Finally, Nat Gas Hired Some Lobbyists

Maybe natural gas is finally getting some votes. Last night on "Mad Money," Jim Hackett -- who runs Anadarko (APC - commentary - Trade Now), which is only 7 points from its 52-week high despite the seven-year low of natural gas -- made it pretty clear that the Senate is going to recommend natural gas in its energy package in a big way.

Anadarko has a great mixture of gas and oil, it is almost as if they can turn off the gas and go full out oil depending upon prices. So that's a good reason for the stock having run 9 from its incredibly successful offering.

But what I liked about what Jim had to say is that the natural gas industry is at last corralling politicians to vote for it. The grass-roots efforts that had been the case beforehand when coal passed this fuel in the House is gone, and now it is one-on-one buttonholing, a much more effective way to get the job done.

There was a sincere "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" moment last night in my interview where Jim said he figured that Congress recognized we have a lot of natural gas, that it is an ideal bridge fuel, that we can be energy-independent --even be an exporter -- because we have found so much of the darned stuff, and that we can put a huge number of people to work building pipelines to crisscross the country to make sure it is no longer just a regional fuel.

The logic, he said, seemed to be too compelling.

Well, logic ain't got nothing to do with it. This is Washington. The fact that they have woken up to the need to lobby and not "tell the story to the public" is a godsend. The coal lobby owns so many senators and representatives that unless you outspend the dirtiest fuel on earth, you are never going to get the job done.

Looks like that's precisely what the natural gas group will do this time around.

Random musings: The principal doomsayers at the back of the Journal -- the "Heard on the Street" column -- as well as the "Ahead of the Tape" column are almost all hard at work on a daily basis fighting this rally. How about this beauty: "Double Dip Threatens Housing Recovery," by Mark Gongloff. I didn't know that any of these Journal negativists even believed in a housing recovery, so how can it have a double dip, which presumes one!

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

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