As more and more gas and oil pipelines are threatened by environmental activists, courts and state governments, Oklahoma Congressman Markwayne Mullin says it could be only the beginning under a Biden administration. And he warns the oil and gas industry needs to be aware of it.
“I feel like they’re going to attack the pipelines first because that’s the one they have the most control over,” said the Republican 2nd District Representative in an interview with OK Energy Today.
His comments came just days before apparent President-elect Biden named former Democratic Sen. John Kerry to be his climate czar.
“They’re gonna make it very, very difficult for us to move product,” said Mullin. “The safest and most efficient way to do it is pipe.”
He warns it could mean the industry will be forced to transport more crude oil by truck and rail.
“If they take over the administration and God help us if they do, the first thing we need to be aware of is the permitting of the pipelines,” added Rep. Mullin, who has traveled the country as a Republican co-chair of the House Energy Action Team, attempting to alert the industry as to what’s coming down the pike.
He called it something of a mission of educating people and fighting back against environmental activists.
Mullin’s warning comes as there are growing threats to the Keystone XL pipeline, the Dakota Access pipeline, the Enbridge line under the Great Lakes in Michigan and others. The Atlantic Coast line was cancelled this year as utilities warned its demise could drive up heating prices this winter.
“Yes, I’m concerned and the industry should be very concerned,” conceded Mullin. “The industry as a whole, we really need to pay attention to what they’re gonna be doing with the products’ mobility. They’re going to attack the pipelines.”
Much of what he warns about will be carried out through executive orders believes the congressman. And there isn’t much Congress can do to fight them, unless Biden oversteps things legally.
Rep. Mullin says he’s not against renewable energy, but he opposes the elimination of oil and gas as pushed by Rep. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, the Democrat congresswoman from New York who was a driving force behind the creation of the Green New Deal.
Mullin contends environmentalists don’t understand that the nation’s power grid is not capable of doing what they want to do by eliminating oil and gas. He believes such a move would strain the grid and increase it by 50 to 100 times if every car were to be electric.
“Just today’s demand—it would take a land mass the size of Texas to replace all of the fossil fuel energy that’s produced with wind and solar,” said Mullin.
He has personal experience with the inability of wind and solar power to be stored. His oldest son spent most of the past year rehabbing at a Bakersfield, California neurological center following a severe brain injury suffered during a wrestling match. Rep. Mullin was there with him and explained most evenings around 7 to 8 o’clock, the city suffered blackouts.
“That will tell you what happens when you go to all renewables. The industry doesn’t know how to capture and hold on to it and build up storage for later use.”
He pointed to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent announcement of a plan to eventually ban combustible engines. Mullin said the infrastructure does not exist to meet the demands of a large number of electric vehicles.
His advice to Gov. Newsom?
“I’m sorry I can’t control what you guys are doing, but what you’re doing isn’t working!”
Mullin, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said the figures bear out the fact that California, through its efforts to end oil and gas production now imports more Saudi Arabian oil than all of the other lower 47 states combined.
Further, there is the added cost of converting totally to wind and solar power.
“It’s going to cost families over $3,900 a year and that’s just in Oklahoma.”
Mullin professes that instead of moving forward, the nation will “go backwards.”
His distaste for the extremists is obvious as he called them hypocrites, flying across the country to Washington D.C. to protest, heating their homes with fossil fuel energy, buying new tires for their vehicles.
“You take the Green New Deal and who’s proposed it? It was proposed by an open socialist,” added Rep. Mullin who charged the effort is not about environmental issues as much as it is about government control. Control of people. Control of movement across the country.