CAES News
CAES: CONGRESS MUST BUILD ON MODEST MMS PROPOSAL
EMBARGOED UNTIL 3 PM EDT
CAES: CONGRESS MUST BUILD ON MODEST MMS PROPOSAL
WASHINGTON, DC (April 30, 2007) – Today the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced its Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas leasing plan for 2007-2012. The Consumer Alliance on Energy Security, a broad coalition of groups representing millions of Americans whose livelihoods depend on reliable and affordable supplies of energy, issued the following statement:
“U.S. energy policy needs to embrace both energy efficiency and adequate supplies of clean energy to allow economic growth and ongoing environmental improvement. The MMS plan announced today is a modest step toward expanding access to domestic energy supplies in the OCS. We believe the agency should have made more OCS acreage available for development. Despite recent legislative successes to increase access to domestic energy supplies, decades of Congressional inaction keeps more than 80 percent of the OCS off-limits. The abundant natural gas in the OCS is critical to fulfill the needs of American consumers, sustain the nation’s manufacturing and agricultural economies and jobs, and enhance energy security.
“It’s striking that with the domestic natural gas market severely constrained by federal policy, Congress is considering a raft of new proposals that will significantly increase natural gas demand without addressing the urgent need for more supply. Proposals under development would legislate greater demand for natural gas to generate electricity, produce renewable transportation fuels and create the materials needed to make wind and solar power, lighter weight vehicles, and energy efficient buildings and appliances. While the appeal of natural gas as a clean energy source is evident, current natural gas production simply cannot meet these emerging needs. Given the economic damage the U.S. has suffered from high natural gas prices in recent years, it would simply be irresponsible to create additional demand for natural gas without also allowing supplies to grow.
“These new energy demand pressures should persuade Congress to look for ways to increase access to domestic natural gas supplies, both onshore and offshore. Unfortunately, some members of Congress are moving in the opposite direction. Certain proposals in the House of Representatives would roll back important supply provisions enacted in the last Congress, such as those in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
“American consumers suffer the consequences of Congress’s conflicting approach to energy policy. They’ve learned the hard way that legislating new demand while restricting access to new supply leads to high and volatile prices, ‘demand destruction’ in the manufacturing sector and huge job losses. Between 2000 and 2005 rising demand combined with policy-induced scarce supplies led to a $425 billion increase in the nation’s natural gas costs and contributed to the loss of more than three million manufacturing jobs as well as huge increases in the costs farmers incur to produce food and fiber for our nation. And consumers’ natural gas heating bills have more than doubled from an average $465 in the winter of 2001-2002 to $946 in 2005-2006.
“At the very least, Congress should support MMS’s limited efforts to expand access to the nation’s energy supplies while rejecting any proposal that would roll back existing supply policies. With a true understanding of the nation’s impending energy requirements, Congress should go further, address the supply requirements inherent in its proposals and develop supply policies equal to America’s energy demand growth.”
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Contacts:
Jennifer Scott Kat Snodgrass
American Chemistry Council National Association of Manufacturers
(703) 741-5813 (202) 637-3000
jennifer_scott@americanchemistry.org ksnodgrass@nam.org
Charles Lardner
American Forest & Paper Association
(202) 463-2459
Charles_Lardner@afandpa.org