Common Sense Energy: Banning Cancer Villages

Pennsylvania is a national leader in natural gas production, accounting for 20 percent of our country’s total output. Because of this rise in production, America has made great progress in reducing its CO2 emissions.

The natural gas industry as a whole is also continuing to get cleaner and more efficient.  Environmental Protection Agency data shows that “from 1990 to 2019, annual greenhouse gas emissions from gas distributors plunged about 70%, even as utilities added more than 788,000 miles of pipeline to serve 21 million more customers.”

Read Jude Clemente’s column on why we should be embracing natural gas by clicking HERE.

On Joe Biden’s first day in office, he cancelled the permit for the Keystone Pipeline.  Shortly thereafter, the developer of the pipeline cancelled the $8 billion infrastructure project and its 11,000 jobs.  Now we are learning the U.S. set a record of 5.75 million barrels of Russian crude oil being discharged domestically, with 7.6 million projected in June.

Fox Business: “Russia has snaked right in. The country’s exports of oil to the U.S. are at an all-time high, reaching almost 750,000 b/d in March, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) data, making Russia the number-three oil exporter to the US. Here at home, U.S. oil production has fallen by 1.715 million barrels from a year ago, so a large part of that void is being filled by Russia.”

The U.S. recently banned some Chinese solar imports over forced labor camps in Xinjiang. In April, TEA

released a “Rare Earth Day” fact sheet focusing on the “cancer villages” created from contaminated rare earth mine waste.  Even the AFL-CIO asked the Biden administration to block imports of rare earth products from China due to concerns over the use of forced labor.

From 2014 to 2017, the Chinese Communist Party supplied 80% of the rare earth metals imported by the United States. These metals are necessary for the creation of renewable energy sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles.

Americans are paying 43% more for gasoline now than they were a year ago. The current national average is $3.08/gallon. It was $2.15/gallon one year ago.

House Interior and Environment FY22 Markup: On Monday, June 28, the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies will have a committee markup of the FY 2022 appropriations bill.

House Hearing on the CLEAN Future Act: On Tuesday, June 29, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy will hold a hearing on The CLEAN Future Act and electric transmission. The act is a wide ranging climate proposal released earlier this year by House Dems calling for $565 billion in new spending and 100 percent “clean” electricity by 2035. 

House Hearing on Transportation and the Climate Crisis: On Wednesday, June 30, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold a hearing on “Transportation Investments for Solving the Climate Crisis.”

Army Corps of Engineers Decision on Mountain Valley Permits: By Friday, July 2, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will decide “whether to grant or deny additional time to West Virginia and Virginia environmental regulators to consider water permit requests” for construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Construction of the pipeline would create nearly 6,000 jobs between the two states.