Jackson Jambalaya

Time will tell what happens with the tariffs upheaval and long-term impacts on the U.S. economy, but a friend in DC, Tim Stewart with the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, describes it this way:

"We are witnessing a wholesale self-remodeling of a house that is 75 years old. One day the owner walks into the kitchen and says, "All of this is old and nothing works anymore." So the owner has a new kitchen in mind and begins demolition without explaining to his wife what he is doing or what the new kitchen is going to look like. Right now, we are watching the demolition, and it is disconcerting."

While trade and energy issues are quite different, they intersect, and both are best viewed through a very long-term lens. (BTW, energy products like oil and gas were excluded from the recent tariffs.) Akin to trade policies that take years to settle out, most major energy projects are very capital intensive requiring years of development with plans for long operating lives. Projects that start (or are thwarted) in one political term yield benefits (or opportunity loss) many terms down the road.

Take Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Claiborne County, which began construction when Bill Waller was Governor and Richard Nixon was President. 9 Governors and 10 Presidents later, Grand Gulf remains central Mississippi's single largest and cost effective electric generating facility with at least 20 more years of life.

More often than not, energy policies impact the market and consumers years after their enactment more so than immediately. Drastically changing policy schemes at the federal level from one Administration to the next in recent years has hindered long-term project development in areas like nuclear power expansion and offshore energy development.

The Biden Administration was the worst 4 years of energy policy in U.S. history, peddling the lie to the American people about an energy transition away from oil, coal and natural gas while doing little to nothing towards increasing nuclear power and while China and India were (and continue) adding energy at a record pace. The fact is, the U.S. is not in an energy transition but in an energy race.

The currency for future industrial growth is electricity. Those places capable of adding reliable electricity capacity and adding it faster than others will be an oasis for future manufacturing and technology investments. This could be an advantage for Mississippi if it plays its cards right, meaning proactively laying the policy groundwork today for the energy infrastructure investment needed to support manufacturing and technology industry growth for the next generation.