Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Joe Manchin (D-WV) requested an update at a hearing held Tuesday by the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a proposed natural gas liquids storage hub in Appalachia.
The committee held the hearing to receive testimony on 11 bills before the Committee, including Manchin’s Appalachian Energy for National Security Act (S. 1064), which would require the Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct a study and issue a report on the national security benefits of the proposed hub.
Manchin questioned Shawn Bennett, deputy assistant secretary for oil and gas at the DOE Office of Fossil Energy, about President Donald Trump’s Executive Order directive to examine the Appalachian region as a candidate for the economic development of the U.S. petrochemical sector.
“I’ve talked with Secretary Perry and he’s seen the model of a class 5 hurricane coming up the Houston Channel and what it can do to cripple the energy of our country and the dependency we have,” Manchin said. “So we are looking for a backup. West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio – with all of the energy we have stored there and the protection of the mountains among everything else – it’s a natural hub. Can you provide any kind of update regarding the President’s Executive Order directive to examine the Appalachian region as a candidate for economic development in our nation’s petrochemical sector?”
Bennett noted that Perry recognizes the potential benefits of a natural gas liquids storage hub in Appalachia.
“Secretary Perry has been very fond of talking about creating a petrochemical complex storage hub in the region because he recognizes the importance from an economic security standpoint,” Bennett said. “He has said many times, that one of the things that kept him awake at night was a hurricane coming up the Houston ship channel. And with that, you need to have a diversity of your petrochemical manufacturing. So we are definitely looking at that. Through that came the President’s Executive Order and Section 9 of that – we are hard at work in supplying that executive order and it is due in August with the report complete. In that report, we do recognize the importance of Appalachia and the diversity of their economic security for petrochemical manufacturing.”