Dramatic predictions and commentaries about the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of the fuel and petrochemical industries have made headlines.
North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) surveyed energy industry workers and examined existing BLSA data, and discovered several notable takeaways.
By mid-January, news sources have thoroughly exhausted reports on American’s Yuletide spending and attention inevitably turns to the day of reckoning: Tax Day.
First commissioned a century ago, the Toledo, Ohio, refinery has long supplied gasoline and other products that fuel the region’s economy and communities.
COVID-19 upended energy markets. Demand disappeared and producers scaled back. Now that economies are reopening, and the demand for goods and services is rebounding, the demand for energy all along the supply chain is increasing, driving up not only the cost of the feedstocks and fuels refineries and petrochemical manufacturers use, but also the cost of the energy used at every step of the supply chain.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – "Federal policy is discouraging supply by shutting down pipelines, putting future production off limits, talking down the future of the petroleum business, and imposing expensive requirements on refineries, chief among them a burdensome Renewable Fuel Standard. The Administration is blaming others when it ought to take a sober look at its own energy policy."
Limiting California’s access to the exact types of crude oil its facilities need will only increase prices for the state’s consumers and travelers. Drivers are already dealing with gasoline prices in excess of $5 per gallon and the highest fuel taxes of the 50 states. Confining energy producers and consumers to a smaller pool of crude oil will make a very sensitive price environment that much worse.
A central theme running through the “Better Deal” economic policy agenda that the Democratic Party rolled out this week is the importance of creating—and protecting—good-paying jobs – jobs that will help boost middle-class incomes and create new economic opportunities nationwide.