Chewing Through Red Tape with a Chainsaw

This post Chewing Through Red Tape with a Chainsaw appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Power costs are set to surge across the country, and utilities are warning of potential brown-outs.

Here in Maryland we just received a letter warning about sticker-shock when our electricity bills arrive this summer.

This is incredibly frustrating, because the situation could have easily been avoided.

For too long, subversive forces in our country have actively harmed power generation, resource extraction, and energy pipelines.

Efforts to address these problems have been smothered with red tape, lawsuits, and overreach by state and federal agencies.

The result is that we don’t have enough energy to meet growing demand from AI data centers and new industrial plants. And our nation’s production of vital minerals and metals has dwindled to pitiful levels.

The one bright side is oil and gas production, which are robust. But petroleum transportation is lacking. And production could be far higher. We could be exporting more energy, creating high-paying jobs, saving on energy costs, and the government could be raking in more revenue from leases.

Pipelines Sabotaged

A few months ago we covered the story of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was killed by the Biden administration. $15 billion was wasted, and an opportunity to create jobs and lower energy costs squandered.

Unfortunately, Keystone was no isolated case. Take a look at the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), proposed in 2014 by Duke Energy and Dominion Energy.

The ACP was a planned 600-mile natural gas pipeline which would have run from West Virginia, through Virginia, and into North Carolina, transporting 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day. That’s enough to power about 20 million homes.

The project would have created an estimated 17,000 construction jobs and $2.7 billion in economic activity. Electricity and gas costs would have dropped, and more clean natural gas power plants would have been built.

In 2017 the ACP received full federal approval. But its troubles were just beginning. A combination of private interest groups, state agencies, and district courts bled the project dry by a thousand cuts. Lawfare, corrupt judges, and overzealous regulators took their toll.

By 2020, it became clear that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was doomed. After spending 6 years and $3.4 billion, Duke and Dominion Energy called it quits.

The companies were so fed up with the pipeline business that they exited entirely, selling their remaining assets to Berkshire Hathaway.

The ACP experience sent a chilling message to U.S. oil and gas firms. New projects were not welcome, and would be harassed at every turn.

Building pipelines and natural resource projects has become an absolute nightmare in the U.S.

The good news is that President Trump is laser-focused on this issue. He knows that without a complete overhaul, our nation will continue to fall behind in energy and natural resource extraction.

With an escalating trade war, booming AI data centers, and re-shoring of industrial capacity, we simply cannot allow that to happen.

A New Hope

President Trump has only been in office for less than half a year. But already his administration has made major strides addressing these critical issues.

He declared an emergency under the Defense Production Act, allowing for expedited permitting and funding for critical minerals.

DJT has also declared a National Energy Emergency to fast-track pipeline construction and drilling.

He has appointed pro-energy candidates to key positions such as the Chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

And he’s learned from the mistakes of his first term. Back then, many of Trump’s natural resource policies were set by executive order. Unfortunately, these were easy for Biden to undo with his own counter-orders.

This time around, the Trump admin is planning for the long-run. They are embedding policies into law, so it will be far more difficult for a future administration to undo these statutes.

This is an all-out assault on red tape and bureaucracy. The implications for investors are massive. Finally, we’re set to see a resurgence in American energy and natural resources.

We’ll keep you all updated as this important story develops.

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