The Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) urged President Bush last week to “declare war on high natural gas prices” and invoke his emergency executive power to “bring about the short-term regulatory changes needed to reduce the threat of natural gas shortages and prevent sustained high price levels that are dismantling the nation’s manufacturing base.”

In a paper sent to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in preparation for the emergency summit on gas issues last week at the National Petroleum Council (NPC), the IECA stopped short of calling for gas price caps and gas supply allocations. Such actions “normally [are] counter productive,” the group said. The IECA is a nonprofit organization representing a number of large steel, chemical, food processing and manufacturing companies, including Bayer Corp., Coors Brewing, Dow Chemical, Dow Corning, Eastman Chemical, Owens Corning, Riceland Foods, Terrra Industries, The Timken Co. and many others.

The IECA’s paper, “Recommended Emergency Actions for Federal and State Policy Makers,” lists 13 short- and medium-term actions that include both supply and demand side recommendations, including the following key measures:

Earlier this year, the IECA sent a letter to every member of Congress explaining its concerns about natural gas. The IECA said the manufacturing sector has lost two million jobs since 1998 and energy costs are a major contributing factor (see Daily GPI, Jan. 22). The group suggested a variety of methods to increase gas supply, including reinstating the expired Section 29 tax credits, which had an important impact on increasing natural gas production from 1990 to 1999. It also recommended expediting access to federal lands that offer the greatest potential to find large reserves of natural gas with minimal environmental impact, and permitting and constructing the Alaska natural gas pipeline and liquefied natural gas import terminals.

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