On pipelines, Simon and Nelson sing the wrong tune
The spirit of the 1960s has been revived this year in the Texas Hill Country, with cultural icons Paul Simon and Willie Nelson voicing opposition to the Permian Highway Pipeline. But while the songwriters once spoke truth to power and embodied a young generation, they now place themselves squarely on the side of the incumbents. Simon is no longer a poor boy whose story is seldom told; today he’s a powerful landowner whose fame gives him influence. Nelson, though he surely still thinks himself a rebel, now embodies the establishment. As Simon and Nelson bask away their golden years in resplendent Hill Country estates, they intend to deny economic advancement to others, lest their cherished vistas be spoiled by the laying of new energy infrastructure.
Permian Highway Pipeline
The Permian Highway Pipeline is a new project that would transport natural gas from the abundant shale basins of West Texas to the Gulf Coast, where the gas can be processed and sold to resource users across the country and the world. The 42-inch pipeline will move 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, enough to power the equivalent of 20 million U.S. homes.
The need for more pipeline capacity arises from the enormous leaps in productivity the Permian Basin has made in recent years. Permian gas output has jumped from 6 billion cubic feet per day in 2016 to over 15 billion cubic feet today. Despite the effects of the pandemic on demand, the Permian’s oil numbers are just as stunning, with production now double what it was just four years ago. The Permian, its innovative companies and its effective workforce have been the catalyst for the United States’ ascent to global energy preeminence. New pipelines like Permian Highway would ensure that all of the region’s productive capacity is put to good use in the state, the rest of the country and beyond. If permitted, it will begin operations next year.
Permian Highway would traverse 430 miles from the dry mesas of West Texas to the humid Gulf Coast. Between these two regions sits the Hill Country. And that’s where Simon and Nelson come in.
As Simon and Nelson described it in their Houston Chronicle op-ed, “The Texas Hill Country is a gift from Mother Nature.
Sprawling over 986 square miles in the heart of the state, it is a wonder of rolling grasslands, pastures of pecan, mesquite, desert willow and oak.” Unsurprisingly, the Hill Country has become an enclave of the elite, with ex-pats from Dallas, Houston and further afield snapping up properties to the tune of $50,000 per acre to build recreational ranches and family hideaways. Simon, raised in New York City, is among the many affluent people who have sought the Hill Country for a change of scenery. (He put his Connecticut estate on the market for over $13 million last fall.) Nelson has deep roots in the region, having grown up in nearby Abbott (population 356). Today, Nelson is a mogul, with property in Hawaii along with 700 acres in his beloved Hill Country.
Their pipeline opposition is about the environment, but analysis does not bear out that concern. Pipelines are environmental positives in at least two key ways. First, pipelines reduce the risks of transporting oil and gas. In the absence of pipelines, shale plays would still produce resources, but they would be moved by rail and by road, both of which are more likely to result in mishaps than pipelines. Second, pipelines facilitate a transition from coalfired electricity to electricity from lower-emitting natural gas. Limiting pipelines means more coalfired power plants remain in operation, an outcome few environmentalists would applaud. The environmental claims against pipelines are weak.
Hill Country NIMBYs
Simon and Nelson’s protest, at root, is NIMBYism — that is, the mindset that says develop all you want, just not in my backyard. NIMBYs think they’re entitled to a certain kind of preservation, one that permits them to build their mansions and enjoy the environs, but denies the same respect to others with designs of their own.
Simon’s Hill Country preservation campaign is a piece of his past support for the Half-Earth Project, an endeavor aimed at corralling humanity to just 50 percent of our planet. Readers may find it surprising that someone with expansive property holdings and a history of global music tours would have such a restrictive outlook, but pulling up the economic ladder to prevent others from climbing it is a hallmark of today’s high-rolling environmental movement. HalfEarth’s funding register reads like a Big Green Inc. roll call, with the well-endowed Park Foundation and billionaire Tom Steyer prominently featured.
What Hill Country millionaires and organizations like Half-Earth fail to appreciate is that their actions to oppose developments like the Permian Highway Pipeline are holding other people back. The shale gas industry provides the United States with the affordable, reliable energy we will need to power back up from the coronavirus recession. For people abroad, U.S. natural gas is a buoy that can keep them afloat amid geopolitical turmoil causes by nefarious energy actors like Russia’s Gazprom. Stopping pipelines stymies economic opportunity not only in Texas, but across the globe.
The NIMBYs of the Texas Hill Country are indistinguishable from the old-money landowners in places like San Francisco, who prize their “neighborhood character” so dearly that they prevent new development in the city that would enable people less well-off than themselves to create better lives. Just like San Francisco progressives, they find themselves a step behind the times and bobbing in the wrong direction. Simon and Nelson are no longer the cool kids speaking out against injustice; instead, they are the party precluding the betterment of all. While Nelson pines for nothing but blue skies from now on, he blocks others from finding blue skies of their own. And Simon has indeed squandered his resistance.