This is why I like EQT Corp.
Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:52 pm
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fossil-fue ... lewebshare
Wall Street Journal
Fossil Fuels’ Forthright Defender
When Elizabeth Warren denounced energy CEOs, Toby Rice, the head of the largest U.S. natural gas producer wasn’t about to roll over.
By Allysia Finley April 22, 2022 1:33 pm ET
The last thing most CEOs want is to court the wrath of politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren. That’s especially true of oil and gas executives, who try to appease their political opponents by talking up investments in renewable energy. Toby Rice is the rare CEO who seems to enjoy the political combat.
The 40-year-old leads EQT Corp. , America’s largest natural-gas producer. Last November Ms. Warren, in her fashion, fired off letters accusing him and 10 other energy executives of “corporate greed” for exporting liquefied natural gas.
Mr. Rice’s fierce nine-page response was chock full of data refuting Ms. Warren’s claim that gas exports increase U.S. energy prices. That assertion, he wrote, is “without merit” and fosters “a narrative that politicizes natural gas and associated infrastructure in a manner that runs counter to one of our key collective goals, one we know you share—addressing climate change.”
Ms. Warren and her ideological compatriots style themselves champions of the little guy and the environment. Nonsense, Mr. Rice says: Their policies mean higher prices for consumers and more carbon emissions. “If you’re blocking pipelines, you’re blocking the biggest green initiative on the planet,” he says in a Zoom interview from his office in Carnegie, Pa., a former karate studio in a walk-up above a liquor store. In the background are colorful portraits of Andrew Carnegie, Nikola Tesla, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan.
Mr. Rice is a general on the frontlines of an energy war whose outcome matters more than ever after Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. The anti-fossil-fuel left is waging a multifront campaign to keep natural gas “in the ground,” as activists like to say. Along with political efforts, they are leveraging the administrative state and courts to block new pipelines that are essential to deliver more natural gas to customers in the U.S. and overseas.
Energy companies have already given up on two major pipelines in the Northeast (PennEast and Atlantic Coast) in the past two years. Even after winning legal challenges at the Supreme Court, they faced mounting costs from permitting and legal challenges raising different objections. “The 4,000 pages of permits that we have to submit have created 4,000 opportunities for environmental groups to attack,” Mr. Rice says.
Read more at the link above.
Wall Street Journal
Fossil Fuels’ Forthright Defender
When Elizabeth Warren denounced energy CEOs, Toby Rice, the head of the largest U.S. natural gas producer wasn’t about to roll over.
By Allysia Finley April 22, 2022 1:33 pm ET
The last thing most CEOs want is to court the wrath of politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren. That’s especially true of oil and gas executives, who try to appease their political opponents by talking up investments in renewable energy. Toby Rice is the rare CEO who seems to enjoy the political combat.
The 40-year-old leads EQT Corp. , America’s largest natural-gas producer. Last November Ms. Warren, in her fashion, fired off letters accusing him and 10 other energy executives of “corporate greed” for exporting liquefied natural gas.
Mr. Rice’s fierce nine-page response was chock full of data refuting Ms. Warren’s claim that gas exports increase U.S. energy prices. That assertion, he wrote, is “without merit” and fosters “a narrative that politicizes natural gas and associated infrastructure in a manner that runs counter to one of our key collective goals, one we know you share—addressing climate change.”
Ms. Warren and her ideological compatriots style themselves champions of the little guy and the environment. Nonsense, Mr. Rice says: Their policies mean higher prices for consumers and more carbon emissions. “If you’re blocking pipelines, you’re blocking the biggest green initiative on the planet,” he says in a Zoom interview from his office in Carnegie, Pa., a former karate studio in a walk-up above a liquor store. In the background are colorful portraits of Andrew Carnegie, Nikola Tesla, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan.
Mr. Rice is a general on the frontlines of an energy war whose outcome matters more than ever after Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. The anti-fossil-fuel left is waging a multifront campaign to keep natural gas “in the ground,” as activists like to say. Along with political efforts, they are leveraging the administrative state and courts to block new pipelines that are essential to deliver more natural gas to customers in the U.S. and overseas.
Energy companies have already given up on two major pipelines in the Northeast (PennEast and Atlantic Coast) in the past two years. Even after winning legal challenges at the Supreme Court, they faced mounting costs from permitting and legal challenges raising different objections. “The 4,000 pages of permits that we have to submit have created 4,000 opportunities for environmental groups to attack,” Mr. Rice says.
Read more at the link above.