INSIGHT: Alas, in Congressional Wonderland

28 June 2007 17:09  [Source: ICIS news]

By Joe Kamalick

 

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--This week Congress once more stepped through the looking glass to its own special wonderland of irony and the state of confusion.

 

On Tuesday the House of Representatives voted to continue its 26-year-old ban on drilling for natural gas and oil in 85% of the resource-rich US outer continental shelf (OCS). 

 

On the very same day, a key House panel declared that the US is increasingly dependent on overseas natural gas supplies and threatened to act against those foreign producing countries that may form a natgas cartel.

 

In again refusing offshore energy development, the House rejected an amendment put forward by Congressman John Peterson (Republican-Pennsylvania) to allow drilling only for gas in the outer 175 miles of the 200-mile wide US outer continental shelf region off the east and west coasts and off Alaska’s long shore. 

 

No drilling would have been allowed within the 25 miles closest to shore. As Peterson has pointed out, at a distance of 25 miles and more, drilling rigs would be beyond sight of the shore. And, as he has oft repeated to fellow members of Congress and anyone else who will listen, no gas well has ever polluted a beach or anything else.

 

Still, the House said no. 

 

And yet, that august body appears eager to rattle resolutions and sabres at foreign producing countries that appear to be moving toward formation of a natural gas exporters’ cartel.

 

As Peterson’s offshore gas measure was being voted down on the House floor, the House Foreign Affairs Committee gave apparent unanimous approval in a voice vote for resolution No. 500, “in opposition to efforts by major natural gas exporting countries to establish a cartel or other mechanism to manipulate the supply of natural gas to the world market”.

 

That resolution is aimed at the 16 member nations of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) who, as H. Resolution 500 notes, decided in April this year “to study proposals for greater coordination of policies, including pricing, that participants stated would be necessary for the creation of a cartel”.

 

Such a natural gas cartel, the resolution warns, “would pose a major threat to the price and supply of energy, [and] to the economy and security of the United States”.

 

The Foreign Affairs Committee resolved therefore that the US should make clear to the GECF countries that their formation of a gas cartel would be “an unfriendly act prejudicial to the security of the United States and of the world as a whole”.

 

The committee’s resolution, which is the kind of tough-talking, cost-free measure that is certain of full congressional approval, also says that the US should form a coalition of gas importing nations to act against the developing cartel.

 

With irony that is rich even by congressional standards, the resolution declares with a series of Whereas and Wherefore statements that the US must confront the gas cartel nations because:

• the US is increasingly dependent on foreign gas supplies;
• the cost of natural gas has tripled since 2000;
• that cost increase has had significant negative impact on US manufacturing and related jobs;
• in 2004 alone rising gas costs forced the closure of scores of US chemical companies and the loss of more than 100,000 jobs;
• gas-derived chemicals, plastics, and advanced composite materials are crucial components of the US defence industrial base;
• Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other US allies are heavily dependent on imported natural gas, and countries such as China and India are rapidly increasing their reliance on foreign suppliers;
• the supply of natural gas is controlled by a relatively small number of countries, including Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Algeria, and Qatar, among others;
• several of these countries have governments hostile to the US; and
• Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are urging formation of the cartel.

 All of which are perfectly sound reasons why Congress should lift the ban on offshore gas.

 

The US founding fathers did not design the federal legislative process to be quick or easy. Indeed, fearing the overbearing hand of government, they meant to make it difficult for Congress to pass laws. 

 

But surely they did not intend for Congress to be curiouser and curiouser.

By: Joe Kamalick
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