Washington, D.C. – Leadership from America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) announced that a vast majority of the U.S. public participating in a poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and the Mellman Group saw the natural gas industry in a positive light and supported natural gas use as an important part of the country’s future energy needs.

Over 75% of those polled expected natural gas to play a significant role in the country’s energy future with 78% of the general public viewing it as one of the biggest/significant sources of energy with a 71% favorable view of natural gas.

The group, which is comprised of 28 independent natural gas producers including Linn Energy, Devon Energy, Anadarko and Newfield Exploration, held a press conference last week to disclose the results of this national poll as well as a report regarding the contributions of the natural gas industry on federal and state economies.

ANGA leadership at the event, which included David Trice, chairman of Newfield Exploration; Mike Linn, CEO of Linn Energy; Larry Nichols, CEO of Devon Energy; John Pinkerton, CEO and chairman of Range Resources; Brent Smolik, president of El Paso Exploration and Production; and Jim Hackett, CEO of Anadarko, added that the poll showed that the public supported natural gas and had a favorable view of it despite not being completely educated on the subject.

The leadership emphasized that it has a chance to educate the public further, even though the public has a positive view of natural gas already. This includes informing the public and legislators that natural gas has an important role to play in both national security and reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

“What you don’t hear about in the media is the connection that has to occur between policy and replacing foreign oil. Everything that has been proposed in prior legislation does nothing to take us off the dependence on foreign oil, which I think is a very important psychological factor and a very important domestic security factor for this country,” Hackett said.

Hackett also noted the importance of natural gas as a bridge fuel since it has the capability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. and support wind and solar power when it is down due to weather conditions. It also has a full infrastructure already in place throughout the country and it has steady prices, unlike other alternatives.

“We need all fuels [to achieve energy independence and reduce carbon emissions], we can’t rely on just one,” Nichols said.

Natural gas should be a major focal point of such activity because of its price stability, Hackett said. “We have price stability. Our price projections show that natural gas can sell for an extended period of time at less than $50 a barrel of oil. Consumers need this fuel – it’s the sort of bargain I think Americans are looking for,” he said.

This stability is possible because of the abundance of natural gas available through shale plays as well as through incoming LNG, which can keep price peaks down and cut out the weather-driven aspects involved in natural gas pricing.

It was noted that many Americans and legislators are not fully aware of the abundance of natural gas now available from the shale plays, other unconventional resources and new technologies.

Because of this lack of knowledge in regards to how vast natural gas reserves truly are, the current energy legislation being proposed in the U.S. Congress keeps the status quo in place and doesn’t really serve the purpose it intends, as it does not focus on purity in regards to carbon emissions, according to ANGA.

“Just looking at the Marcellus shale – we will be drilling wells and producing from them for hundreds of years,” Nichols said.

ANGA leadership said the current policy options being bandied about in Washington were wrong because they will increase taxes and costs and drive down usage.

“Waxman-Markey [House climate change legislation H.R. 2454] is a tax bill masquerading as a climate bill. They originally said that climate legislation would add about the cost of a postage stamp to every Americans’ energy bill. But it is really a huge tax on every person in the country. If that is cost of a postage stamp, then the cost to mail a letter has gone up dramatically,” Nichols said.

Smolik noted the job impact that the natural gas industry has on the country, which makes it important that it be focused on more by energy legislation. The group’s study on the financial impact created by the industry found that nearly 3 million people were employed by the industry with US$385 billion in value added economic impact by natural gas in 2008.

This impact is spread throughout much of the country, with 33 states having at least 2,000 workers directly involved in natural gas activities and 22 of these states having at least 4,000 workers directly tied to the industry. – Frank Nieto