The common undercurrent of sentiment is that America has dwindling domestic production and increased consumption. The outstripped supply of this strategically crucial fuel has become fundamental to our existence and exposes our national vulnerability in the "NEW" Millennium. 

We have become increasingly vulnerable to supply interruption and increasingly reliant on foreign energy supplies As the importation of liquefied natural gas emerges, tapping the foreign energy supply has been the primary solution to meet record demand. The demand is expected to rise according to the U.S EIA (United States Energy Information Administration) from our current consumption of 22.8 Trillion cubic feet to 33.8 Trillion by fiscal 2020. The impetus for much of the growth in the natural gas markets was precipitated by Federal Emission Standards and Clean Air Act Legislation. The laws have been phased in over the last decade for electricity generation, home heating, and manufacturing, chemicals and power generation amidst this internet and computer age. This initiative has created the mechanism for surging demand relegated by static supply. Nearly 88% of all "NEW" Power Generation plants built in the last decade in America has been equipped to utilize "CLEAN BURNING" Natural gas even as electricity costs near 20 year highs.

As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledged before a Joint Congressional Economic Committee that our national natural gas "shortage" is a "very serious problem". He revealed that supplies registered the lowest recorded level since record keeping began in 1976. Greenspan insists that further diminished production and increased demand has culminated and states "As today’s tight natural gas markets have been long in coming and distant futures prices suggest that we are not apt to return to earlier periods of relative abundance and low prices anytime soon". He asserts that America may have to resort to greater conservation and LNG importation. He said expressly that "Given the notable cost reductions for both liquefaction and transportation of LNG, significant global trade is developing. And high prices projected in the American distant futures market have made us a potential very large importer."

The prediction resonates that America has a similar "ENERGY CRISIS" that captivated the crude oil markets during the 1970's as we have past the threshold into the present "NATURAL GAS AGE." Yet, lofty price fundamentals will be required to substantiate the vast transportation costs of LNG delivery frozen to -260 Fahrenheit and the billions and the decades required to fully implement the construction of LNG docking terminals unless far more capital investment is channeled into domestic drilling for natural gas to not only replenish diminished production but increased consumption through fiscal 2005 and years beyond.

The fiscal 2002-2005 natural gas supply chain deficit has natural gas producers compelled to replenish domestic supply with ever costlier and deeper reserves to meet anticipated record consumption levels. Industry analysts concede that natural gas producers drill new wells on available cash reserves and that America may not be safe from this vulnerability unless far more domestic capital investment is channeled into drilling for natural gas as an "IMPORTANT FUEL" throughout this decade.