By Keely Sharp
Experts are warning that if Joe Biden decides to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline, then both farmers and consumers will pay the price.
As more than 200 celebrities and activists have called on Biden to close the pipeline, we can only pray he does not listen. Otherwise food prices can be expected to skyrocket.
I don’t know about you, but I already pay a pretty penny to get groceries for my family every week. To double that would be insane.
Agricultural economist Elaine Kub said that there are ripple effects to consider, because if oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota ends up being transported by rail instead of by the pipeline, farmers selling their products will suffer.
“If DAPL is shut down and a portion of the crude oil currently transported on the pipeline is shifted to the limited available rail car capacity, I estimate that the agricultural industry would lose more than $1 billion in annual farm revenue across the Corn Belt (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas), while higher transportation costs would simultaneously drive up food costs for consumers,” Kub argued in court last spring.
“The revenue losses would force farmers and processors to go out of business, eliminating jobs in the agriculture industry, particularly in the Upper Midwest states (Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and South Dakota), where rail congestion and delays caused by this increased volume would be most acute,” she said.
“If DAPL is shut down, a portion of its crude oil transportation capacity is expected to shift to rail lines that are already constrained,” Kub continued “This increase in the demand for rail transportation of crude oil, even if only a fraction of that transported by DAPL, would cause similar disruptive effects on grain markets in Upper Midwest states.”
“I confidently predict the agricultural industry could lose $1 billion or more in annual revenue if DAPL is no longer in service to prevent rail congestion,” she added.
Moreover, a spokesperson for the American Farm Bureau Federation told Fox Business the group “anticipates increased transportation costs for agriculture as a result of the increased transportation competition between agriculture products and oil.”
Stopping the flow of oil via the Dakota Access Pipeline will “hit the American people directly in the pocketbook,” said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute.
“The fact of the matter is that America needs energy for its everyday standard of living and that energy is going to come from somewhere,” Macchiarola told Fox Business.
“Any efforts to either stifle our infrastructure system or our exploration and production system, all of that accrues to the benefit of someone else, not the American people,” he said.
