Representative Joe Hamm says “We’ve got to get smarter” about natural gas production and distribution. I agree. But I also believe our legislators, state and federal, need to become better informed about all energy issues.

Does New England still get “significant amounts of natural gas from Russian exports”? No, Joe Hamm is wrong. The U.S banned oil and gas imports from Russia in March 2022. According to ISO New England, the region’s grid operator, most of the LNG coming into New England comes from Trinidad and Tobago. New England is also served by a pipeline from Canada, which can include gas from an LNG port in Nova Scotia. But Canada banned oil and gas imports from Russia in February 2022.

This past fall it was discovered that a relatively small amount of refined oil products coming into the U.S. from India were derived from Russian oil. Perhaps Rep. Hamm has confused the loophole discovered in the Russian oil and gas ban?

In that case, it is not true, but understandable, for Rep. Hamm to believe that, “a domestic pipeline for gas from Pennsylvania to New England would reduce revenue to the adversarial country.”

New England’s grid reliability issues, like those of our own PJM grid, are tricky problems to navigate as the goal to upgrade our nation from decaying 2oth century infrastructure and technology proceeds. Necessary modernization that will ultimately provide consumers with far more efficient and far less cheaper to produce electrical power requires the truly well-informed input of legislators of both parties to succeed.

What is difficult to understand is how a member of the Pennsylvania House Environmental Energy and Resources Committee would, as the Sun-Gazette reported, ” [find] the animosity toward gas and coal particularly vexing because Pennsylvania has steadily reduced its carbon footprint.” And state, “There’s no reason we should be trying to kill those two industries.”

A few of PA’s top gas producers are already doing all they can to stop the wasteful leakage of methane, the overwhelmingly main component of their product in our region. But when Rep. Hamm talks about our reduced carbon footprint, he surely realizes that the reduction in the amount of coal burned in the Commonwealth is largely responsible for that statistic. He also surely realizes that New England states like its largest, Massachusetts, have committed to reducing their own carbon footprint.

Even though burning NG has a 50% lower carbon footprint than burning coal, sooner or later that is not going to be good enough for states, and most of the nations of the world, that are committed to the path of an overwhelmingly decarbonized and renewable energy powered economy. Their businesses want it for viability; their families want it for climate, health, and environmental justice concerns.

Representative Hamm is on a committee that has a crucial role in determining our Commonwealth’s future. He and his colleagues need to strive to become independently well informed on energy issues.

RALPH KISBERG

Williamsport

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom