America’s energy future is often framed as a binary choice between fossil fuels and a clean energy transition. But that framing is misleading, and acting on it could worsen both our energy bills and our climate outcomes. Domestic oil and gas production remains critical to energy affordability, grid reliability, and even near-term emissions reductions.

Energy affordability is a top concern for American families, and energy costs hit lower- and middle-income households hardest. U.S. electricity demand is projected to grow 15–20 percent over the next decade, a reversal after years of flat consumption, driven primarily by the rapid expansion of AI data centers, electric vehicles, and the broader electrification of industry and heating. The Department of Energy estimates data centers alone could consume up to 12 percent of total U.S. electricity by 2028, up from roughly 4 percent in 2023. Wind and solar are growing fast, but they are intermittent. Until affordable, large-scale storage is widely deployed, dispatchable power sources are needed to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

Natural gas remains the most cost-effective source of reliable, flexible power in the United States. Empirical evidence shows that constraints on domestic supply translate directly into higher electricity and heating costs for American families and businesses. A key driver of those constraints is permitting: building the infrastructure needed to move gas from where it is produced to where it is needed has become increasingly difficult, slow, and uncertain. New England, which sits adjacent to the largest gas-producing region in the country, has seen multiple pipeline expansion projects cancelled or blocked over the past decade, including the Constitution Pipeline, the PennEast Pipeline, and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The result is that New Englanders pay roughly 31 percent more for natural gas and over 36 percent more for electricity than consumers in Pennsylvania, where the gas is actually produced. One critical pipeline, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, took nearly a decade to complete and ultimately required an act of Congress to secure approval. These are not hypothetical costs; they are the measurable consequences of an infrastructure permitting system that has struggled to keep pace with demand. 

Beyond household costs, robust domestic production also plays a stabilizing geopolitical role. It dampens global price volatility, reduces exposure to supply shocks from hostile producers, and provides the U.S. allies with a credible alternative energy source.

>>>READ: Natural Gas: Powering America’s AI Revolution

The environmental case for domestic natural gas is also important. Over the past two decades, the single largest driver of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions reductions has not been solar panels or wind turbines, but the displacement of coal-fired electricity by natural gas. On a per-unit basis, natural gas combustion produces roughly half the carbon dioxide of coal when generating electricity. The shale revolution drove natural gas low enough to displace coal in electricity markets, and emissions from the U.S. electricity sector fell dramatically as a result. A 2025 study found that the shale boom reduced average annual U.S. per capita greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 7.5 percent and may have accelerated the broader transition to renewable energy by stabilizing electricity prices and grid reliability during the critical period when renewables were scaling up.

These environmental implications extend beyond U.S. borders. The United States has become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), with exports totaling 11.9 billion cubic feet per day in 2024. This could be good news for limiting future climate risk. Parts of Europe, particularly Poland, and much of Asia still depend heavily on coal. China and India generate roughly 60 and 75 percent of their electricity from it, respectively, and Southeast Asia gets nearly half its power from coal. Transitioning to American LNG provides these regions a credible path to cut power-sector emissions while maintaining reliability and affordability as they build out their renewable infrastructure. That said, the scale of this opportunity is still constrained by infrastructure. LNG export capacity requires massive capital investment in liquefaction terminals, and receiving terminals abroad take years to obtain permits and build. U.S. LNG capacity is on track to more than double by 2029, but only if permitting and investment decisions are not further delayed. Policies that restrict U.S. LNG export capacity don’t eliminate energy demand abroad; they risk pushing those markets toward higher-emissions substitutes, such as coal.

Even when countries rely on natural gas, the source matters. Differences in methane leakage and infrastructure quality mean that U.S. production is often less emissions-intensive than competing suppliers. On a lifecycle basis, for example, the climate footprint of Russian natural gas delivered to Europe is estimated to be double that of U.S. LNG, driven primarily by methane leakage from Russia’s aging pipeline network. Independent satellite data suggest it is roughly twice as leaky per kilometer as U.S. transmission infrastructure. Displacing U.S. supply with producers that have weaker environmental track records is likely to result in higher global emissions, not lower ones.

U.S. energy and climate policy is at an inflection point. Projected increases in demand, combined with the expanding share of intermittent renewable generation, underscore the need to preserve affordable and reliable energy supplies. Restricting domestic natural gas production risks raising costs and, globally, increasing carbon intensity. Policymakers concerned with both affordability and climate outcomes should weigh that tradeoff carefully.

Prasanna Pydipalli is an NYU master’s student and energy and environment policy intern for C3 Solutions.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.