BPC Strategic Energy Policy Initiative Co-Chair Provides Testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on U.S. Energy Exports

Former Senator Byron Dorgan, co-chair of BPC’s Strategic Energy Policy Initiative (SEPI), testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power on Tuesday to weigh in on the prospects for and implications of U.S. energy exports. The hearing looked into how the boom in U.S. energy production has created new opportunities for exporting energy commodities, particularly with regards to the geopolitical and economic impacts of potential U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

In his testimony, Senator Dorgan highlighted key findings and recommendations on energy exports from the SEPI report, America’s Energy Resurgence: Sustaining Success, Confronting Challenges, including the following:

• “After reviewing several recent studies on the impacts of LNG exports, the BPC Energy Board concluded that domestic gas prices are more likely to drive export levels than exports are likely to determine domestic prices.”
• “[R]estricting international trade in fossil fuels is not an effective policy to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions or to advance domestic economic interests, and we recommend against any such restrictions.”
• “As long as state and federal regulators—along with both industry and stakeholders—continue to make strides to mitigate the environmental impacts of shale gas production, we believe the federal government should allow LNG exports.”

Senator Dorgan also noted that while the media and Congress have focused on DOE’s pending LNG export permit decisions, pipeline exports of natural gas have been growing dramatically, and are expected to rival the volume of potential LNG exports.

Interested in learning more about the impacts of LNG exports on U.S. energy markets? Stay tuned—later this month, BPC will release the report and key findings of its New Dynamics of Natural Gas Supply and Demand project.