Key US offshore energy champion leaving Congress

03 January 2008 22:27  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Congressman John Peterson (Republican-Pennsylvania), a leading congressional advocate for broad development of US offshore gas resources, said on Thursday he will leave Congress at the end of this year.

 

Citing “non-threatening health issues” and a desire to spend more time with his family, Peterson said he will not run for re-election to the congressional seat he has held for ten years.

 

Peterson’s current two-year term will expire at the end of 2008.

 

During the past three years, Peterson has led an effort in the House of Representatives to overturn a 26-year-old congressional moratorium on exploration and development of 85% of vast US oil and gas reserves that lie under the outer continental shelf (OCS) off US east and west coasts and along Alaska’s lengthy shore.

 

Congress put the drilling ban in place in the early 1980s when natural gas was plentiful and typically sold around $2/m Btu. Since 1999, however, increasing demand for and maturing domestic production of natural gas has led to a four-fold increase in prices, eroding margins for many US chemical producers who rely on gas as both a feedstock and energy fuel.

 

Peterson championed a successful 2006 effort in Congress to open a small sliver of previously barred offshore territory in the eastern US Gulf to energy development.  More recently, he introduced legislation in the House of Representatives in June that would open broad areas of the 200-mile wide outer continental shelf to gas drilling only.

 

That bill, HR-2784, titled the National Environment and Energy Development (NEED) Act, would open the outer 100-miles of the OCS to gas-only drilling but allow coastal states to continue bans on drilling within the 100 miles of the continental shelf nearest their shores. States allowing gas drilling in part of the inner 100-mile OCS region would earn a share of federal lease royalties.

 

The bill also would set aside some federal royalty revenues for environmental remediation and renewable fuels research.

 

Although Peterson has gathered 165 cosponsors in the 435-member House - or about 75% of the votes needed for passage - he recently complained that Democrat leaders in Congress would not allow his bill to advance.

 

With Peterson leaving at year-end, the fate of his NEED Act is uncertain at best.

 

However, in announcing his retirement, Peterson said that work on increased domestic energy production is “on the right track and continued public education and support will bring about the right solutions”.

 

“Congress is losing a key leader on this important issue for American energy consumers,” said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA).

By: Joe Kamalick
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