Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has written a terse response to a letter from House Republicans of the Energy Committee that urged him to loosen regulations on Pennsylvania’s gas reserves and ease market instability caused by the conflict in Ukraine.
The largest natural gas reserve in the United States is underground, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Pennsylvania also has more than 100,000 active oil wells.
It asks Wolf to encourage surrounding states to drop bans on pipeline construction so liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be transported to New England states, which currently import from foreign nations, including, the letter said, from Russia. The letter also asks Wolf to end the natural gas development moratorium within the Delaware River Basin, but Wolf has supported the moratorium in the past. The letter also encourages Wolf to support Pennsylvania’s plentiful oil, gas, and coal industries that have the potential to fuel the world’s energy needs.
“You must encourage the extraction and refinement of our resources for the betterment of the free world. End your crusade against fossil fuels and recognize the gift of energy and production that exists beneath our feet,” the committee wrote.
Wolf sent a response letter on March 3, saying the Republicans are exploiting the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting humanitarian crisis to increase the profits of the natural gas industry and stand in the way of action to address climate change.
“I find your politicization of this tragedy deplorable,” Wolf wrote. He failed to respond to some of the specifics in the letter, such as the Delaware River Basin issue. But he did list some data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Wolf said:
• The United States is a net exporter of natural gas and has increased exports of Liquified Natural Gas to Europe to record levels over the past several years. • The United States is currently the largest source of European LNG imports, providing more than half of the LNG imported to the continent in January. • Net natural gas exports from Pennsylvania have roughly doubled since 2015, when Wolf took office, due to increased pipeline construction.
“Despite your hand wringing about Russian LNG tankers entering American ports, you should be aware that the United States imports virtually no natural gas in any form from Russia. I encourage you to review actual data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration if you are confused about any of these points,” Wolf said.
The Energy Information Administration confirmed the United States does not directly import LNG from Russia.
“There were a couple of LNG cargoes imported to the United States from France and the United Kingdom in 2018-19 that may have originally come from Russia,” an administration spokesperson told The Epoch Times. “These were officially recorded as imports from France and the U.K. We don’t track the original source of LNG import volumes, so the source information on these imports is anecdotal.”
But Wolf never mentions oil in his letter. In 2021, the United States imported an average of 209,000 barrels of Russian oil per day, according to the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers website. Oil imports continue today.
Wolf is correct that the United States is a net exporter of natural gas, and currently a large source of European LNG imports. In 2021, the United States, Qatar, and Russia combined, provided 70 percent of Europe’s total LNG imports.
But Wolf can’t take credit for that. Exports of LNG to Europe ramped up in 2017, the year Donald Trump took office. Before then, Europe was using little, if any U.S.-produced LNG. Trump worked to expand U.S. LNG exports abroad.
“The U.S. no longer needs to import energy. With an abundance of American natural gas now available, our European allies no longer have to be vulnerable to unfriendly energy suppliers either,” Trump said in a January 2020 speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “We urge our friends in Europe to use America’s vast supply and achieve true energy security. With U.S. companies and researchers leading the way we are on the threshold of virtually unlimited reserves of energy, including from traditional fuels, LNG, clean coal, next-generation nuclear power, and gas hydrate technologies.”
Wolf’s letter defends his record on the environment and hints that he is not budging on his energy policies.
“I have moved forward with measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify and strengthen our grid. This newest effort to halt progress in addressing climate change by linking action on climate to events in Ukraine is simply a continuation of the conspiracy theories you are well known for,” Wolf said, directing his comments at Metcalfe. “We are in a moment of significant import for the world. This is no time for small-minded ideologues or armchair energy experts to attempt to capitalize on tragedy to benefit their benefactors.”
Metcalfe said he was surprised Wolf responded to the letter so quickly because often it takes a month or more for a letter from his committee to hear back from the governor.
“His administration has been working time and time again to bring in the heavy regulatory hand on our oil and gas companies to discourage investment, to discourage production, to discourage development. And he could step up and work with the General Assembly to encourage more production of our oil and gas, which the world needs right now. I mean there’s no excuse for any state in the nation to have to be using any Russian gas or oil,” Metcalfe told The Epoch Times.
“We have the resources here in the United States, as long as we can get Wolf, Biden, John Kerry and the ones that are fighting to advance their sci-fi perspective of what’s happening in the world. If they'd get with reality, look at the news, and see all these people dying in the Ukraine—if Russia didn’t have their war machine greased by their sales of energy, they wouldn’t have the ability to fund that operation.”
