The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

by Daniel Yergin

Natural gas required no complex engineering processes in order to be used. The problem was transmission: how to get it to the markets in the Northeast and the Midwest, where both the large populations and the major industries of the country were to be found. That meant long-distance pipelines, halfway across the country, in an industry for which long distance had heretofore meant 150 miles. But the commercial arguments, compounded by the concerns about national security and dependence on foreign oil, were very compelling. In a judgment that found favor with Defense Secretary Forrestal, the House Armed Services Committee declared that increasing the use of natural gas was “the quickest and cheapest method immediately available to reduce domestic consumption of petroleum” and that, therefore, steel should “be made available for natural gas pipelines in advance of any other use now proposed.”