DOE Study re Export of LNG–Public Comment due

A – create your comment, using tips from C below

B – email your comment to  LNGStudy@hq.doe.gov.
Put 2012 LNG Export Study in the subject line.

C. Assumptions to critique (and destroy) in your comments:

1) the U.S. is projected to gain net economic benefits from allowing LNG exports.

2) for every one of the market scenarios examined, net economic benefits increased as the level of LNG exports increased. Under these conditions, allowing exports of LNG would cause no change in natural gas prices and do no harm to the overall economy. U.S. natural gas prices increase when the U.S. exports LNG. But the global market limits how high U.S. natural gas prices can rise under pressure of LNG exports because importers will not purchase U.S. exports if U.S. wellhead price rises above the cost of competing supplies.

This is a fracking gross assumption as no one knows what will or can happen globally, e.g. war, other countries become more fed up with the U.S. and its imperialism, famine here and in other countries, devastating storms,etc.

3) Theoretical scenarios were created that resulted in these theoretical assumptions.

4) “Across all these scenarios, the U.S. was projected to gain net economic benefits from allowing
LNG exports. Moreover, for every one of the market scenarios examined, net economic benefits
increased as the level of LNG exports increased. In particular, scenarios with unlimited exports
always had higher net economic benefits than corresponding cases with limited exports.
In all of these cases, benefits that come from export expansion more than outweigh the losses
from reduced capital and wage income to U.S. consumers, and hence LNG exports have net
economic benefits in spite of higher domestic natural gas prices. This is exactly the outcome that
economic theory describes when barriers to trade are removed.” 

These assumptions are based on global free trade economic theory created in computers and in the fevered brains of academics and govt. consultants, not on the on the ground experiences of people living in shale drilling areas in the U.S. 
That is, the effects on the air, water, soil, psychology, sociology, etc. of shale communities are NOT factored in.

5) Producing large quantities of shale at low cost, a desirable requisite for the theoretical outcomes to work according to the NERA study provided to the DOE (study and FED Register notice attached), is EXACTLY one of the main problems with shale drilling.

Cutting corners, haste, lack of transparency, confidentiality agreements when contamination of drinking water, pollution of soils, death of animals, human sickness, etc. occur, fracturing of community society, costs of increased crime, housing costs, externalization of costs onto shale drilling communities, bribing of electeds with huge amounts of campaign contributions or fire trucks, etc.  

None of this is factored into the economic theory driving the arguments for export of LNG other than in this dismissive comment in the study’s summary – “How increased LNG exports will affect different socioeconomic groups will depend on their income sources. Like other trade measures, LNG exports will cause shifts in industrial output and employment and in sources of income. Overall, both total labor compensation and income from investment are projected to decline, and income to owners of natural gas resources will increase. Different socioeconomic groups depend on different sources of income, though through retirement savings an increasingly large number of workers share in the benefits of higher income to natural resource companies whose shares they own. Nevertheless, impacts will not be positive for all groups in the economy. Households with income solely from wages or government transfers, in particular, might not participate in these benefits.”

Hope this helps.
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