To Win the Senate, Democrats Should Embrace Big Oil (title of print version)

See Obama Supported It. The Left in Canada and Norway Does. Why Don’t Democrats? by Matthew Yglesias of The New York Times. Excerpts:

"Natural resource extraction offers good-paying blue-collar jobs. It also generates useful tax revenue. In more abstract terms, it improves the country’s terms of trade — when foreigners are buying oil from us rather than us from them, it reduces the cost of our imports of foreign-made food, clothing and other products, in that way driving down the cost of living for everyone."

"Center-left parties in other major energy-producing countries do not position themselves as enemies of domestic production."

"oil and gas trade in global markets and individual nations cannot clean up the planet with unilateral supply-side measures. American oil production is less carbon-intensive than the oil production of its competitors in Russia, Iran, Iraq and Venezuela. Supplying oil to global markets is a win-win for the economy and the global environment."

"the utility of fossil fuels is not something the oil and gas industry tricked the public into. There is not currently any technologically viable substitute for oil as a fuel for the airplanes and large oceangoing vessels on which global commerce depends."

"Electric trains work extremely well, but a majority of America’s freight lines rely on diesel, and building the infrastructure to electrify them would require time and money."

"E.V.s are not yet price competitive when it comes to the kinds of large trucks that American consumers tend to prefer."

"natural gas . . . is much cleaner than coal, consumption of which is still high and rising globally. Increased gas production, by displacing coal, has been the single largest driver of American emissions reductions over time."

"the value of gas is that unlike wind or solar power, it is dispatchable on a moment’s notice."

"Insisting on a majority of renewable electricity raises costs dramatically, slows the pace of electrification and ultimately leaves us further from a low-carbon future. Renewable boosters are optimistic that improvements in batteries and technologies to improve demand flexibility will ultimately overcome the cost barriers to 100 percent renewable grids. Others believe strongly that alternative zero-emissions forms of energy, like advanced geothermal or a new generation of small modular reactors, will be the solution. These are all promising ideas that are worthy of public sector support.

But until that happens, responsible environmental policy is inseparable from sustainable political strategy."

"Since this [global net zero by 2050] would require a very rapid phaseout of fossil fuel use in rich countries, no new fossil fuel infrastructure is permissible even when the infrastructure would — like new pipelines to the northeastern United States or new liquefied natural gas export terminals — likely make emissions lower by promoting more rapid electrification."