PITTSBURGH, CHARLESTON and COLUMBUS, Nov. 30, 2021 – Leaders from Appalachia’s natural gas and oil sector responded to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) deeply misguided and false energy market claims today in a letter that underscores the importance of domestic energy production to maintaining affordability and reliability. In the letter, the leaders of the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), Gas & Oil Association of West Virginia (GO-WV), and Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA), organizations that represent approximately 40% of U.S. natural gas production, encouraged Sen. Warren and others to “look to us – rather than grovel to OPEC and Russia – for long-term energy solutions.”

Citing more than a decade’s-worth consumer pricing data showing how families have “saved a bundle,” MSC president David Callahan, GO-WV executive director Charlie Burd, and OOGA president Matt Hammond detailed how misguided, anti-energy policies, like efforts to ban natural gas production and use, halt pipelines, or curtail energy exports, have a crushing impact on consumer budgets.

 “Natural gas, just like any commodity, experiences price swings influenced by a variety of factors, including political and regulatory environments,” the leaders wrote. “In fact, we’re seeing the markets work as S&P Platts reports on Nov. 29 that ‘gas production from the Marcellus and Utica shales has surged,’ bringing inventory levels near the five-year average and ‘cool[ing]’ forward pricing.

“Despite the recent uptick in prices, the facts are that Americans saved a bundle on home energy, all while the U.S. became not only energy secure, but a net energy exporter for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. … The U.S. is blessed with energy abundance and natural gas production tops 93 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d), according to the EIA, more than can be consumed domestically.

 “Serious solutions to lasting energy affordability, reliability, and security come from policies that encourage responsible domestic natural gas development, pipeline infrastructure modernization, and export growth. ‘Ban[ing] fracking – everywhere’ as you called for in a 2019 tweet, is an absolute devastating policy that would cause massive energy price spikes, erode grid reliability and likely trigger a global economic depression,” Callahan, Burd, and Hammond added.

 Organization leaders are available for media interviews. Click HERE to view the full letter text.