New England’s high heating costs exacerbated by federal government
Power the Future Executive Director Daniel Turner joined ‘Kennedy’ to discuss reports heating oil stockpiles in the Northeast and New England are down to a third of normal levels.
Home heating bills are soaring across the country amid already-elevated energy costs, and the Northeast is expected to be hit hardest this winter.
The region is particularly vulnerable due to ongoing diesel shortages and because it relies heavily on home heating oil. It also lacks the pipeline infrastructure of other areas of the U.S. and therefore must have liquid natural gas and other fuels imported.
But New England leaders, energy firms and experts say a 100-year-old law is contributing to problem, and are urging the Biden administration to lift it in order to ease the price pressures on consumers.
A woman kicks ice to break it up so she can clear it with a shovel during a winter storm in Concord, New Hampshire, on February 4, 2022. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Months ago, New England governors suggested the Department of Energy consider suspending the Jones Act, also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which requires goods shipped between U.S. ports be carried on vessels built, owned and operated by Americans.
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Due to the federal statute, the energy-poor Northeast buys its fuel from abroad because it is typically cheaper to do so than to buy from energy-rich domestic regions like the Gulf of Mexico. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused energy prices to surge in Europe, New England states are now competing even more with Europe for those limited supplies on the global market.
According to Scott Lincicome, director of general economics at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, “That is causing major problems right now.”
A farming family on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest begins to prepare for the winter soon to come, on October 5, 2022, in rural Chatham, New Hampshire. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Lincicome told FOX Business that American-made ships cost roughly four to five times as much to build as their global counterparts, and there “are a grand total of zero” liquid natural gas tankers that are Jones-compliant because it is so cost-prohibitive to build such a sophisticated vessel domestically.
The federal government has issued Jones Act waivers in the past during emergencies. Former President Trump waived the Jones Act for Puerto Rico in 2017 to lift restrictions on ships providing aid to the island after it sustained massive damage from Hurricane Maria.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas granted a waiver for a ship to deliver diesel to the island in September following Hurricane Fiona after the vessel floated offshore unable enter port due to the 100-year-old law.
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Warnings have already been issued that the Northeastern U.S. could be staring down an emergency of its own.
The general manager of Groton Electric Light in…
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