America’s natural gas utilities have always been able to offer customers a great deal. Preparing food above a blue flame is preferred by home cooks and professional chefs. Space heating with natural gas is comfortable and convenient. A natural gas barbecue or fireplace can make any home more inviting. Our nation’s abundance of natural gas has made that deal even more enticing, offering affordable and stable prices for decades into the future.
As customers’ needs have evolved, so have the member companies of the American Gas Association. We help make homes and businesses more efficient, saving energy and money and helping to protect our environment. Compared to 1970, natural gas utilities today serve 30 million more residential customers with virtually no increases in emissions. Utilities budgeted $1.5 billion in efficiency programs for 2018, continuing a trend that helped customers eliminate 12.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2016. Our companies are finding new and innovative ways to reduce their carbon footprints and help their customers do the same. In this issue of American Gas, you will find an article about the further role of natural gas in our clean energy future.
In 2011, then-U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood brought together federal, state and industry stakeholders to discuss steps for making continued improvements to the safety and efficiency of the nation’s pipeline infrastructure. The focus was on accelerating the replacement of pipelines no longer fit for service to ensure a safe and reliable system for the next 100 years.
America’s natural gas utilities heeded the call, developing our “Commitment to Enhancing Safety,” which continues to this day and has prompted 41 states, including the District of Columbia, to adopt specific rate mechanisms that foster accelerated replacement of pipelines no longer fit for service.
As an industry, we face these challenges head on, and our comprehensive approach combines vigilance with the sharing of best practices that helps identify and mitigate threats.
Today, we face the imminent and evolving threat of cyber intrusion. It is a fact of modern life and of doing business in a 21st-century economy that anything connected to the internet is a target. Nation states and common criminals seek to steal sensitive information, reap financial gain or simply wreak havoc.
I have been receiving sensitive and classified briefings since 1983, when I first joined the House Intelligence Committee. Through 14 years in Congress and more than 20 years representing private industry, I have seen threats evolve. Our wired world, while undoubtedly making our lives more efficient and more convenient and bringing us closer together, is a gaping doorway for those who seek to do harm.
When I came to AGA seven years ago, I was proud to be able to call upon my deep background in cybersecurity. I was also grateful to have support from our Board of Directors, which recognized the critical importance of this issue and remains committed to sustained focus in the cyber arena. Our team of AGA “cyber ninjas” is also the best in the industry, providing guidance and expertise that reaches well beyond our relatively small sector.
You will also find in these pages an accounting of some of our latest efforts to help America’s natural gas utilities stay current with best practices and government guidelines. AGA is a recognized leader in cybersecurity. Not only do our members continue to improve the safety of the natural gas delivery system, but we also have developed strong relationships with the government agencies that are essential to our ability to stay current concerning threats and methods of protection and mitigation.
The threat never ceases, and neither will we.
President and CEO