America’s energy weakness isn’t overseas — it’s at home

I didn’t come to the Senate from politics — I came from the field. I started as an engineer in Oklahoma’s energy sector and eventually led a company building and maintaining critical infrastructure. That experience taught me a simple lesson: Energy abundance is meaningless if you can’t move it to where it’s needed.

Every time tensions rise in the Middle East, Washington sounds the alarm about high gasoline prices. Although these concerns are real, they often obscure a more fundamental truth: The biggest driver of high energy costs for many Americans isn’t foreign conflict; it is domestic failure.

The U.S. is an energy superpower, producing more oil and natural gas than any country in the world. Yet millions of Americans pay prices that resemble those in energy-scarce regions because we lack the infrastructure to deliver that supply.

The data illustrate this disconnect clearly. In Pennsylvania, one of the most prolific natural gas regions in the world, supply is abundant and inexpensive. However, just 120 miles away in Massachusetts, they pay 252 percent more than the national average. Consumers there might pay $9.70 per unit versus $2.75 nationally.

This disparity — the “Boston gap” — is not driven by global markets; it is the predictable outcome of failing to build........

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