The following content is sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute and is written by the organization’s Senior Vice President of Government Relations Kristin Whitman.
Recent turmoil in the Middle East reminded the world that disruption to the movement of oil, natural gas, and fuel thousands of miles away can affect prices here at home. But if we want to lower costs and strengthen energy security, we must move energy across the United States more efficiently and affordably.
The good news is that the United States is not facing an energy resource problem. America is the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas, with record production of both.
What we face instead is a permitting problem. Infrastructure bottlenecks are preventing American energy from reaching American consumers when they need it most.
As a result, California and the West Coast still import significant volumes of oil and refined products from overseas, even as American production breaks records. In New England, communities continue to rely on imported liquefied natural gas during peak winter demand, even though the largest gas field in North America — the Marcellus — is only around 100 miles away.
This causes families and businesses to pay the price. Pipeline shortages have pushed prices up in Boston and New York, and a recent study shows consumers could face tens of billions of dollars in additional costs in the years ahead if nothing changes.
What stands in the way is an outdated federal permitting system that makes it unnecessarily difficult to build pipelines, transmission lines, export facilities, and other critical infrastructure. Too often, projects are trapped in years of duplicative reviews and endless litigation, delaying investment and increasing costs. The challenge is not whether America can produce the energy the future demands — it’s whether we can build the infrastructure needed to deliver it.
As America enters the demand decade, the stakes are growing. The industries and technologies that will define the future will require abundant, affordable, and dependable energy. If we cannot build the infrastructure needed to support that growth, we risk slowing our own economy while competitors like China pull ahead.
Congress has an opportunity to fix this by passing bipartisan permitting reform that allows the United States to fully leverage its energy abundance.
Comprehensive permitting reform should set firm and enforceable timelines, streamline duplicative agency reviews, keep environmental reviews focused on real impacts, and reduce legal bottlenecks that stall projects. And reform does not mean abandoning environmental standards, it means making the process clearer, faster, and more accountable so projects can actually move to construction.
American energy is ready to power growth, strengthen our energy security and lower costs for consumers. But energy abundance alone is not enough. We need the infrastructure to move energy from where it is to where it’s needed. It’s time for Washington to let America build again.