U.S. Carbon Emissions Are Declining, But Opposition To Clean-Burning Natural Gas Is Rising
As Connecting the Dots readers are well aware, the Metals Service Center Institute is part of the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA), a robust group of business groups and labor organizations united in their support for an all-of-the-above energy policy.
In a recent blog post, the EEIA highlight several projects that will help capture carbon from energy infrastructure, resulting in a cleaner environment for all. The projects profiled include two major Midwest pipelines that will collect carbon dioxide from Corn Belt agricultural and industrial facilities and transport it to underground storage in North Dakota and Illinois. Together these two projects represent a cumulative investment of $7.5 billion and will create about 25,000 construction jobs and many thousands more in the supply chain. They would enable removal of about 27 million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere — the equivalent of removing 5.8 million cars from the road.
Despite these enormous benefits, according to the EEIA, activists oppose the projects because they fear that advancing carbon capture technology will enable continued use of fossil fuels. The permitting process for carbon dioxide pipelines like these is roughly similar to that of a crude oil pipeline. At the state level, the process is governed by state environmental and land-use laws. Where the project encounters rivers, streams or wetlands, federal permitting falls under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). CWA permits may be issued either by the state, or by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The EEIA will actively work to defend these projects during the regulatory processes. It is organizing a coalition of stakeholders, including contractors and suppliers of equipment, materials and services, and labor organizations, and will make the economic and environmental case for these pipelines.
Stay tuned to Connecting the Dots for information on how to get involved in EEIA’s efforts or log on to www.eeia.org for more information.
Anti-carbon capture efforts are not the only new threats to energy development. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a new report that recommended raising fees for oil and natural gas drilling on public lands. While the report does not propose a specific rate, raising royalties to the minimum 18.75 percent charged for drilling in deep waters offshore would increase fees by $1 billion a year through 2050, AXIOS reported.
According to The Hill, drilling on public lands represents seven percent of domestically produced oil and eight percent of domestically produced natural gas.
The opposition to natural gas and other forms of energy development ignores the latest data, which shows the United States has reduced its annual carbon emissions by 20 percent over the past decade. Much of that improvement is due to the proliferation of clean-burning natural gas. At the same time the United States has reduced emissions, emissions in China and India have grown approximately 25 percent and 45 percent, respectively, since 2010 alone.