LEONARD GRAY-Staff Reporter

TAFT – New efforts are under way to tackle the natural gas price dilemma, spearheaded by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington, D.C.

Chairman Billy Tauzin Jr. came to his home district, seeking industry ideas and suggestions to do just that – and left with an earful.

“It starts here, and it could end here, if we don’t do something about it,” Tauzin said.

Tauzin spoke for an hour, throwing off his scheduled stop at Dow/St. Charles Operations in Taft, to elaborate on the issues of price, distribution, unfair competition and impending industrial disaster, prior to hearing comments and questions from the audience.

The site of Tauzin’s meeting was significant, as Dow is hit doubly hard by the natural gas crunch. Dow uses natural gas both as a fuel source and as feed stock for its products.

Tauzin’s committee is drafting a report, due at the end of September to the Speaker of the House, to develop a new national natural gas policy. One of the cornerstones will be to increase natural gas drilling off the Louisiana coast, both increasing supply and also boosting Louisiana jobs.

Tauzin, who is co-chairing the 18-member task force assembling the new national policy along with Rep. Richard Pombo of California, was preaching to the choir. The room was packed with industry representives from across the River Parishes, along with several area government leaders including all three parish presidents.

In July, Tauzin said, Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve System came four times to Capitol Hill to talk about natural gas, an indication of the issue’s importance on the national scene. Unless something is done, and done quickly, prices could double and triple by winter.

It would appear to be a no-brainer, except for the fierce resistance to the new policy, especially from politicians in Florida and California – the same states which produce less natural gas while using the lion’s share of the national supply.

On the other hand, producer states such as Louisiana, which has the highest per capita consumption (mostly by major industry) is stalled on offshore drilling rights. Meanwhile, Louisiana supplied more manpower per capita to the Gulf War, much of the troops made up of unemployed oil field workers.

Dow St. Charles Site Leader Bob Walker performed the introduction to the meeting, reviewing that company’s point of view in the issue. Walker pointed out that U.S. natural gas prices are the highest in the world, and said, “If we want to have a globally competitive U.S. chemical industry, a way must be found now to restore these fundamental raw materials toa price that can compete favorably with alternative materials in other countries.”

Walker added consumers will pay $70 billion more for gas in 2003 than the year before, and many industries are looking at closing down U.S. plants and relocating overseas, to take advantage of lower prices and cheaper labor.

Walker said Dow has already instituted conservation efforts and cost controls, as well as shifting some production units overseas – at a loss to U.S. jobs. There is also a wage and salary freeze at Dow, as well.

Tauzin responded some of the other efforts under way are to unlock drilling permit applications, speeding up the approval process from six months to 90 days or less.

Comments and questions included Jas Gill of Cytec, who pointed out his plant has already shut down two major units and lost hundreds of jobs, all due to rising natural gas prices.

Tauzin also pushed for unlocking drilling rights to federal lands and urged natural gas “has to be found, has to be economically able to produce and physically able to produce.”

He offered two websites where constituents may contact him with more ideas on the policy. These are www.house.gov/tauzin and energycommerce.house.gov