High natural gas prices are causing a cost of living crisis for many nations in Europe, where several governments have passed tax cuts in response and are scrambling to find other ways to ease the burden on consumers.
The cost of gas in the U.S. has also risen over the last year, bringing up aggregate energy costs with it. Overall, it has stayed lower than in Europe, where benchmark prices have at times been tenfold higher or more.
In a letter addressed to President Joe Biden on Thursday, top oil and gas lobbying groups asserted the U.S. could face similar energy costs in the forthcoming years "if we are unable to continue growing and modernizing our natural gas system."
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"Europe has discouraged natural gas development in recent years, and the consequences are now clear — restricting natural gas threatens energy affordability and reliability in the near-term and hinders climate goals in the long-term," announced the groups, which include the American Petroleum Institute and the American Gas Association.
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The industry and Biden have been engaged in a faceoff since he took office when he immediately placed a halt to new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and canceled the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. The Biden Administration has struggled to state whether it backs natural gas production over the long run. Most recently, climate envoy John Kerry called natural gas a "bridge fuel" yet also proposed that the Administration wouldn't favor building infrastructure for it.
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U.S. gas production continues its upward trend despite Biden's policies and overall posture on reducing fossil fuel use to mitigate climate change.
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In the U.S., gas production between January 2010 and January 2020 rose more than 62%, per Energy Information Administration data. Between February 2021, Biden's first month in office, and November, the last month for which data is available, production increased more than 21%.
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Imports have been negligible compared to domestic production and overall consumption over the last decade.
By contrast, data summarized by the EIA on Friday display to what extent gas production in Europe has gone the other way over the last decade.
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Natural gas production in the European Union and the U.K. declined by over 50% between 2010 and 2020 as governments pursued renewable energy sources instead.
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In the meantime, natural gas imports accounted for more than 80% of total gas supplies to the European Union and the U.K. in 2020, up more than 65% a decade earlier. That includes pipeline gas from Norway, Russia, North Africa, Azerbaijan, and liquefied natural gas imports.
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