An energy crisis has arrived, Tauzin said

By GUY COATES The Associated Press 4/16/01 5:04 PM

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- An energy crisis "is upon us" and consumers will feel the pain until Congress fashions a new policy that includes more natural gas production, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said.

Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, said Monday that his committee will begin work next week, first on emergency legislation to help California, and then an overall policy to avoid energy shortages.

California's problems with power shortages and brownouts are due to policy decisions that put retail price ceilings on utilities, Tauzin said.

Government decisions are generally always the source of such problems, he said.

"Politicians generally yell about price gouging but when they get down to study what's going on, they always find out whatever mess there is has been caused by a policy decision."

He had no specifics on what the committee would try to fashion to help California or when such a bill could be acted on.

As for a national energy policy, Tauzin would not speculate on a timetable. Public pressure ultimately will do the job, he added.

"If America wants to feel the pain first, we will live with that," said Tauzin, whose home state has encouraged oil and gas production for nearly 100 years.

Natural gas prices rise while the national policy is to hamper production of more gas, he said, predicting that utility bills in the coming summer months will hit households even harder.

Tauzin strongly backs President Bush's plan to tap reserves in a pristine public area of Alaska that is off limits to drilling.

The wilderness area includes 19.6 million acres while production would be only on 2,000 acres, Tauzin said.

As for claims from environmental activists that the reserves would fuel the nation for only six months, Tauzin said the statistics are misleading. The gas in that field would handle any shortages for 30 years, he contended.

Also, just one area in the eastern Gulf of Mexico has seven trillion cubic feet of gas reserves. "But, Florida is objecting to drilling there," said Tauzin. "That area is just 65 miles from my district. It's 135 miles from Florida."

An energy policy also would focus on alternative fuels and conservation, he said. Yet, more production should be the main thrust.

Copyright 2000 Associated Press.

http://www.neworleans.net/newsflash/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?n4403_BC_LA--Tauzin&&news&newsflash-louisiana

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 17, 2001

Answers

Ah, yes! Feel the pain first, do something about it second. That's always the sequence. Foresight is never involved.

Looks like stage one of this pattern is about to set in this summer.

-- Wellesley (wellesley@freeport.net), April 17, 2001.