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“Oil and natural gas have been indispensable to Louisiana, indispensable to our nation and indispensable to manufacturing leadership in the United States,” NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said at the American Council for Capital Formation’s Energy Summit in New Orleans last week.

• Timmons moderated a panel discussion at the summit, which was headlined by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).
• “[A]s we round the corner into a new chapter of American history, the strength and success of the U.S. economy depends on the strength and success of manufacturing in the United States,” Timmons continued.

Supporting liberty: Louisiana has abundant natural gas, and thanks to the administration’s lifting of a January 2024 ban on liquefied natural gas export permits, it’s well-positioned to supply U.S. allies with energy.

• “U.S. LNG filled the gap of Russian supply … to Europe,” panelist and Cheniere Energy Vice President of International Affairs and Climate Robert Fee said. “U.S. LNG was a huge part of that, and Cheniere itself was 50% of U.S. LNG supply at the time, the majority of that coming from our Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana. So [the state] was directly supporting Europe in that time of need, and the West in their defense of our liberties.”

A smaller footprint: With “some of the best geologic storage for carbon dioxide,” Louisiana is also uniquely positioned to help meet the energy demands of the technology industry, which are growing fast due to the adoption of artificial intelligence and expansion of data centers, panelist and ExxonMobil Senior Vice President of Carbon Capture and Storage Dominic Genetti said. 

• “ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions Carbon Capture and Storage division … offer[s] the LNG manufacturer the ability to actually create more revenue by sequestering that [carbon dioxide] and at the same time reduce their emissions profile,” he said, adding that one of the reasons tech giant Meta is investing in the state “is because they can see a line of sight to being able to sequester the emissions from the plants.”

Permitting reform: Timmons, who spoke to Fox 8 Live ahead of his panel, asked panelists about a key advocacy priority of the NAM’s: the need for permitting reform in the U.S.

• “It takes 80% longer to get shovels in the ground on any infrastructure project here in the United States than it does in any other … developed free market economy,” Timmons said. “What reforms are most urgently needed to get critical projects off the ground faster?”
• At the state level, Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association President Tommy Faucheux responded, the most critical need is for consistency. “It’s not that there’s any one policy,” he said. “I think it’s putting policies in place, communicating what they are and then sticking with them.”

A symbiotic relationship: Artificial intelligence is giving back as much as we’re putting into it, panelists said. “AI … lives on energy … so we need to provide the energy,” bpx energy Vice President of Development Shawn Holzhauser said. “It’s providing us the insight off the data, and I think it’ll just continue to make us better. … That’s what we need as a country [and] as a state, is to really lean into that, because it’s only going to make us more competitive, produce more energy at a lower cost [and] get more exports out to the world.”

• Added Andy Huggins of Expand Energy: “[W]e talk a lot about the power demand that … data centers will require and the incremental demand on natural gas. But what’s kind of fascinating is there’s a synergy in that AI development Shawn talked about. At Expand, we’re doing the same thing. AI is already making our business more efficient, which gives us an ability to deliver energy cheaper to the grid than we could otherwise. So in a lot of ways … AI pays for itself.”

The last word: As Timmons said, quoting Thomas Jefferson, “The land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase has indeed brought the U.S. ‘important aids to our treasury, an ample provision for our posterity and a widespread field for the blessings of freedom.’”