WHAT ABOUT PIPELINES?
Natural gas infrastructure, a tool for climate progress, is missing in infrastructure plan.
As America’s energy infrastructure leaders, the North American natural gas pipeline industry is building for our energy future. From reducing our own emissions to enabling renewable energy growth, our industry moves one-third of the energy consumed in the U.S. through a safe and resilient energy delivery system while leading the way in addressing some of the world’s most difficult environmental challenges.
To address these challenges, natural gas will continue to serve as a catalyst to help our nation and the global community reach its climate goals. Over the past 15 years, the transition to generate more electricity with natural gas has eliminated more greenhouse gas emissions than any other fuel source. In order for this progress to continue, the natural gas industry must collaborate closely with policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders to define a clear path forward.
Together, our members—which represent nearly 200,000 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline—reached a consensus and issued a climate statement outlining how we will make meaningful strides in our operations, aided by necessary technology advancements and sound public policy initiatives, to continue to be part of the climate solution and help enable an even cleaner energy future.
Our industry has already had success working collaboratively to reduce methane emissions from the nation’s natural gas transmission and storage network. Many of our members have established individual targets for their companies, or joined voluntary emission reduction programs such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s STAR program or ONE Future Coalition, which seek to reduce the methane emissions intensity across the entire natural gas value chain.
In order to further this progress, our organization felt it was critical to develop a set of common long-term goals and commitments. These new commitments include: working together as an industry towards reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas transmission and storage operations by 2050; reducing the carbon intensity of our operations through the adoption of innovative technologies; and supporting the growth of renewable energy.
Natural gas provides flexible, on-demand generation that is a natural complement to renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Natural gas infrastructure also provides reliable energy storage to minimize the risk of power disruptions and blackouts during periods of variable or peak demand, as we saw in Texas earlier this year.
As we continue to recover from both the COVID-19 pandemic and the winter storms that impacted energy grids across the country, the modernization and buildout of our nation’s energy infrastructure must be a part of our recovery plan. Natural gas powers the energy services vital to our economy and will remain foundational to our domestic manufacturing sector.
Creating good jobs and providing access to reliable and affordable energy are two important steps to getting our nation back on its feet—goals that can be furthered by continuing to develop and invest in natural gas infrastructure. The natural gas industry can play a critical role in helping the Biden administration achieve its goal of Building Back Better.
Together, we can protect the environment while providing a safe, reliable and resilient energy transmission system that delivers affordable energy to businesses and families in Texas and across the country, in addition to supporting a variety of industries and millions of high-paying jobs. Our climate commitments are just one step, but they send a clear signal: Building a stronger, more equitable economy must go hand in hand with creating a more sustainable world.
Natural gas infrastructure is and will remain an integral partner to building a clean energy future, and we at INGAA look forward to continuing to do our part.