Perspective: What Should the Priority be for Congress and the Administration?

The exit polls from the November 5^th election
showed that an overwhelming majority of voters’ top priority was the expansion
of the economy with attendant job creation. Fortunately, this wish can be
accommodated because we have a unique once in a life time opportunity that stares
us right in the face; namely, our natural gas and petroleum windfall!! The
wonderful part of this opportunity is that it also meets the main principles
that both parties hold in common, namely:  

• Job
  Creation
• Protection
  of the Environment
• Protection
  of Our Citizens

Therefore, what the Congress and the President need to do is
to focus like a laser to create and pass legislation to (1)Maximize the development
and the exploitation of our vast reserves of natural gas and oil and (2) eliminate
the disadvantage our corporations have by making their taxes globally competitive. 

Here is how it would work: 

Creation of Low Tech Jobs:

It turns out that the cost of natural gas is about half that
of gas or diesel fuels, and we have the technology to convert the internal
combustion engines from gas or diesel to compressed natural gas (CNG), and we
have the technology to create the re-fueling facilities. Many of our busses,
taxis and garbage trucks have already been converted. 

If we were to adopt a National policy to convert a maximum
number of our trucks and cars to CNG, and we installed the needed re-fueling
stations across the Nation, millions of low skill jobs could be created for
those underemployed or who have stopped looking for employment. This could
begin at once and would probably take two decades or so to complete. Most of
the currently unemployed and underemployed have sufficient skills to perform
these tasks with minimum if any additional training. Moreover, because the need
to build this infrastructure is national in scale, most of these jobs are in
the very areas where these persons currently reside.  

Creation of High Tech Jobs:

Ethane, a major building block for chemicals and polymers,
is a component of natural gas. As a result the availability of this low cost
raw material, numerous chemical manufacturers, who in recent years have moved
plants overseas, now plan multi-billion dollar plants in the US.
BASF a German chemical company and incidentally the largest chemical
manufacturer in the world, is planning a 4 billion dollar petrochemical plant in
the US based on
this low cost ethane gas.  We can expect
that the low cost of energy from methane along with our leading edge in
technology will play a role in bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US.
If there are no serious regulations or tax barriers to thwart this effort, we
can expect to see the middle class income to rise as these new jobs pay wages
significantly above the wages middle class workers make today.

 

Protection of the Environment

Converting our internal combustion engines to CNG, would
reduce carbon emissions by 25% or more and toxic emissions by more than 50%. No
other environmental plan could have a greater favorable and immediate impact on
the environment than this program. Moreover, we could stop putting food in our
gas tanks by the elimination of ethanol as a gas addititive. 

Protection of our Citizens

It turns out that the same fracking technology which
produces natural gas also produces oil. As a result very shortly we will be
self sufficient in oil so much so that we could become an exporter of oil, and
if we convert trucks and cars to CNG, we would even have more oil to export. By
exporting oil to Europe, we could cause Russia’s
share of the market to drop as well as their prices. Since Russia’s
economy is completely dependent on revenue from oil and gas, this action would
have a greater impact than any sanctions. Furthermore, this would be a much
better way to deal with Russia
than to have a military conflict. 

Advantages of Proposed Policy:

In addition to creating jobs, helping with environmental
issues and strengthening our hand in the confrontation with Russia,
there are numerous financial benefits that accrue to this program as well.
First, while inflation overall has been below 2 percent for the past decade or
so, food, gas and heating fuel prices have nearly doubled. The increases in the
prices of these items have impacted the middle class disproportionately. Secondly,
with corn removed from fuel and returned to its use as food, the price of food
will come down. Thirdly, with local production of oil, OPEC control of the
price of oil will be neutralized, so one might expect heating fuel prices to be
reduced, as well. Finally, the dollar will be strengthened by our not having to
import oil, and enhanced further by our export of newly discovered  oil as well as the export of corn which will no
longer be needed for ethanol. 

Enacting an energy policy will return the United
States to a place of economic and political
leadership in the world. But most importantly, it will give the middle class
hope and confidence that the American Dream is not dead. They could have faith
that their children can do as well as or perhaps even better than they. When in
history has there been such an opportunity to solve so many problems at once?