Why natural gas is good for everybody.

A bonanza of natural gas is lowering greenhouse emissions while raising prosperity.

Scheduling note: I’m taking the week of July Fourth off – family reunion in Chicago. People are flying in from all over the world, and boy will their arms be tired. (Joke attributed to cabaret star Hildegarde, 1906-2005.)

Once summer is in full swing, All Predictions Wrong switches to Summer Blockbuster mode: not much public policy, lighter writing on culture, movies, humor.

When the football artificial universe resumes: Tuesday Morning Quarterback each Tuesday, nothing Friday, occasional bonus features based on news events.

As the football artificial universe concludes with that Super Bowl thing you might have heard about, back to All Predictions Wrong each Friday.

There is a lot of disturbing news – if you want to worry, you’ve come to the right planet.

Some events are encouraging, though. Cooperation is breaking out on the building of natural gas pipelines. Natural gas reduces greenhouse emissions and holds down utility bills, while increasing American prosperity: and economic growth is the only sure way out of the national debt.

Encouraging sign: Donald Trump and Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York just agreed to a compromise in which federal regulators allow an offshore wind facility near Long Island in return for Empire State regulators allowing a natural gas pipeline.

This is an example of the political horsetrade from which both sides benefit – gas-use advocates get their pipeline, wind-power advocates get their offshore turbines. The public benefits.

There’s a glut of reasonably priced, reasonably clean natural gas -- much lower greenhouse emissions than coal, though, not zero. Ample gas exists in places including the Marcellus shale fields of Pennsylvania, but it couldn’t move to New York, and then on to New England, because consecutive governors Andrew Cuomo and Hochul blocked or cancelled pipeline permits. Now the pipeline will be built. Natural gas prices will fall in the Northeast as global warming pollutants decline.

Below are other recent events relevant to increasing natural gas production and use, thus creating more prosperity that can be employed to build new housing and schools, improve health care or pay down debt:

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a possible Democratic candidate in 2028, signed a bill to allow new natural-gas-fired electricity generation. Previously, construction of gas-driven facilities was effectively banned in the Old Line State.

Local news station WTOP reported Moore’s action “angered environmentalists.” That environmentalists are angered by an initiative to hold down the cost of electricity while reducing greenhouse gases speaks volumes about the state of the debate.

The Supreme Court just ruled unanimously that a short railway can be built to move oil for refining. This is a major advance in preventing the National Environmental Policy Act, sacred text of NIMBYs, from being employed to prevent new pipelines, clean energy facilities, natural gas development and other infrastructure progress. The Court’s reasoning was that NEPA was not intended by Congress to make construction impossible – which is how this legislation has been received by many regulatory agencies and courts.

The unanimous decision is good news for society. But not to Reuters, which led its story, “The Supreme Court dealt a setback to environmentalists today.”

Photo by KWON JUNHO on Unsplash

Trump’s agencies recently approved a natural gas pipeline for Alaska.

Oilfields produce natural gas that may simply be wasted, “flared” – burned -- because there’s no means to move it to market. All the carbon went into the atmosphere.

The Biden White House opposed an Alaska pipeline with ferocity. Now Alaskan oilfield gas will be able to reach the Lower 48 network, reducing greenhouse emissions and improving prosperity.