In today's increasingly polarized political climate, Kinder Morgan Inc.'s Vice President of Public Affairs Allen Fore identifies "extremism on both sides" as a major obstacle to ongoing midstream infrastructure development.
"Let's not confuse environmental activism with environmental extremism," Fore warned. "Environmental activism is a good thing. I'd like to consider everybody in this room an environmental activist. Extremism is the problem -- on both sides of the issue. The industry extremists are no better than the environmental extremists. Those who think we can build and construct wherever and however we want -- those days are gone.
"We need to hear, as an industry, what others are saying about us. It cannot simply be an echo chamber of us patting ourselves on the back, talking about how great we are, because something different is happening across the country, and questions are being asked like they haven't been asked before."
In an industry roundtable on pipeline and terminal expansion projects, Fore also mentioned regulatory uncertainty, federal/state conflict, local or regional opposition, and eminent domain as persistent challenges for companies looking to supply transportation and storage services to upstream and downstream energy markets.
Addressing delegates to the 2017 Energy Summit held recently at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association (LMOGA) Chief Counsel Tyler Gray echoed Fore's comments on extremism, adding that much of the U.S. public is "only hearing one side of the story," which has given rise to a widening divide between public perceptions and industry realities.
One promising way to solve this problem, Gray suggested, is by educating the populace about the everyday items for which the nation depends on safe and efficient midstream infrastructure "without rooting the discussion in partisan politics."
"Recently I had the opportunity to be in the Midwest, and there was a group of college students there who had recently heard from some of the protesters from the Dakota Access Pipeline," Gray explained. "And one of the things they said during that conversation was that they only heard one side of the story. So I tried to put together not necessarily my side of the story, but one with more facts to get a hold of to make your own decisions, and also where to get facts to get a better understanding of what pipelines actually do and why they're important to our economy.
"Imagine all the different things that are in your life right now that come from that manufacturing. You've got stuff specific to hospitals, drug manufacturers, running shoes, jet fuel, fertilizers -- even your glasses come from chemical compounds. These are the products in our everyday lives that, if oil wasn't being distributed throughout the United States, we would lose the opportunity to buy at feasible prices. It's a lot of stuff."
When it comes to projections of natural gas consumption over the next decade, Gray added, the importance of building and maintaining midstream infrastructure is even clearer.
"Everyone understands that natural gas plays a big part in the way we get our homes heated and other electricity within the states," he said. "When we need to make sure those products are moved into the area where we need them, there are two pieces: You have to keep up the infrastructure, and you have to build the infrastructure. The data shows you're going to have to have upkeep on infrastructure in order to even maintain rates, and you'll have to build more ⦠in order to avoid shortfalls by 2030."
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