LNG is not the answer

Your criticism of House Speaker Jeff Merkley regarding the LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) issues in Oregon is short-sighted and unwarranted. LNG is not the answer.

To do what you propose will require the investment of billions of dollars of new energy infrastructure by outside oil and gas interests. You, like Gov. Kulongoski, feel LNG will provide a temporary clean energy source until alternative, renewable resources become more fully developed. Are you so naive to believe that those companies who will have invested so much, and who stand to make billions of dollars per year from this venture, will simply step aside and let renewable resources take over their profits when the time comes? Not on your life!

Allowing LNG terminals and pipelines to traverse Oregon will lock us in to fossil fuels for the next 50 years, and slow down or curtail the development of the clean, renewable energy resources you refer to (resources that are our only hope of slowing down global warming and ultimately saving the planet).

What little sacrifice it will be to pay higher prices in the future to heat our homes and generate our power, knowing that every extra penny will go to improving our quality of life on this imperiled planet.

I applaud Speaker Merkley for his vision and his courage to stand up against these outside investors who want to prostitute Oregon for their own self interests.

Jim Zaleski, Forest Grove

We have enough gas

Oregon's natural gas supplies are adequate for present and future needs. The proposed 117 miles of high pressure, non-odorized pipeline traveling through private and public land in Oregon is predominantly for California consumers. Do you wonder why they don't have terminals on their own coastline? Follow the money.

Diane Jette, Seaside

Pipelines would cause hardship

Your editorial in favor of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was factually incorrect and ignored the breadth of impacts of LNG facilities. We can assure you that the prospect of the forced taking of private property for the associated pipelines is already causing undue hardship, stress and fatigue for Oregonians.

The federal government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that households heating with natural gas can expect to pay 11 percent more to heat their homes this winter. Some have used rising prices as a reason to import more gas, when in fact it is the ever-rising price itself that makes LNG viable.

There is nothing cheap about LNG: liquefied in a $2 billion facility; in volatile and unstable regions of the world (Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, China and Russia); transported in quarter-billion-dollar ships; regassified in three-quarter-billion-dollar plants; and delivered in million-dollar-a-mile pipelines.

The LNG projects are a sure way not just to trample the rights of Oregonians but to increase the price of natural gas.

Marc Auerbach, Chair, Northwest Property Rights, Coalition, Molalla

Merkley's right on LNG

Jeff Merkley's strong opposition to importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) is well-researched and reasonable, unlike the editorial attacking Merkley.

LNG is bad for Oregon. Merkley realizes that continued dependence on a foreign fossil fuel - LNG would be imported from Iran and Indonesia - is crazy. The editorial's suggestions that heating fuel cost will go up without LNG has no basis. The Willamette Valley and all of Oregon currently get natural gas from Canada and the Rockies, which is cheaper, cleaner and safer than shipping gas across the ocean from Iran.

And, the LNG is bound for California, but we would suffer the impacts. The LNG companies propose a pipeline from the mouth of the Columbia to Madras, to join a large pipe directly to California - bypassing Albany altogether.

Merkley does not want Oregon to be used as California's gas tank. California, Washington and even the city of Tijuana have rejected LNG terminals because they are not safe and harm the economy. It was a no-brainer for Merkley to join the overwhelming opposition to LNG in Oregon.

Brett VandenHeuvel, Portland

We know more than you

It is obvious that your editorial board is new to the LNG battle. If you had studied it for the past two years as I have, you would understand that it will not lower gas prices in the Northwest. In fact, it will drive the cost of all forms of energy higher.

This comes from James Reed, a man who has worked in the LNG field all over the world. Speaker Merkley is doing the right thing, trying to protect his constituents from having their land taken from them by Eminent Domain, to be turned over to a PRIVATE company.

The profits from this speculative venture will not stay in Oregon; far from it, we get all the risk and none of the benefit. So please study the issues before pontificating to your readers.

Gayle Kiser, Kelso, Wash.