Coffee with Karen: Roadmaps to Energy Security
AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert sat down over coffee and discuss her career, energy policy, and the implications for today’s energy environment. The following is part one in a multi-part series drawn from this discussion.
Adam Kay: Karen, thank you for taking the time to sit down for an interview. For those who aren’t familiar with you, Karen Harbert is the President and CEO of the American Gas Association. Her career to date has seen her in critical decision-making roles in the public and private sectors alike at some of the most pivotal moments of recent Presidential administrations.
Karen, prior to joining AGA, you served as President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute. In that role, you oversaw the development of the comprehensive Energy Works for US platform, which laid out critical policy recommendations to secure the nation’s energy future, generate robust job growth, and attract trillions of dollars in private investment. In the years since, what impact have you seen from the recommendations your team made for American energy policy?
KH: At the time, America was still heavily dependent on energy imports, and the Shale Revolution was only beginning to hit its stride. The Shale Revolution allowed the United States to vastly expand domestic energy production, making us the largest energy producer the world has ever seen, and a net exporter of natural gas and oil. Our focus as a nation, and what we’re beginning to see more of today, is a focus on driving towards smart policy that will allow Americans access to the affordable, reliable and efficient energy our country needs. Finally, the conversation on permitting reform has reached a point where there is a broad, bipartisan consensus that things cannot continue as they have been, and that America needs the ability to build, baby, build.
AK: Your frequent congressional testimony and analysis has informed policymakers, business leaders and the public about the strategies needed to help ensure a stable and sustainable energy system. How has the state of our energy security shifted over the course of your career thus far?
KH: American energy security is national security. After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we saw European energy prices spike to unprecedented highs. American natural gas prices are typically between $2 and $4/MMBtu. While we saw American natural gas prices go as high as $10/MMBtu for a few months, European prices reached all the way to $100/MMBtu. The reason is simple: America has robust domestic supplies of energy, particularly natural gas, while Europe had made a decision to rely on Russia for energy. Had this happened a decade earlier, we would have been in a much worse position than we were. The Shale Revolution really did make all the difference for our energy resilience as a country, and our ability to safely weather the storm.
The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented surge of reindustrialization, even as it leads the global AI revolution that’s building the economy. While this is happening, we’re seeing deindustrialization in Europe driven by high energy prices and even outright energy shortages. American prosperity, reindustrialization, and our ability to support the new data centers rests on the foundation of our energy infrastructure. It’s my privilege to lead our industry at such a pivotal time, with natural gas at the indispensable foundation of the economy of the future.
Stay tuned for part two of our interview with Karen Harbert.