Nat Gas Blew It

How did natural gas blow it so badly? How could this industry not own some mindshare in Congress or get the president to even consider it? That's what astonishes me about cap-and-trade -- other than I am a fervent believer that it is a bad thing for the U.S. economy. We have no bridge fuel in the plans whatsoever. We have Obama pushing wind and solar, not even nuclear (but that takes too long to build anyway).

We know how to put up natural gas plants like lightning. We know the big issue with natural gas is that we have too much of it, having discovered vast amounts in the last two years. We know that coal is awful. We know that wind and solar are 30, 40 years away from being practical. We know that cars can run on natural gas but that only batteries are really favored.

We also know this is nuts. I happened to talk to the CEO of one of the largest private natural gas companies in the country this week, and he was just blown away about poorly the industry has fared in this whole debate. It is pretty amazing. When you think about the vast holdings of Southwestern (SWN - commentary - Trade Now), Devon (DVN - commentary - Trade Now), Apache (APA - commentary - Trade Now), Anadarko (APC - commentary - Trade Now), XTO (XTO - commentary - Trade Now) and Chesapeake (CHK - commentary - Trade Now), you have to be just shocked at this turn of events. The whole industry has been shunted. Worse, if you read the article about farmers, ethanol and cap-and-trade this morning in The Washington Post by Steve Pearlstein, you will know how incredibly corrupt this whole deal is.

Natural gas will now have to make it solely on the strength of a U.S. economic comeback. That can happen, and I expect the price to rise to $5, where a lot of money can be made, but I am aghast at how poorly this industry has been able to lobby -- in the end, it is a travesty.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.

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