"Americans are hurting from high natural gas prices," Chairman Pombo said. "President Bush, with one stroke of his pen, gave the go-ahead to the largest energy project every built in North America. The gas line will create new jobs and provide decades of natural gas to Americans who rely on clean-burning natural gas for their way of life."

The two chairmen have been extensively involved in working to ensure that supplies of safe, secure and affordable supplies of domestic natural gas are made available for future economic growth. They pointed out in the Affordable Natural Gas Task Force Report to Speaker Hastert (September, 2003) that the demand for cleaner energy for new power plants has not been met with an adequate source of new natural gas supplies, and the resulting high prices have hurt consumers.

"Consumers should know -- that with the passage of this legislation -- that help is on the way," said Barton.

The Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline will:

-- enhance our nation security and freedom on foreign policy issues by providing a secure, domestic supply of energy;

-- provide a critical feedstock -- at a reasonable price -- for the chemical, agricultural and other important sectors of our economy. These industries are currently facing near catastrophic conditions including a dramatic loss of markets, plant closures and layoffs due to the high cost of natural gas;

-- create over one million new, well paying jobs spread across every state in our nation and;

-- provide an abundance of clean burning, environmentally friendly fuel.

As Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in July, testifying before the Energy & Commerce Committee, "the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline is one of those all too rare examples of a project that is a winner from every perspective. It will help us achieve our environmental goals; it will help our economy by creating a large number of new, well paying jobs and it will enhance our national security."

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