactly the kind of unnecessary overreach and overregulation that drives up costs on American families and small businesses.

The facts are natural gas is already a clean, affordable and reliable energy source—no government regulation is necessary to tell us that. The U.S. is the world leader in lowering carbon emissions, largely because of increased use of natural gas for electricity generation. Natural gas burns cleaner and has fewer emissions than other fuels. As a result, natural gas is already responsible for an over 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.

An example of government bureaucracy that already causes waste and unnecessary emissions: the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and state-level regulations to secure right-of-way pipeline construction projects already takes months. Therefore the natural gas wells must flare gas for the first several months waiting on that pipeline construction. This is a waste of energy and creates tons of emissions.

These are the kind of burdensome bureaucratic moves that make doing business more expensive and hurt Americans in their pocketbooks. We should focus on cleaning up existing regulations and getting out of the way of businesses—especially businesses like the natural gas industry that have already contributed to a cleaner, healthier environment.

For more information about the benefits of clean and green natural gas, check out the Empowerment Alliance.