Owing to the insufficient gas supply in the United States, the gas price has dramatically risen. The new gas price reality and the policy decisions it may trigger will undoubtedly lead to critical financial implications for some individuals or companies, but the situation can hardly be termed a "national crisis" or even a "shortage". What is true is that buyers—particularly those in the chemical industry and in independent power generation will not be able to acquire the quantity of gas they wish at the prices they wish to pay, or even at prices that will allow them to remain competitive in their markets, particularly during peak demand seasons. Over the next year or two, the result will be higher, and more volatile prices, to be sure, but there are market-driven adjustment mechanisms even in the short term, e.g., more electric power from coal and oil, reduced production of domestic chemicals, and a commensurate substitution of imports. Consumers and companies will feel the economic pinch of higher prices; particularly, if we experience an exceptionally hot summer and a winter, when average temperatures were 20% colder than the year before in the Northeast. Still, the United States faces neither the specter of economic recession—at least not solely due to gas prices—nor of freezing families unable to "obtain gas to heat their homes. Given this new price plateau, demand adjustments will also take place and vary across regions of the United States and across industries, with power generation and chemicals perhaps the most affected. Some in those industries may find that their facilities are no longer financially viable at the new price plateau, and there will likely be another round of industrial restructuring not unlike others that have resulted from international differences in resource and labor costs—lest we forget, natural gas is still abundant and very low cost in other countries such as Trinidad, Qatar, and Iran, just as labor is abundant and low cost in China, Indonesia, and parts of Latin America. From a policy perspective, the United States needs to carefully evaluate a series of trade-offs between environmental concerns and economic growth. The gas price experiences of the last two years are the first real tastes of the economic costs of a gas-based environmental strategy. Evaluating these trade-offs needs to be done with a level head and a clear understanding of those trade-offs.
A．The gas prices will become steady in the next year or two.B．In a short period, the problem will be solved by the electricity produced by coal and oil.C．There won"t be an economic recession even though the present situation is unfavorable.D．Many American families will be freezing because they can"t afford the gas with such a high price.
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