Pipelines can bring affordable energy in optimal ways, if we better help support and educate the local workforce we need to build them. Read on as Tim Page, Southeast Director of the Consumer Energy Alliance, discusses the pipeline's many benefits via his LTE in The Fayetteville Observer.

 From the article:

"The Atlantic Coast Pipeline recently received a set of important federal and state authorizations. When the remaining permits are acquired, more than 17,000 workers will lay steel pipe from West Virginia and Virginia through North Carolina.

That’s why efforts are underway to develop a workforce that’ll build the pipeline safely. Recently, hundreds attended job fairs in four North Carolina cities, Fayetteville and Lumberton included. The Laborers’ International Union of North America and Nash Community College are also partnering to recruit and train employees from several counties.

Supporters of the pipeline are eager to see the project and the thousands of jobs it’ll bring to communities that saw decades of industrial decline.

Northampton and Halifax counties, and many others, are set to see tax revenues close to a million dollars and permanent jobs for their small communities.

What’s more, pipelines help lower household energy expenses. Currently, North Carolinians spend just over $3,000 annually on energy. For those in poverty, that translates to 25 percent of their take-home pay. Pipelines reduce this burden by bringing in more resources and alleviating bottlenecks that occur when demand climbs and rates soar.

Studies also show that moving resources via pipeline is 4.5 times safer than moving the same amount of energy across the same distance by other means. They also reduce emissions by decreasing energy transported by road, rail and ocean vessels."

Read the full article and more in The Fayetteville Observer