September 2, 2008
The Honorable Samuel W. Bodman
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20585
Dear Secretary Bodman,
On June 3, 2008 and July 30, 2008 respectively, your Department issued and affirmed an order pursuant to Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act that will allow two major integrated oil companies – ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil – to export 98.1 billion cubic feet of Alaskan natural gas to Japan and other Pacific Rim countries. This order, which will allow the export of as much natural gas as is used by 1.4 million American families in a year, comes at a time when the President had demanded that the moratoria on oil and gas drilling along our environmentally-sensitive coastal areas be lifted and Americans are being warned that their winter heating bills are going to be dramatically higher. The Administration is trying to have it both ways – arguing that we need to drill everywhere because we don’t have adequate energy supplies, while finding that we have so much energy that big oil companies can export it overseas and keep prices here at home higher than they would otherwise be. On its face, the order that Department has issued to allow the continued export of Alaskan natural gas does not meet the public interest test required by the Natural Gas Act and I respectfully request that you review and revoke it.
[Nor does it support the idiotic claim that drilling anywhere, will produce lower gas prices in the immediate future.]
The full letter is here.
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