[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 26012]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           NATURAL GAS CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak 
about an issue I have spoken about many times: the natural gas crisis 
that faces this country.
  Yes, we just passed an energy bill, but it did little to help our 
homeowners heat their homes. We have had a 500 percent increase in 
natural gas prices in the last 5 years. A month ago, when we were still 
facing the impact of Katrina, we had a 700 percent gas increase when it 
reached $14.50 when it had been $2 just 5 years ago.
  These natural gas prices, in my view, threaten homeownership, church 
ownership, schools, YMCAs, YWCAs, and small businesses.
  In my districts, those kinds of organizations are renewing their gas 
contracts, and they are paying 100 percent more than they paid last 
year and many times more than they paid a couple of years ago.

                              {time}  2000

  Industries like the fertilizer industry are being crushed by these 
natural gas prices because 70 percent of the cost of producing 
fertilizer is natural gas. Forty-four percent of our fertilizer 
companies are now offshore, and our farmers are paying two and three 
and four times as much for fertilizer as they did just several years 
ago.
  The huge petrochemical industry that is dominated by America will not 
be for long because there are 20 chemical plants being built in the 
world and 19 are offshore. Why? Natural gas prices. Petrochemicals use 
gas not only as a fuel, but they use it as an ingredient for all the 
chemicals we buy every day. Polymers and plastics involved in 
everything we market today use natural gas as an ingredient and natural 
gas as a fuel. Forty to fifty percent of their costs are natural gas.
  We have huge reserves in this country of natural gas. We are not poor 
on natural gas. Congress and Presidents have chosen to lock it up. Our 
Outer Continental Shelf, that is the first 200 miles offshore, is rich 
in natural gas.
  We have a bill that we introduced today that will open up the Outer 
Continental Shelf. We increase States' rights from three miles to 20 
miles so it will be all out of sight. There has never been a gas 
production well that has ever in any way soiled a beach. We need to 
unlock our natural gas supplies.
  Canada, Belgium, Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, 
and Australia produce most of their natural gas offshore, right off of 
their coastlines. They have beautiful beaches. They are not a threat. 
There has never been a gas production well that has ever in any way 
caused beach problems.
  I urge Members of this body to deal with this natural gas crisis. We 
have to open up some supply or we are going to lose major industries. A 
million or more jobs will be gone in the next 2 or 3 years, some of the 
best blue collar jobs we have left in this country.
  We cannot just subsidize people with natural gas prices. We need to 
bring prices down by increasing supply because we have lots of it. We 
have lots of it in the Midwest. But on the Outer Continental Shelf on 
our coastlines, it is right close to our population centers, it is 
right close to our plants and our manufacturers.
  We will not make steel in this country in the years ahead if we 
continue. We will not make aluminum in this country. We will not 
produce anything that uses natural gas to melt it, to bend it, to twist 
it, to treat it because we cannot afford it. Europe pays half as much 
for natural gas as we do. China, Taiwan, and Japan are big competitors 
economically and pay a third of what we pay for natural gas. The rest 
of the world pays less than $2.
  It is time to get our heads out of the sand. It is time to open up 
our natural gas reserves in this country and pass House bill 4318, 
which would open up huge reserves on our shorelines to produce natural 
gas in this country so we can compete and have jobs for our working 
people.

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