Source: SNL Financial
Still smarting from the federal rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and New York state’s refusal of Williams Cos. Inc.’s Constitution gas line, the American Petroleum Institute and a construction labor ally renewed their push to build more oil and gas infrastructure projects.
Quoting an API-sponsored study, CEO Jack Gerard said there is a $1.5 trillion need for more oil and gas pipelines, docks, and terminals by 2015, calling it “a huge economic opportunity.”
“New England pays 53% more for heat” because many residents are burning fuel oil due to a lack of gas transportation and distribution pipelines, Gerard told reporters May 13 in Washington, D.C.
Gerard and Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, both said the project permitting process in many states has lost its way. “It’s becoming more and more political,” Gerard said. “NIMBY masquerades as environmental protection.”
“If there’s a fair and consistent process, that’s all we look for,” McGarvey said. He then called the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo out of touch with energy reality.
“Look at the track record of the Cuomo administration,” McGarvey said, shaking his head: “They ban fracking. They’re going to close Indian Point [nuclear plant] and run a giant extension cord from Quebec [for power].”
Gerard said his trade group, which spans the oil and gas industry, is trying to stake out a bipartisan position in the presidential election and had been in touch with the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Energy is the API’s candidate in this election, Gerard says, and it is not a partisan issue.
Infrastructure buddy or not, McGarvey did not follow Gerard’s lead, saying his labor group has a pretty good idea about the next president: “We know who she will be.”
McGarvey and his staff pointed out that presumptive GOP nominee Trump has no formal oil and gas policy but Democratic candidate Clinton has a six-page fact sheet on her website calling for increased spending on gas infrastructure and praising gas for lowering the nation’s carbon contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The plan also calls for tighter regulation of hydraulic fracturing and stricter rules on methane emissions.
The fact sheet gives no dollar figure to the spending implied by Clinton’s natural gas plan, but McGarvey’s staff pegged the number at $250 billion, though over an unknown time frame.