WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) today participated in an Energy and Commerce Committee markup today, stressing the need to protect American energy infrastructure and American energy independence.
“There’s obviously vast agreement on this committee that Russia is not our friend and that, through third-party actors, it’s likely that they’ve been responsible for a variety of attacks on our infrastructure, including the Colonial Pipeline,” said Crenshaw. “But it’s also worth highlighting the broader geopolitical challenge that we’re facing with respect to Russia. It’s not just in these cyber attacks that they’re trying to hurt us. They’re also trying to spin false narratives about the oil and gas industry.”
“It’s worth pointing out that pipelines are so important to our energy infrastructure and to our energy independence and important to global emissions, too. The primary way to reduce emissions with respect to methane, for instance, would be to stop flaring and put that into a pipeline. Our own National Laboratories have done studies on this that show that Russian natural gas has well over 40 percent more emissions than U.S. natural gas – we’re just cleaner producers.”
Crenshaw made clear that ceding energy dominance to our adversaries will prevent the United States from exporting clean, American energy to the world, which will likely increase global emissions as countries rely on polluters like Russia or Iran for their energy needs.
“The Russians are trying to out-compete us, both economically and also in a more malicious way through these cyber attacks. Our committee needs to be fully aware of that so we can come together as Americans and say that we should be the ones providing cleaner energy to the world. Because there are certain facts we cannot escape, such as the fact that global energy demand will increase by at least 25 percent in the next 20 years. If we continue to cede that energy dominance to places like Russia or places like Iran… this will increase global emissions.”