Forbes: Sen. Warren Misses Mark With Natural Gas Pipeline Opposition
Forbs contributor Wiliam Pentland has some harsh words for Elizabeth Warren on her opposition to a new New England Pipeline.
Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, is a brilliant legal scholar and a dyed-in-the-wool consumer advocate.
It is precisely because I know this about Warren that I was so surprised by an Op-Ed piece she wrote on Tuesday opposing construction of a proposed pipeline that would carry natural gas from New York State to Dracut, MA. The Op-Ed appeared in the Berkshire Eagle and stated:
“Before we sink more money in gas infrastructure, we have an obligation wherever possible to focus our investments on the clean technologies of the future ‘ not the dirty fuels of the past ‘ and to minimize the environmental impact of all our energy infrastructure projects. We can do better ‘ and we should.”
I’m afraid Senator Warren is woefully out of touch with the energy problems confronting consumers in New England and dangerously confused about what options are on the table for solving them.
The lack of natural gas infrastructure is perpetuating ‘the dirty fuels of the past” and it is doing so at a considerable cost to consumers and the economy generally in New England.
Like other regions, the demand for natural gas in New England has significantly increased significantly over the past few years, driven by customer conversions to natural gas for heating and the growing use of the fuel to generate electricity. Despite the surge in demand, the natural gas pipeline infrastructure used to serve this demand has not been expanded. The result: record-high energy prices and an uptick in air pollution from oil-and coal-fired power plants.