House Democrats Voted for a Natural Gas Future, and Nobody Noticed
Photo courtesy of Getty
Last week, a video went viral of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) offering up an impassioned rebuke to Senate Republicans for bringing her Green New Deal to a premature vote the day before.
“This is about our constituents and all of our lives,” she fumed. “Iowa, Nebraska, broad swathes of the midwest are drowning right now, underwater—farms, towns that will never recover; will never come back. And we’re here, and people are more concerned about helping oil companies than helping their own families? I don’t think so. I don’t think so!”
Something that got less attention, however, was the vote the environmental champion and the vast majority of her Democratic colleagues cast two days earlier. Ocasio-Cortez had been one of 224 House Democrats to back a bill that, if passed, would allocate roughly $580 million in federal funding over two years to public and private energy development projects in Europe and Eurasia, including natural gas infrastructure.
Environmental groups hardly seemed to notice H.R. 1616. The Sierra Club told us it had not even taken an official position on the measure. But if passed into law, activists say the bill could solidify a decades-long transition to a natural gas energy future at a critical time for the environment.
H.R. 1616 was introduced by Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-AL) early last month. Disguised as a measure to crack Russia’s energy dominance in Europe and Eurasia, it passed the House easily on March 25 with a margin of 391-to-24 and no Democratic opposition—though 10 Democrats did not vote, including six members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The bill’s true intention, however, seems to be opening up new energy markets to American fossil fuel companies, enabling the easy export of liquid natural gas.
In fact, it practically said so in its statement of policy.
“It is the sense of Congress that the United States has economic and national security interests in assisting European and Eurasian countries achieve energy security through diversification of their energy sources and supply routes,” it read, continuing on to explain that this would be accomplished by encouraging “United States public and private sector investment in European and Eurasian energy infrastructure projects” and by helping “facilitate the export of United States energy technology and expertise to global markets.”
In service of this aim, the bill resolved to provide “diplomatic and political support to the European Commission and such countries, as necessary to—A, facilitate international negotiations concerning cross-border infrastructure; B, enhance Europe’s and Eurasia’s regulatory environment with respect to energy; and C, develop accessible, transparent, and competitive energy markets supplied by diverse sources, types, and routes of energy.”
The middle provision is noteworthy in light of how strong the anti-fracking movement is in Europe. Thus far, four countries—France, Germany, Bulgaria, and Ireland—have banned the practice while the Netherlands has halted it until at earliest 2020. However, battles are still waging across the continent, which raises the question of what ‘enhancing’ the regulatory environment means.
In addition to U.S. political backing, the bill pledged “early-stage project support and late-stage project support for the construction or improvement of energy infrastructure” which included “natural gas infrastructure, such as interconnectors, storage facilities, liquefied natural gas import facilities, or reverse flow capacity.”
While it is true that H.R. 1616 could hurt fossil fuel-reliant Russia, activists Paste spoke to about the legislation had grave concerns about what its impact would be in terms of ending reliance on fossil fuels.
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