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Huntsman slams energy policies

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Daniel J. Lavigne

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Sep 8, 2003, 6:18:35 PM9/8/03
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"A Dane who likes Norway" <nor...@yahoo.com> wrote:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,510052655,00.html

Jon Huntsman slams energy policies
By Dave Anderton
Deseret Morning News

Record-high energy prices are crushing America's industrial
manufacturers, according to Utah chemical magnate Jon M. Huntsman,
and the federal government and oil industry need to take action.

Jon M. Huntsman

Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News
In a recent interview with the Deseret Morning News, Huntsman,
founder and chairman of Salt Lake-based chemical company Huntsman
LLC, said not only will the absence of a national energy policy hurt
U.S. businesses, but it also will put added financial strain on
average citizens who likely will see their home heating bills double
this winter.
"We've lost our steel industry already, and we've virtually
lost a big chunk of the automobile industry," Huntsman said. "And so
now the government is working very, very hard to try to lose the
chemical industry and the paper industry and the metals industry. I
think their energy policy is set up so that it will drive Americans
out of these businesses."
About 60 percent of Huntsman's operations are now located in
Europe and Asia.
"It just breaks my heart," he said. "But little by little,
we've shifted and bought and moved businesses to where they are user
friendly. . . . The government has always been antagonistic toward
industrial businesses in America."
Huntsman is a longtime Republican who served as a special
assistant and consultant to President Richard Nixon from 1971 to
1974 and is not afraid to criticize fellow Republicans, particularly
President Bush. Bush, Huntsman said, could ease high gasoline prices
by releasing a portion of the nation's strategic oil supplies, which
today encompass about 620 million barrels.
However, Bill Hickman, spokesman for the American Petroleum
Institute representing 400 of the nation's largest oil and natural
gas producers, said releasing oil from the nation's reserves under
current circumstances is a bad idea.
"I don't think that's something that raises to the level of
the kind of emergency that it ought to be reserved for," Hickman
said.
In September 2000, President Bill Clinton released roughly 30
million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ease
winter heating costs. His decision, less than two months before the
2000 presidential election, was criticized as politically motivated.
Hickman contends that the U.S. energy problem results from too
much reliance on foreign oil imports. Total imports in July as a
percentage of domestic petroleum deliveries was at 62.9 percent, up
from 57.9 percent a year ago during the same period.
Yet Huntsman said the problem extends beyond other oil-rich
countries to this nation's four big oil suppliers — Shell,
ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and BP, which owns Amoco and Arco.
"I'm saying right now that these massive big monopolies, these
four companies, will make together operating income of over $100
billion in 2003, the largest amount of money ever assembled by four
companies in one industry in the history of the world, and that is
wrong," Huntsman said. "And President Bush should not permit that to
happen."
On Friday, crude oil for October delivery was at $28.88 a
barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For much of the year,
the price of crude has been over $30 a barrel.
Huntsman added that the president could use his influence to
persuade Saudi Arabia to produce more oil for the United States.
"If Bush went to the Saudis and said, 'Listen, we need another
half a million barrels of oil a day, you have the means to do that,'
they could produce that half a million barrels a day. The price
would drop to $22 to $28, let's say a $25 average, and everybody
could live. The airlines could live, the utilities could live, the
American industry could live."
Darren McKinney, a spokesman for the National Association of
Manufacturers, said the industry has lost 2.72 million jobs in the
past 37 months. While many of those jobs have disappeared or moved
overseas, McKinney said energy prices also have played a role.
"The manufacturing sector utilizes and consumes roughly one-
third of the nation's energy," McKinney said. "A failure of Congress
to pass comprehensive energy legislation is certainly standing in
the way of a manufacturing recovery. . . . If we do not take some
serious structural steps in reducing the costs of doing business in
America, Mr. Huntsman is right, certainly we will continue to lose
manufacturing jobs."
The chemical industry, which posted a record trade surplus of
$20.5 billion in 1995, reported its first-ever trade deficit of $5
billion in 2002, according to Thomas Gilroy, a spokesman for the
American Chemistry Council. And the industry's employment has been
in decline since it peaked in 1998 at 1.1 million employees.
In 2002, employment in the industry was down by 67,000
jobs. "Right now, about a third of the chemical products that we
produce in the U.S., people export it from China, Korea and Europe
cheaper than we can produce it here because our energy costs are so
high here . . .," Huntsman said. "America has dramatically shifted
in the last quarter of a century to a non-industrial power, and it
will come back to haunt us. . . .
"You just can't build an economy on fluff."

end

doug t in utah, USA
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