The Fix for Hacked Pipelines Isn’t Spare Pipelines
We like our energy to be as cheap as possible. Redundancy costs extra.
How many lifelines do we need?
Photographer: LOGAN CYRUS/AFP/Getty Images
Former energy secretary Dan Brouillette raises a novel answer to the problem of the East Coast relying on a single, vulnerable pipeline for so much of its fuel: permits for more pipelines.
To quibble, it’s one pipeline system. Still, he’s right that the Northeast, and East Coast in general, relies on it enormously. But the idea that the solution lies in just permitting more pipelines — assuming millions of Americans in some of the country’s most densely populated states were okay with that — requires a bit more nuance. Indeed, one big reason nobody’s building a Colonial clone is something Brouillette championed: energy independence.