At an election event in Kiryat Tivon in northern Israel, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid was asked about Israel's natural gas reserves. Before we go into what he said, let's go back a bit.
The first large gas field (Tamar) was discovered in 2009. Immediately, the naysaying started up. Some were enthusiastic supporters of the approach of the socialist then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who quickly turned Venezuela from a rich country into a poor one. They launched a campaign to stop the development of the field and keep the rich from getting richer.
They settled on a method. Each time, they would look for a new controversial issue, round up vocal demonstrators, rope in the media and use it to influence public opinion and the courts, demand the establishment of a committee to look into the matter, and in the meantime, bring everything to a halt. From time to time, an election was held, everything would freeze and the gas could stay in the seabed.
They started with the Sheshinski Committee on how the gas would be taxed. How is it, they argued, that the companies would pay taxes like everyone else? On important matters, the government hands out sweeping tax benefits (like the ones it gives Intel). When it comes to matters of no consequence like natural gas, not only were no benefits offered, a double rate was levied on the gas exploration companies. After the committee's recommendations were published, the Tamar gas collective announced it would cease development of the site. It was the first Pyrrhic victory for the opponents of Israel's natural gas resources.
In 2011, they searched for another excuse: export. Israel must not export large quantities, they said, it must restrict itself to the local market. A decision was made to stop work and establish the Zemach Committee, which recommended doubling the amount that Israel could not export.
Then in 2013, a new issue popped up: the royalties were too low. Then-Finance Minister Yair Lapid stopped things and set up the second Sheshinski Committee, which held lengthy meetings, submitted recommendations, and heard objections – business as usual.
Once 2015 rolled around, there was a new government and a new finance minister (Moshe Kahlon) and the anti-gas lobby found a new excuse: market concentration. There weren't enough companies in the field so the natural gas arena was a kind of monopoly. That didn't bother the "anti-gassists" when it came to the Israel Electric Corporation, for example, but as we've said, gas is unimportant. Once again, everything had to stop and a committee got together. A decision was taken to force the exploration and extracting companies to sell parts of the project and reduce their activity.
And then a new issue arose: licensing. An argument was made that licenses were issued illegally and they should be canceled and new tenders published. Another committee convened and arrived at the "framework" for Israel's natural gas industry. And once again, there was opposition, petitions to the High Court of Justice, a supportive media, and before we realized it, it was 2019.
A decade! Ten years of polluted air and tiny royalties vs. what we could have had. Even if there was something to be said for some of the arguments against the gas projects, we've all lost out over the past decade. Natural gas went from being a national treasure to a hot-button issue that every politician uses to score points. Now yet another issue has been raised: the offshore gas rig, which was built 10 kilometers off the coast at enormous expense must be moved to the west. It causes pollution, they explain, ironically enough.
Let's go back to Lapid at the election conference. He promised that if he was elected, he would stop everything and … you guessed it … set up a committee to look into the location of the rig. Really, this is starting to get old. Should we do what MK Dov Khenin suggests and nationalize the natural gas industry? It didn't work in Venezuela but maybe we might have more luck.
