Iowa Farmers Push for Offshore Natural-Gas Exploration

By Dan Gearino, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa

May 10–DES MOINES — Reeling from high fertilizer prices, Iowa farm leaders said Tuesday that the U.S. Congress needs to approve a bill that would open an offshore area near the Gulf Coast for natural-gas exploration.

Natural gas is used to produce nitrogen fertilizers, so recent spikes in gas prices have sent ripples across the farm economy.

“I’m going to sacrifice one year of my son’s college education to pay for nitrogen,” said Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Lang of Brooklyn.

The Statehouse news conference was organized by the Consumer Alliance for Energy Security, a lobbying group that pushes for expanded access to fossil fuels.

The group is making its case to Iowa’s congressional delegation and to potential 2008 presidential candidates who may campaign in the state.

The price of natural gas more than doubled over the last 10 years, with commercial customers paying an average of $11.57 per thousand cubic feet last year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The recent high prices are tied to the Gulf Coast hurricanes last year, which damaged the energy infrastructure in Louisiana and Mississippi.

“America has some of the highest natural gas rates in the world,” said Rep. Jim Kurtenbach, R-Nevada.

He said the bill in Congress would allow exploration for natural gas in an area roughly 150 miles from the Gulf Coast.

The bill is opposed by environmental groups such as the Sierra Club. The group lists the bill as one of many proposals that would reverse a decades-old moratorium on drilling for energy near America’s coastlines.

“Pro-drilling forces are aggressively pushing, with the help of powerful Congressional allies, bills that would undermine the moratoria that protect our coasts,” said a Sierra Club position paper.

—–

To see more of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wcfcourier.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.