Sean CastenThis Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/opinion/democrats-liberals-oil-gas-industry.html
1. First: the elephant in the room that he doesn't mention explicitly but haunts the whole piece: climate change is real, we've already overshot and the only way to turn the corner is to leave fossil fuel in the ground. To ignore that is to talk about rocketry and ignore gravity.
2. What he says about climate is patently false (more on that later) but to the extent he's saying "politicians shouldn't do the right thing unless it's popular", I'd note only that that is a toddlers view of leadership. If the popular kids are mean, should you be mean?
3. Leadership is about doing what is necessary, not just what is popular. Read literally anything our founders wrote about virtue, and the inherent risks to a society based on democratic processes to sustain the rule of law to the extent that unvirtuous people gain power.
4. Yglesias instead seems to implicitly argue that politicians should only do what wins elections, virtue be damned. One wonders what he thinks of those foolish 1850s abolitionists. As Condleeza Rice once said, politics is the art of making the impossible inevitable. That ain't this.
5. But enough on climate. This is an opinion piece and if MY's opinion is that we shouldn't act on climate at a scale sufficient to the threat there's not much I can do. Let's go to the facts. First, the idea that Obama won in 2012 because he embraced an all-of-the-above strategy. Really?
6. That election had a robust debate over the gulf war and criticism of the size of the 2008 bailout. Romney was framed as an out of touch plutocrat. To the extent energy came up it was the criticism of the Dems for Waxman Markey cap & trade in 2009, not "thank you for drilling".
7. But even beyond the political conversation, you can't compare 2012 energy policy to 2025 without understanding the massive shift in US fossil energy production & net imports over that period. Look at the "net imports" line on this chart.
8. In 2012, the US was a net importer of oil and domestic production, after decades of decline was ticking up thanks to fracking. Today, the US is a net exporter. Couple that with concerns about middle east politics in 2012 and you have a VERY different set of issues for US energy consumers.
9. As a net importer, every incremental unit of domestic production reduced our exposure to foreign oil & associated price volatility. As a net exporter, every incremental unit gets shipped overseas.
10. In other words, in 2012 new production benefited domestic producers AND consumers. But today, new production only benefits producers. That's a fundamentally different policy and political environment. And note also that domestic consumption is basically flat for the last 20 yrs.
11. That's a good thing! We're just as warm, just as able to travel as we were 20 years ago, and rising vehicle efficiency, EV deployment, etc. is giving consumers more useful energy with less oil expense. That's good for consumers, even if it hurts producers.
12. And if we want to talk about the politics, here's some easy math: there are a lot more voters who consume energy than there are who produce energy. If you're confused on that point, you might be a crappy pundit...
13. And this isn't just true of oil. We've also moved from a net importer to a net exporter of natural gas since 2012. (Also because fracking.) Which again means that to take Yglesias' advice in 2025 is to prioritize energy producers over energy consumers.
14. The wealth transfer from natural gas is perhaps even more direct since gas - unlike oil - isn't quite a global commodity; the costs to liquefy and transport gas, per MMBtu are a lot higher than oil, which creates much higher local price disparities.
15. As such, when US producers can swap European/Asian markets for the US markets and make a higher margin, even after accounting for shipping costs it puts significant upward pressure on previously land-locked domestic prices.
16. This is the reverse of getting off middle eastern oil in 2012. Now, instead of decoupling from global volatility we are absorbing it. That gets quantified whenever a major US LNG export facility has an outage & domestic NG prices fall. Who ya rootin' for, Matt? https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=53079#:~:text=A%20fire%20at%20Freeport%20LNG's,U.S.%20natural%20gas%20demand%20outlook.
17. It's worth reading the entirety of what DOE had to say about the impact of that 2022 outage on domestic prices. These are massive price swings - and therefore massive wealth transfers from US consumers to US producers!
18. Because natural gas is used for so much of US power generation, increasing gas exports = higher gas prices = higher electricity. One climate negative impact of that is that after years of decline, we now are seeing an uptick in domestic power generation from coal.
19. This isn't because coal is cheap, or because we're building more coal plants. It's because when the price of gas goes up gas fired power plants are a little less competitive against other asset classes and the competition (in this case, coal) picked up the slack.
20. So this goes back to point 10. When we are a net exporter, decisions to produce more help producers and hurt consumers. And in this case, are ALSO bad for the climate. It's lose / lose all around.
21. And before team Yglesias responds by saying "yeah, but it's bad politics to run on climate and energy"... I'd point out that I've won 4 elections in a very purple district running on climate and energy. Pro-tip: leadership is possible! You don't have to be stupid to win!
22. Speaking of climate. Let's now pick apart this word salad of stupidity. Specifically the assertion that US oil is "cleaner" than other countries and therefore it is environmentally virtuous for us to drill baby drill.
23. Here's the report he links to in order to prove his point, that compares the carbon intensity of various global oil production regions. https://www.energyindepth.org/report-u-s-beats-competitors-with-low-carbon-intensity-oil/
Report: U.S. Beats Competitors with Low Carbon Intensity Oil
The United States is a global leader in minimizing greenhouse gas emissions from offshore production, according to a recent from the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA). The report, commissioned by NOIA and conducted by global advisory firm ICF, is a comprehensive analysis of the emissions...
24. Here's the chart. I don't know if he looked at it, and I certainly don't think he thought about it but I'd encourage you to as it refutes much of that word salad paragraph.
25. First, note who is the cleanest: Saudi Arabia. So when he says that we should "work with other low-intensity producers", he is essentially saying that we should maximize production in Saudi before bringing on US production. How does that help win elections in TX and OH?
26. Interestingly, since the Saudis gave Kushner his PE fund and Trump his LIV tournament he's been quiet as they've kept the oil price under $70 which in turn has suppressed US rig counts. So maybe Trump is taking Yglesias' advice? How's that polling? https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/total-rigs
27. Back to the chart. Look at how much dirtier Canadian oil is than US oil. (Because tar sands are very energy intensive to extract). You know who pushed to stop imports of dirty Canadian oil into the US? Obama! Google "keystone XL pipeline" if you've forgotten that history.
28. Recall that the oil industry (and the GOP) demonized Obama for blocking Keystone not because they were looking out for US producers but because they had spare refining capacity and wanted to make money exporting the resulting finished products. So again, this is about producers v consumers.
29. Now look at the US bars on that chart. Yes, bars plural. Because US production is not monolithic. Conventional oil production (offshore gulf, southwest) uses relatively little energy to lift the oil to the surface and as a result is much cleaner than "other US" (aka fracking).
30. Which means that if you're making the argument that US oil production is cleaner, you have to be honest about where the marginal production is happening. And in OH, PA and those other swing states he describes, it ain't from conventional drilling.
31. On natural gas, his arguments are just as bad. Yes, it is true that at the burner tip a unit of natural gas emits less CO2 than a unit of coal. And if you have a coal mine and a gas well in your back yard, both of which are hooked up to your furnace that is a relevant comparison.
32. That's of course not the norm. And because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas (>80x as bad as CO2 for the first 20 years after release) even a minor leakage rate in the collection and distribution makes natural gas worse than coal from a global warming perspective.
33. That's even more true for exported natural gas which also has to be liquefied since the liquefaction process is so energy intensive. Roughly speaking, you need nearly 120 units of gas to make 100 units of LNG. So more CO2 and magnified impacts of upstream leaks.
34. And of course you also need to fuel the ship that carries the LNG to another country - which means that environmental impact of exported natural gas is primarily driven by methane leaks and liquefaction / distribution. The burner tip comparison is just a vapid industry talking point.
35. Source for that graph if you want to get into the details: https://www.research.howarthlab.org/publications/Howarth_LNG_assessment_preprint_in_press.pdf
36. Finally this. The mark of the fossil fuel shill who never loses the arrogance to walk into a room, say "the sun doesn't shine at night and its not always windy", drop the mic and leave, confident that no one else knows what they just discovered.
MidgePhoto@SeanCasten (although one of the obvious things to do with a dangerous valuable resource is to compress it using electricity directly from solar and wind. Then you get 120 units of gas.
Burning it to move it is even worse than burning it to achieve a purpose.
Shaman@SeanCasten tar sands oil production is environmental terrorism.
Not only is it producing more CO2 and methane than any other fossil fuel it also requires gargantuan volumes of water producing equally gargantuan volumes of toxic waste, just to enrich some billionaires...
Not only is it producing more CO2 and methane than any other fossil fuel it also requires gargantuan volumes of water producing equally gargantuan volumes of toxic waste, just to enrich some billionaires...
CassandraVertI love that the "concession" to the left is insisting that the industry follow the law. That's driving us to he'll in a car with all the best safety features.
Fluffy Kitty Cat@SeanCasten it's because of AI datacenters and the fact that those old coal plants are still there ready to be used if needed