Category: Pipelines

Can Weak Manchin Permitting Bill Be Strengthened?

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After authorizing $370 billion in new funding for new, cleaner energy sources, Congress is turning to permitting reform: All the money in the world will not help if projects don’t have permission to build. Wednesday evening, Senator Manchin released proposed text for his permitting bill, which he apparently negotiated in return for his vote to authorize the energy funding. Unfortunately, the bill is not well-designed to speed up construction of new energy sources. But with a few strategic additions it could go a long way toward speeding up permitting to secure a cleaner, more reliable, and affordable energy future for the United States.

The biggest roadblock to energy sources is not financial; it is receiving permission to build. And many of the projects that we most need for a clean energy transition face particular permitting difficulties because they need permits from multiple states or local communities and the federal government. Our traditional energy commodities, oil and coal, are less dependent on building long-distance infrastructure because they can rely on existing railroads and pipelines, and they are easier to ship by multiple pathways using rail, road, and water transport. By contrast, cleaner energy products such as renewable electricity, natural gas, and hydrogen can only be shipped by new long-distance infrastructure.

Think of a long-distance power-line designed to bring renewable energy to market, a pipeline shipping natural gas to communities hoping to move away from coal, or a hydrogen pipeline designed to help replace fossil fuels. These linear infrastructure projects often need approvals from each state they cross and may also need approval from the federal government as well whenever they cross federal lands, borders, or streams.

There are two huge legal permitting challenges for these new cleaner energy projects.

So if we want to clean up our energy system and address the global energy crisis, which is causing energy shortages and price spikes around the globe, we need to speed up permitting. If the $370 billion authorized by Congress just goes to the few projects that would already have passed the permitting gauntlet, it will be money wasted. So we’ve seen a growing chorus of voices demanding reform to the permitting process to ensure this money isn’t squandered and that we can build a cleaner energy future.

The federal and state permitting challenges are linked because perhaps the most common proposal to speed permitting is to replace state and local siting processes with federal processes. For example, in 2005, the U.S. Congress gave the federal Department of Energy the power to designate areas that particularly needed more electricity transmission and gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission power to, in some circumstances, permit power-lines that hadn’t been approved by the states in those areas. Senator Manchin’s bill leans heavily on this method of speeding permitting: it gives federal government more power over permitting new power-lines and hydrogen pipelines.

The problem is that this is not an improvement at all when federally-approved projects are facing Kafkaesque challenges when they seek approval to actually build their projects. The energy sector where federal permitting is most common is in interstate natural gas permitting and these projects are routinely stopped by local objections even when they have federal approval. In fact, the two highest-profile recent gas pipeline projects—the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the PennEast Pipeline—eventually had to give up on building their projects after years of expense and struggle, even though the federal government repeatedly backed both pipelines and both pipelines won blockbuster decisions in the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the Manchin bill passes as is, the gas pipeline industry can welcome the power-line and hydrogen industries to national regulation with this unwelcome news: “Even if the federal government backs you on every permit, and even if the Supreme Court backs you in every decision, no matter how long you wait, or how much you spend, states and lower courts will make life so difficult that your proposed project will never be built.”

The dysfunctions of federal permitting under court review are well known in energy policy. Congress’s 2005 grant of power to the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was eviscerated by two federal appeals court decisions over the next six years. This is why the single project that really will be helped by the current Manchin proposal is the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The bill makes special provision for this project, directing that all actions “necessary for the construction and initial operation at full capacity of the Mountain Valley Pipeline shall not be subject to judicial review.”

The Manchin bill does almost nothing to help other energy projects stop endless court demands for further environmental review. The bill does address some less important timing issues so it’s important to keep straight three kinds of time limits:

  1. Time limit for the federal government to complete environmental review. The proposal directs a two year limit for environmental review of major projects and a one year limit for minor projects. Unfortunately, such deadlines are unenforceable—the federal government routinely misses even the statutory deadlines it is trying to meet. The deadlines may even be counterproductive if they encourage courts to stop projects and order further reviews because of concern that review was rushed to meet an artificial deadline.
  2. Time limit for plaintiffs to challenge a project after it receives its permit. This kind of “statute of limitations” is not harmful but of very little use. Smart plaintiffs hoping to stop infrastructure generally sue at the earliest opportunity because the best chance to stop an infrastructure project is before construction begins. So big projects are almost never held up by plaintiffs that waited years after the project was approved to bring their lawsuit.
  3. Time limit for courts to order more review on projects that have already been under review for years. Unfortunately, the Manchin proposal does not put any time limits on courts’ ability to hold up nationally-approved projects other than the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The federal environmental review law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), is a procedural statute simply intended to ensure the government did sufficient environmental review of a project. If the federal government has been reviewing the environmental consequences of a project for years and has approved it, and the court would still like more review, the court can order the government to do more review. But it is not reasonable to make a nationally-approved project, and all the consumers and producers that depend upon it, wait for the court and government to reach agreement on how much environmental review is enough.

The crucial importance of a time limit on judicial delay of projects is well explained in the Institute for Progress’s excellent recent report on “How to Stop Environmental Review from Harming the Environment“:

The time limit that would likely have a major impact on outcomes is restricting the ability of the courts to issue injunctions against projects that have undergone extensive environmental review under NEPA. This change would provide developers the certainty they need to invest in large-scale build outs of solar, wind, transmission and other clean energy infrastructure. Without a time limit on judicial injunctions, developers have a sword of Damocles perpetually hanging over their head, threatening the entirety of the project.

As it stands, the Manchin permitting proposal would be a serious lost opportunity that would be unlikely to significantly speed up construction of new energy projects. The focus on federalizing review of clean energy projects is particularly unhelpful when the proposal doesn’t address the problems that are making federal review the bane of energy project developers.

The good news is that the Manchin proposal could be improved relatively simply if it added limits on federal court and state delays on federal projects. Speeding up permits for nationally-approved projects would accelerate construction of all the new energy projects that it designates for federal review.

Permitting Reform to Put New Energy Funding To Use

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On Sunday, August 7, the U.S. passed new legislation that provides $370 billion dollars for a wide variety of technologies in the energy and climate sector, including renewable energy, carbon capture, and electric vehicles. The House of Representatives is expected to pass this legislation tomorrow, Friday, August 12, so it may soon be enacted into law.

The strange thing about this huge spending on new energy sources is that high energy prices already promise financial rewards to anyone who can build the new energy infrastructure America needs for more reliable, affordable, and secure energy supplies. Unfortunately, these power-lines, pipelines, and clean energy projects are being held up by our sluggish permitting system. To put its new spending to good use, Congress must adopt permitting reforms that will make it easier to build America’s future energy system.

Our energy infrastructure is aging because it is simply too difficult to build new energy projects. More than half of American crude oil pipelines were built before the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates lengthy environmental reviews was adopted in 1970; they are more than 50 years old. The nation’s largest grid manager, PJM, recently requested a two-year pause before adding any new solar projects because of how far behind it is in updating its grid to accommodate new energy sources. Opponents of new energy sources are finding more and more ways to ensure that new projects cannot get built.

Much of the massive new funding for energy will be in vain if projects cannot get the approval they need to begin construction. In the run up to the legislation, lawmakers and the media often cited models showing the bill would reduce U.S. emissions 40% by 2030. But although studies find that the average new transmission project takes over ten years to complete, these models “assume many of these projects will be built” in the next seven years to bring more renewable energy to the grid.

The good news is that, in return for supporting the energy spending bill, Senator Manchin reportedly received a commitment from Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi to support a bill to speed permitting for energy projects. The bad news is that the outline of the permitting bill released by Senator Manchin’s office does not yet specify serious steps to speed permitting. For example, it would “set maximum timelines for permitting reviews, including two years for National Environmental Policy Act reviews for major projects.” If accomplished, this would be a huge improvement over the current system where, as I explain in this video, National Environmental Policy Act average over five years.

The problem is that simply telling the federal government it has a two year deadline for its review will not accomplish much because the federal government routinely misses such deadlines. And courts could still strike down the review if they believed it was rushed or incomplete.

The key to watch is whether an emerging compromise imposes hard limits on courts and states’ ability to slow down federally-approved energy projects. In the past, I have proposed that if the federal government has approved a project, and more than five or six years have passed since the government began considering it, the courts should no longer be able to prevent the project from beginning construction. (Proposal is at pp. 304-305.) I defended that position in the Congressional testimony below. (My five-minute testimony starts at 49:28.)

If Senator Manchin’s permitting bill doesn’t take real steps to speed up permitting, it will be an important missed opportunity to build a better energy future.

Build Up Before You Tear Down (or Subsidize): Easing New Energy Infrastructure

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As energy prices have risen over the past 20 months, there has been growing clamor for solutions to make our energy system more affordable and more secure. Unfortunately, these discussions are often sidetracked by debates about 1) proposals to subsidize energy use to reduce its apparent costs and 2) debates about how quickly we should transition to cleaner energy sources.

The latest proposal is President Biden’s plan to suspend federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel for three months. These taxes help pay for the infrastructure—highways and bridges—that drivers use. Unfortunately, waiving this tax may not help drivers much because many refineries closed down in the last twenty months and the remaining refineries are already producing as much fuel as they can and barely keeping up with fuel demand. This shortage makes it very hard for refiners to lower prices. If they lower prices, more Americans will purchase fuel and we may actually run out of fuel supplies.

Ultimately, prices will only fall when there is enough energy production to comfortably meet energy demand. Unfortunately, our current approach to encouraging energy supplies is too reliant on tax breaks and dollar subsidies for new energy sources. The problem with these subsidies is that like the proposed “gasoline tax holiday,” they simply bid up the price for energy supplies if there are other roadblocks that prevent energy production.

As I explain in a recent op-ed in the The Hill:

The current challenge is securing investment in energy sources that could quickly ramp up supplies of reliable, affordable energy. Unfortunately, clean energy funding alone will not accomplish this. Investor hesitation is often driven less by pure financial concerns than by slow permitting processes that can delay or stop new infrastructure. Think of the 2009 stimulus, which put a record $8 billion toward high-speed rail, yet nothing has been built in America because of permitting delays — something that is holding up so many infrastructure projects around the country. 

James W. Coleman, Biden’s Approach to Climate Action Drives Energy Conflict, Not Cooperation, THE HILL, Jan. 26, 2022 (suggesting Carbon Matching Commitments as an alternative method of encouraging climate action)

Instead, government should focus on removing the permitting roadblocks that are holding up so much energy infrastructure. Easing permitting would help lower the cost of both oil and cleaner sources such as natural gas and renewables because they are often held up by the same roadblocks. As I explain in another recent op-ed:

The problem with arguments about the pace of the energy transition is that an orderly transition has two parts: first building new energy infrastructure and then restraining, and eventually retiring, older energy infrastructure.

One of the main reasons for the current crisis is that the world has gotten these two steps out of order. Governments and litigants have developed legal tools to stop new fossil fuel infrastructure. Think of the demise of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, the Jordan Cove natural gas export facility, or the Constitution gas pipeline. But we have not built enough geothermal and nuclear power, or enough new power lines to bring renewable energy to market.

In fact, the legal tools developed to stop oil and gas projects, such as expanded environmental reviews and state permitting challenges, are now used to stop the infrastructure that could bring clean energy to market. The focus on further subsidies to renewable energy is beside the point when what these maturing energy sources really need is permission to build power lines to take them to market.

James W. Coleman, How America Can Survive Ukraine War’s Gas and Oil Crisis – and Build a Stronger Energy System, FOX BUSINESS, Mar. 9, 2022

The important debates about the pace of energy transition will continue, but for now the urgent priority must be making it easier to build all kinds of energy infrastructure. That is the only way to see the return of abundant energy supplies.

Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #39: Hannah Wiseman

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For this week’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast interview, we have David Spence interviewing my friend and co-author Hannah Wiseman, now at Penn State Law – University Park, about her research on “Balancing the Local Costs and Wider Benefits of Energy Development.”

Hannah and David discuss her research on how to address energy projects that have concentrated costs in local communities but broader benefits to the economy and energy system—such as natural gas fracking and solar and wind farms. At times, states have responded to local opposition by stripping communities of local control over energy development, but that can leave important externalities unregulated. Hannah suggests that taxation might be a better way to address these externalities.

Hannah has a forthcoming paper titled “Taxing Local Energy Externalities” forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review. And along with Tara Righetti, we have just published a paper in the Yale Law Journal Forum on “The New Oil & Gas Governance.” Hannah also cites Kristen van de Biezenbos‘s important argument on oil company negotiations with local communities, “Contracted Fracking.“

The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: Apple | Google

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #27 – Kristen van de Biezenbos

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This Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features me talking with the University of Calgary Faculty of Law’s Kristen van de Biezenbos about her research on “Social License & Fossil Fuels.”

Kristen describes how the term “social license” has become so important in Canadian energy policy and shows the different ways it has been used and misused by provincial and federal politicians. Kristen explains the origins of the term and explains what she thinks it should mean: she argues that local communities should not have a veto over linear infrastructure such as pipelines and power-lines, but that they should have some buy-in through consultation and a share in some of the benefits of these projects.

This discussion explores Kristen’s recent paper, which was published in the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law and is titled, “Rebirth of Social License.” 

The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: 
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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #20 – Carey King

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Today’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features David Spence interviewing Carey King, his colleague at the University of Texas, about Carey’s research on “Economic Growth, Inequality & Decarbonization.”

Carey and David discuss several ways that transitioning to cleaner energy sources will change the economy. In particular, Carey notes that “lower carbon infrastructure tends to be higher capital cost relative to operating cost, implying less labor and lower employment” and explains how this could affect economic growth and inequality.

NB: This increased emphasis on capital investment means that the cost of cleaner energy will increasingly depend on reducing the cost of capital, a challenging task in a time of legal uncertainty. I have recently published two pieces on this topic: “Energy Market and Policy Revolutions: Regulatory Process and the Cost of Capital” and “Pipelines & Power-Lines: Building the Energy Transport Future.”

The discussion builds on two of Carey’s recent articles: “Modeling the point of use EROI and its implications for economic growth in China” & “Delusions of grandeur in building a low-carbon future.”

The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: 
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Comparing Candidates’ Climate Plans

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Tonight, CNN will air seven hours of back-to-back townhalls from the ten top Democratic candidates on their climate plans. So far coverage of these plans has focused on initiatives that would require Congress to pass new laws, such as various versions of the “The Green New Deal,” proposals to take over or clean up the power sector, and plans to spend trillions fighting climate change. None of these proposals would pass the Senate in anything like their proposed form.

If you want to understand what the candidates would actually do on climate, you should focus on three things:

  • How they would change federal permitting of oil and gas extraction and transport;
  • How much they hope to spend on climate change; and
  • How they approach tradeoffs between climate regulation and the economy.

Here’s a guide to what the candidates have said on these issues and the key questions that should be asked of their plans in coming months.

  • How Candidates Would Change Federal Oil & Gas Permitting

By far the most important question for the candidates on climate change is how they would use existing presidential authority—particularly through executive orders. The candidates can be held to these promises because they don’t require any action from Congress.

By contrast, all the candidates’ proposals for legislation would need to be passed by the Senate, which currently has a Republican majority. Even if the Democrats somehow gained a Senate majority next year, they would still need to win over moderate Democrats such as Joe Manchin who famously won his seat by shooting President Obama’s cap-and-trade bill to advertise his opposition to climate regulation. There are no such obstacles to executive authority so the most important question for candidates is how they’d use it.

The most important executive action proposed to date is Vice President Biden’s plan to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public land and water” by executive order on his first day in office. This would have three dramatic effects:

  1. It would ban new oil and gas leases across all federal land, including centers of the energy industry such as the Gulf of Mexico.
  2. It would ban new drilling on existing leases, because every new oil and gas well needs a permit.
  3. It would ban new oil and gas pipelines from Canada and to Mexico, because these require a federal permit. It would ban new liquefied natural gas exports to Europe and Asia. And it could even ban new domestic pipelines, because even intra-state pipelines typically cross federal streams and rivers, which a fully comprehensive permitting ban would forbid.

So Biden’s ban would entirely shut down the oil and gas industry on public lands. And it would choke off the private energy industry by cutting off the new pipelines and gas export facilities that it needs to get its products to market.

The argument for this ban is that the world needs to leave oil and gas in the ground to meet its goals of limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius. No major oil producer has ever considered shutting in an economic resource of this size—the United States is the world’s largest producer of oil and gas and is in the middle of history’s biggest oil boom—so this would be a truly dramatic commitment to climate action.

The argument against Biden’s ban is that there are far less economically damaging ways to cut U.S. carbon emissions. As I explain in this new op-ed, this ban would cause serious economic pain to Americans. And a ban on new fossil fuel transport would cut off U.S. gas more than oil—oil can easily be shipped by rail, truck, barge, or tanker but gas can only be shipped on pipelines or as liquefied natural gas. And U.S. gas exports are bringing huge environmental benefits to the world by replacing dirtier fuel sources in places with air quality problems, so Biden’s ban could damage the global environment.

Here’s a chart of the Democratic candidates climate policies, ordered by their current standing in national polls. (This is drawn from the candidates websites and their responses to questions here and here.) As you can see, many of the top candidates also support a ban on federal oil and gas leasing, but many have not said whether, like Biden, they would ban all new permitting—including new wells on old leases and new international and domestic pipelines. This is the single most important issue for the candidates to discuss in tonight’s town halls and it should be the focus of savvy reporters’ questions moving forward.

I am keeping this chart updated as candidates and climate plans evolve. (Last Update 3/1/2020)

  • How Much Candidates Would Spend on Climate Change

Although new spending requires congressional action, Congress must regularly reach agreement with the President to fund the federal government, which gives a new President some leverage to spend money on his or her priorities. The Democratic candidates have widely varying goals on climate spending, from Mayor Buttigieg’s plan to spend $25 Billion per year on green research & development to Senator Sanders plan to spend $16.3 Trillion to transform the energy economy.

To understand those massive numbers, let’s put them in context. There are 128 million American households. So Mayor Buttigieg is planning to spend $219 per household per year and Senator Sanders is planning to spend $127,344 per household. Vice President Biden’s plan to spend $1.7 trillion would be $13,281 per household.

Another way to put those numbers in context would be to look at the magnitude of the climate harm they are trying to avoid. There are many estimates of the harm from climate change, but last year’s Nobel Prize winner said the present value of that harm is about $25 trillion and that optimal climate regulation could lower that cost by about $10 trillion. The U.S. estimates that it will experience 7-23% of the cost of climate change, so very, very roughly speaking, optimal climate regulation could save the U.S. a couple trillion dollars.

It would be helpful to hear more about how the candidates will prioritize their climate and environmental spending. If Congress will only give them so much money, would they prioritize spending it on research & development, on climate change projects abroad, or would they consider other environmental issues such as improving air quality and removing lead from the water and soil? This should be a secondary focus of reporters’ questions.

  • How Candidates Would Balance Climate Regulation and the Economy

So far, the candidates have said little about how they would balance their climate and economic goals, in part because media coverage has focused on the Green New Deal, which asserts that there is no tradeoff between environmental and economic goals. But a new president would make countless decisions on how much to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars, from power plants, and from industrial sources using existing regulatory authority. So we need to know what the candidates will do when their economic and environmental goals come into conflict.

As I explain in this podcast with UCLA’s Ann Carlson, the fundamental innovation of the Green New Deal is that it promises to achieve environmental and economic goals simultaneously. It will remove 100% of greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector in ten years. And it will “guarantee[] a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.” What it doesn’t say is what it will do when those goals come into conflict.

There are many possible ways to manage tradeoffs between the environment and the economy. Historically, environmental laws have often mandated the cleanest technology that is “available” or “demonstrated.” And government regulators have interpreted those standards as requiring that industry cut emissions as much as it can without risking plant closures or job losses.

Another way to manage environmental and economic tradeoffs is with carbon pricing: a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. These systems make polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions. But if a product is so valuable to society that consumers are willing to pay the cost of manufacturing it plus its environmental cost, then they can still purchase it.

Almost all the candidates have said they support the Green New Deal, but they should be asked how they will balance their climate and economic goals. Will they use traditional standards that asks the fossil fuel industry to clean up but doesn’t shut it down? Or do they think that industries should only survive if they can pay the price of their carbon emissions? Or, like Vice President Biden, do they think that some industries should be shut down regardless of the cost? These questions arise every day for climate regulators so reporters should ask the candidates how they will manage these energy tradeoffs.

Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #2 – Alexandra Klass

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Our next EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast features David Spence interviewing the University of Minnesota’s Alexandra Klass about her research on “Network Infrastructure: Permitting & Eminent Domain.”

They discuss permits for interstate power-lines, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and oil pipelines, focusing on two recent articles from Professor Klass: “Future Proofing Energy Transport Law” and  “Reconstituting the Federalism Battle in Energy Transportation.” Near the end of the podcast, they discuss energy & eminent domain, the subject of my forthcoming Minnesota Law Review article with Professor Klass.

The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links.

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #1 – Pipelines & Power-Lines

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Earlier this month, David Spence posted an introduction to our new project with Sharon Jacobs and Shelley Welton, EnergyTradeoffs.com. Our website will feature the work of researchers grappling with energy policy tradeoffs between reliability, affordability, and environmental performance as well as the other trade-offs associated with energy transitions.

The site includes interviews in which these researchers discuss their recent articles. We have already posted 27 of these conversations and will post more in the coming weeks. But if you prefer to digest interviews in podcast format, I will periodically post them.

To start, below is my discussion with David on my just published article: James W. Coleman, Pipelines & Power-lines: Building the Energy Transport Future, 80 Oh. St. L.J. 263 (2019). The interview is titled “The Difficulty of Siting Pipelines and Transmission Lines” and you can find it here. You can find the published article here: http://bit.ly/Pipelines-Power-Lines

David and I discuss why it’s become cheaper to produce oil, gas, & renewable power, and how that has shifted energy companies’ focus to energy transport: how to get these new energy sources to consumers at an affordable price. I explain that, at the same time, changing laws are making it harder to build pipelines & power-lines and offer my suggestions for legal reform.

The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: Apple | Google

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Eminent Domain for Exporting Energy?

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Eminent domain is the controversial exception to the general rule that no one can take your land without your consent. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows the government to take your land for “public use” so long as it pays you fair compensation.

But what is a public use? Should pipelines and power-lines that help companies export energy to other states and countries count as a public use? Is it legitimate for states to let energy transport companies use eminent domain to serve the public in other states or countries?

This issue—”which public?”—is an increasing focus of litigation across the United States because many state laws and constitutions, like the federal constitution and federal laws, limit eminent domain to projects that serve a “public” purpose. At the same time, increasingly integrated North American energy markets mean that more and more electricity, oil, and gas are crossing state and national borders.

Just last Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court held that sending oil to neighboring states can count as a public use. But there is also a broad movement for a go-it-alone eminent domain policy, including court decisions in West Virginia and Kentucky that say out-of-state consumers don’t count as the “public.” And the D.C. Circuit is now considering a similar challenge to a natural gas pipeline that will allow some natural gas to be exported to Canada.

As I argue in this op-ed, it would have been a huge mistake for Iowa to adopt a go-it-alone eminent domain policy. Iowa has world-class wind power that will be most valuable if Iowa can export it to states like Illinois that have more people and less wind. A no-eminent-domain-for-export policy would have been terrible for Iowa.

More broadly, there are huge benefits from interstate and international energy trade. For decades, Canada has sent us affordable oil and cheap, clean hydropower. And states that have affordable oil and hydropower generally export to states that do not. If there was no eminent domain for export power-lines and pipelines, we all would be stuck paying more for dirtier energy.

And we need energy transport now more than ever. As I explain here, the U.S. is in the middle of three energy booms: history’s biggest oil rush plus more natural gas and more renewable power. Oil has many ways to get to market—pipeline, truck, rail, and boat—but natural gas and renewable power production depend on transport. Natural gas has environmental benefits if it can be piped to places that need to replace coal and oil. Solar and wind can provide cheap, clean energy if we build power-lines to take it to market. And new pipelines and power-lines would help American companies and landowners get more money for their gas and power. 

None of that will be possible, however, if go-it-alone state policies make it impossible to bring energy where it is needed. Landowners are rightly concerned about eminent domain and governments should reform the eminent domain process and offer more compensation to protect them as I suggest in my forthcoming Minn. L. Rev. article with Alexandra Klass. But ignoring interstate and international consumers is not a sensible reform and would cut off much of the promise of the new U.S. energy economy.

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