By Charles Young

April 22, 2019 - U.S. Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va, said more needs to be done to secure America’s energy independence.

West Virginia’s 1st Congressional District representative praised a pair of recently issued executive orders from President Donald Trump aimed at expediting natural gas pipeline projects, but said there are further steps to be taken.

David McKinley

McKinley said he is alarmed by actions taken by states like Washington, Maryland and New York, whose governors have attempted to halt pipeline activity in their states or block coal exports.

“There seems to be something in the water right now of states interfering with commerce,” he said. “We can’t allow this to happen, but three states have done it. We have to figure out how to fight back on this.”

Actions taken by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to curtail pipeline construction have prevented energy customers in New England from accessing domestically produced natural gas, McKinley said.

“New York has effectively banned getting natural gas up into New England. They don’t have coal there. They burn some, but mostly it’s oil and gas,” he said. “Where do they get their gas? Russia. They’re bringing liquid natural gas tankers in from Russia. They get electricity from Canada. Seventy-three gigawatts of power.”

That’s the equivalent of importing the capacity of roughly 100 power plants annually, McKinley said.

“Why? Because Canada subsidizes their hydro and electricity so it’s cheap,” he said. “So New York says ‘that it’s smarter for us just to buy our electricity from them than to build power plants.’ I don’t care whether it’s coal, natural gas or nuclear, but build some power plants there (in New York) that gives you a tax base to be able to run your own hospital systems, your school systems.”

The country’s lack of energy infrastructure has forced resource-rich states like West Virginia to turn to foreign markets, McKinley said.

“China wants our gas in the worst way,” he said. “It’s our national security that we’re giving away to other nations that are competing with us. We’re giving China the energy they need to make the widgets to sell back to America to put our businesses out of business.”

One of Trump’s recent executive orders directed the Environmental Protection Agency to review its state guidelines for Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which has been used by environmental groups to present legal challenges to infrastructure projects.

“Too often, badly needed energy infrastructure is being held back by special interest groups, entrenched bureaucracies and radical activists,” Trump said before signing the orders.

McKinley said he recently co-sponsored a piece of legislation, called the Water Quality Certification Improvement Act of 2019, along with several other Republican lawmakers, which is meant to further clarify Section 401 in an effort to prevent states from using the section to stop projects.

The legislation states that the scope of a Section 401 review is limited to water quality impacts only, requires states to make final decisions on whether to grant or deny a request in writing based only on water quality reasons and requires states to inform a project applicant within 90 days whether the states have all the materials needed to process a certification request.

U.S. Rep. Liz Chaney, R-Wyoming, one of the act’s co-sponsors, said the legislation is meant to protect the nation’s economic interests.

“The far-left’s politicization of the Clean Water Act has obstructed critical interstate commerce projects that produce great economic value to the West,” she said. “I’m proud to be a co-sponsor of the Water Quality Certification Improvement Act.”