Many Americans Paying Higher Energy Prices Due To Cancelled Fossil Fuel Projects

Abandoned and rejected U.S. fossil fuel pipelines and other projects may be partially responsible for your high energy bill. According to the Wall Street Journal, the combination of public backlash against fossil fuels and poor economics due to lower commodity prices has resulted in more than $33 billion worth of project cancellations and rejections since 2012.

The highest-profile project to get rejected was the Keystone XL Pipeline, which President Obama himself blocked last year. Environmental activists and Native America tribes banded together to oppose the project.



Coal projects face the largest push-back from environmentalists, but ISO New England president Gordon van Welie says that natural gas projects are facing public opposition as well. As recently as April, Kinder Morgan Inc KMI abandoned the $3 billion Northeast Energy Direct project to bring lower-cost natural gas to the Boston area after local activists protected the project.

Unfortunately, New England residents are currently paying up to 41 percent more than the national average for natural gas, and van Welie says that without new projects to bring in more economical gas “certain areas will need to rely on higher-cost sources.”

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From 2009 to 2014, U.S. companies added more than 14,000 miles of crude oil pipelines across the country.

So far this year the United States Natural Gas Fund, LP UNG is down 17.3 percent, the Market Vectors-Coal ETF KOL is up 29.1 percent and the United States Oil Fund LP (ETF) USO is up 6.3 percent.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.