Darth Sidious
New member
What is the long and short?
Natural Gas in the US has never been cheaper! It had a brief spike this year due to an unusually cold winter but the stuff is cheap and abundant. This is great news for consumers and businesses that use natural gas, not good for coal which is dirty and not entirely great either for natural gas producers either.
Current law restricts natural gas export.
A law dating back to 1938 restricts such exports. For the 20 countries that are free-trade partners with the U.S., such as Mexico and South Korea, the law requires the Energy Department, which has primary authority over energy exports, to automatically approve applications to export natural gas. For countries that do not have free-trade agreements with the U.S., which happen to be the ones who want our gas the most (i.e., Ukraine and other European nations) the law says the Energy Department must first determine whether it’s in the “public interest.” This means DOE must determine whether exporting natural gas to these countries serves the U.S. interests, weighing factors like the economy, environment and national security.
Good Guy Gas companies and good guy republicans in general now want to be able to export natural gas to europe as a bulwark against Russia's monopoly on gas in the region.
Consumers and Businesses that use american gas are wary because of the most basic lesson in economics that teaches, as demand increases, so does price.
Even if we said sure, ship it all, the infrastructure needed to make that happen would not be in place to stave off the crisis now unfolding.
What’s the big controversy? I thought exports were generally a good thing?
As a general rule, exports usually are. When energy prices are involved, things get complicated. Some people, mainly Democrats and big U.S. consumers of natural gas, worry that exports will force up gas prices in the U.S., squandering a competitive advantage. President Barack Obama is trying to find the right balance between allowing exports without substantially raising prices, now among the lowest in the world. Remember, domestic prices were triple what they are now less than 10 years ago. Don’t even get us started on the politics of exporting crude oil, which we mostly ban right now.
More here:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/03/12/natural-gas-exports-101-beyond-ukraine/
Natural Gas in the US has never been cheaper! It had a brief spike this year due to an unusually cold winter but the stuff is cheap and abundant. This is great news for consumers and businesses that use natural gas, not good for coal which is dirty and not entirely great either for natural gas producers either.
Current law restricts natural gas export.
A law dating back to 1938 restricts such exports. For the 20 countries that are free-trade partners with the U.S., such as Mexico and South Korea, the law requires the Energy Department, which has primary authority over energy exports, to automatically approve applications to export natural gas. For countries that do not have free-trade agreements with the U.S., which happen to be the ones who want our gas the most (i.e., Ukraine and other European nations) the law says the Energy Department must first determine whether it’s in the “public interest.” This means DOE must determine whether exporting natural gas to these countries serves the U.S. interests, weighing factors like the economy, environment and national security.
Good Guy Gas companies and good guy republicans in general now want to be able to export natural gas to europe as a bulwark against Russia's monopoly on gas in the region.
Consumers and Businesses that use american gas are wary because of the most basic lesson in economics that teaches, as demand increases, so does price.
Even if we said sure, ship it all, the infrastructure needed to make that happen would not be in place to stave off the crisis now unfolding.
What’s the big controversy? I thought exports were generally a good thing?
As a general rule, exports usually are. When energy prices are involved, things get complicated. Some people, mainly Democrats and big U.S. consumers of natural gas, worry that exports will force up gas prices in the U.S., squandering a competitive advantage. President Barack Obama is trying to find the right balance between allowing exports without substantially raising prices, now among the lowest in the world. Remember, domestic prices were triple what they are now less than 10 years ago. Don’t even get us started on the politics of exporting crude oil, which we mostly ban right now.
More here:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/03/12/natural-gas-exports-101-beyond-ukraine/
