new emphasis on oil and gas pipeline construction announced

A part of the Trump Administration’s push, announced last year, for more energy infrastructure investment and construction, is expected to see a renewed emphasis in 2019.

According to Larry Kudlow, a top adviser to the President, a boom in new oil and gas exploration has not been met with a concurrent increase in pipelines needed to carry the product.

“We need infrastructure, including pipelines,” Kudlow commented during an address to the Economic Club of Washington. “We need east to west, we need west to east.”

Kudlow added that while there have been some obstacles to new pipeline construction projects at the state level, “We also have some leverage at the federal government.”

A newly assertive policy advancing the construction of oil and gas pipeline construction would be particularly felt in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, which is the nation’s most productive drilling region.

The Trump Administration has earlier suggested speeding up the federal permitting process for new pipeline construction projects, while also trying to weaken Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules that have in the past blocked various pipeline projects.

By Garry Boulard

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