Greenspan Ditches 'Green' for Natural Gas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Thursday said growing U.S. demand for natural gas to fuel factories and electricity plants may outweigh environmentalists' desire to preserve wilderness areas that contain energy reserves. ADVERTISEMENT

A sharp rise in natural gas prices and an unusually low stockpile of the fuel has grabbed the attention of the Bush administration and lawmakers. As a result, Greenspan -- whose appearances on Capitol Hill usually feature discussion of broad economic trends -- was asked to testify at the Senate Energy Committee on the impact of high gas prices.

The Senate will resume debate on a broad energy bill later this month. The Bush administration and many Republicans want to allow drilling on more federal land in the Rocky Mountains, while Democrats and environmental groups support energy conservation and renewable fuels.

Commenting on the growing need for natural gas and the resulting environmental concerns, Greenspan said: "We've got to make those trade-offs. They are very difficult."

"It is essential that one recognizes what the cost in energy policy is if you restrict the access to certain areas" that contain natural gas reserves, he said.

Natural gas prices in the wholesale spot market recently doubled from a year ago, rising to about $6 per million British thermal units (Btu). A cold winter drained inventories to a record low earlier this year, but the stockpile has steadily grown during the past month and is now only about 15 percent below normal.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration earlier this week noted the rise in stocks and forecast prices of $4.80-$5.10 per million Btu for the rest of 2003.

On Wednesday, congressional sources said House Speaker Dennis Hastert will appoint a panel of 18 lawmakers to recommend legislation needed to boost natural gas production.

As a backup for domestic production, Greenspan also called for a "major expansion" of facilities to import liquefied natural gas (LNG).

LNG is natural gas cooled to minus 259 degrees Fahrenheit, a process which converts it to liquid form for shipment. After shipping, it is converted back into gaseous form and moved into pipelines to users like industrial plants and utilities.

"I would much prefer that we met domestic consumption with effectively North American production," Greenspan said. However, more LNG import terminals should be built as a back-up to U.S., Canadian and Mexican production, he said.

"LNG is the ultimate safety valve, even if we don't use it," Greenspan said. "Without the flexibility such (LNG) facilities will impart, imbalances in supply and demand must inevitably engender price volatility."

Algeria, Nigeria, Trinidad, Russia and Venezuela are among current and potential exporters of LNG to the United States.

Some 14 LNG projects have been proposed for the U.S. market in recent months, including expansion of Georgia's Elba Island terminal and new facilities off Louisiana, Texas, California, the Bahamas and Mexico.

Three LNG terminals now exist in Cove Point, Maryland; Lake Charles, Louisiana; and outside Boston.

ChevronTexaco Corp. (NYSE:CVX - News), ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP - News) , Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE:MRO - News), and Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM - News) have announced plans to make LNG a bigger part of operations.

U.S. demand for natural gas is forecast to top 35 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) by 2025, a jump of 52 percent from this year.

In CA, at least, the EnvironMental Communutty has forced the demand for clean nat-gas. They've dried up the dam building, closed nuke plants and coal or oil fired plants!

The NIMBY's and BANANA's and Home-a-Phobes and Luddites fight every power plant proposal and nat-gas are the only ones left that have any chance of approval and even they have to have the State Energy Commission overide local agitators as in San Jose, recently.

It's no wonder this is happening, plus you can't get a decent pipeline built due to the EnvironMental tormentors. Where the hell do our so-called leaders think we're gonna end up with alla this crappola... Yup! In another manufactured crisis that they have been totally intimidated in dealing with up to this point.

It's looking more and more like these anti-economic nature pimps are gonna succeed in "bringing it all down," until America is just another country, mediocre in every way and with all it's resourses locked up for future generations.

Of course they'll be living in caves with no light or heat except by burning their own waste, which will be scarce due to so little to eat! They'll be up to their asses in wildlife, expecially allegators and no fuel to run the dozer to drain their swamp!!!

The whole situation with these creeple people is going beyond bizarre... way, WAY beyond!!! But, the people just keep humoring these whacko's insatiable desire to put us all out of productive work and economic stability and now it's "news" when Greenspam says we must face facts and trade-offs. Incredible!!!

Long, green arm of the law

Posted: July 12, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A handful of the largest environmental organizations have increased their revenue by more than one-third, since the 2000 election, expressly for the purpose of beating George Bush in the 2004 election.

The League of Conservation Voters doubled its revenue between 1999 and 2001, while the Sierra Club tripled its revenue, according to IRS records. LCV president Deb Callahan says the 2004 election will be the most important election in the history of the green movement.

Leaders of these same environmental organizations virtually ran the Clinton-Gore administration. A few of the more conspicuous:

LCV president Bruce Babbitt, who was interior secretary under Clinton;
Wilderness Society contributed Alice Rivlin, budget director, and George Frampton, chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service;
World Wildlife Fund provided Thomas E. Lovejoy, a "scientific adviser," to the Department of Interior;
World Resources Institute offered three people: Gustave Speth, who served on the transition team, and then moved to the U.N. Development Program, as well as Rafe Pomerance and Jessica Tuchman Mathews, both of whom became deputy secretaries of state;
Sierra Club Legislative Director David Gardiner joined the planning department at the EPA;
National Audubon Society's Brooks Yeager, a policy analyst for Department of Interior;
Natural Resources Defense Council's John Leshy, solicitor of the Department of Interior.
Once inside the government, these people hired other environmental organization leaders to fill middle-management, and field positions throughout the various agencies. These middle-management types are protected by civil service rules, and many are still at work inside the Bush administration.

No wonder the Clinton-Gore administration advanced the extreme green agenda. No wonder the green extremists are so desperate to get rid of George Bush, who disrupted their use of the government to advance their extreme agenda.

Now, these same environmental organizations have the audacity to charge the Bush administration of being "in the pocket" of corporate polluters, when it is they who polluted the government for eight years.

The green extremists are desperate. They are using their new money to organize at the local level in key states, such as Florida and New Mexico. They will not rely simply on TV ads; they are arranging community workshops and get-out-the-vote programs. Winning is the goal, and any means to that end is acceptable.

Propaganda is still their most potent weapon. When the Bush administration edited an EPA report to remove references to global warming predictions developed during the Clinton-Gore era, the greens cried "censorship," and newspapers across the country amplified their charge. The predictions were omitted because, since they were developed, they have been subsequently disavowed by scientists around the world, as fatally flawed numbers that bear no resemblance to reality.

In their propaganda, however, these same environmental organizations censor the scientific data that disproves the catastrophic claims they continue to make. Even as the fires continue to destroy the forests that their anti-logging policies were said to protect, the greens ignore scientific facts, and the truth, in order to point the finger of blame at Bush, claiming that his goal is to reward loggers with profits from public lands.

These people are dangerous. Their goal is control. They have successfully used the environment as an excuse to impose all kinds of regulations to bring society under the control of central government authority – which they expect to implement once more, after Bush is defeated. They will stop at nothing.

These green extremist organizations are fueled by dozens of huge, left-leaning foundations, by federal grants, and by misguided individuals who continue to believe their propaganda.

Opponents of their government-enforced, worship-the-earth policies are at a disadvantage, because they have no giant foundations to provide funding, and they disdain federal grants. While the Ford Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts are only two of dozens of foundations that fund green extremists, the tiny Paragon Foundation is almost alone in its efforts to encourage property rights and resource use organizations.

The 2004 elections may well be the most important in the history of the green movement. If they are successful in recapturing the government, a renewal of the Clinton-Gore surrender to global governance will surely follow, as will the continuation of laws and regulations that abolish private property rights and the continuation of ever-tightening government control over every facet of human life.

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