The Chamber of Commerce and trade unions took aim at anti-fossil fuel activists in releasing a scathing report on Tuesday that concluded that their form of environmentalism slowed economic activity by over $91 billion in the U.S. in 2018.
“Taken together, anti-energy activism has helped prevent at least $91.9 billion of economic activity in the United States, which is larger than the entire economies of 12 states,” according to the report, “Infrastructure Lost: Why America Cannot Afford To ‘Keep It In the Ground.’”
The report was issued by the Chamber’s Global Energy Institute and the Laborers’ International Union of North America.
The Keep It In the Ground movement began in the latter years of the Obama administration, with the aim of ending all fossil fuel production by blocking pipelines, coal export terminals, and similar projects.
The most well-known campaigns were the massive protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota, which garnered national attention during the 2016 presidential races. Both protests and legal action have been used to block pipelines like Keystone XL and numerous other natural gas pipelines.
The labor union’s interest in the study is obvious, based on the report’s purported job losses calculated as a result of the Keep It In The Ground activist campaigns.
The study showed that an estimated 728,000 job opportunities were “destroyed” as a result of the movement’s activities, which equated to $57.9 billion in lost project investment costs.
“To top it all off, we estimate that these canceled or delayed projects have cost us $20.3 billion in lost tax revenue,” the report stated.
The costs and job loss estimates in the report were based on the examination of 15 separate energy infrastructure projects that were “blocked, cancelled, or delayed” to some degree by the Keep it in the Ground movement.
The projects included Keystone XL and a variety of other natural gas and oil pipelines, as well as coal export terminals, power plants, and other projects, which were either delayed a number of years or canceled due to the activist movement.
The report also included the cost of New York’s ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, separate from the 15 projects.
It calculates that the fracking ban cost the state over $4 billion in lost tax revenue, and over $20 billion in lost investment.
