welcome to oil
explore how the oil industry's greed and desire for profit is destroying the world
october 11, 2018
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being
regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those
woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and
enterprising citizen.
Henry David Thoreau
*articles*
*Another West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Declines to Step Aside in Another Natural Gas Case
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Energy Board Rushes Giant Alaska Project
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Another Court Ruling Against a West Virginia Pipeline, Then Another Effort to Change the Rules
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*States Allow For-Profit Pipeline Companies to Seize Private Property
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*US Says Conserving Oil Is No Longer An Economic Imperative
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Colorado’s oil and gas industry goes after reporters and signature gatherers in new fracking fight(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WORLD’S BIGGEST OIL EXPORTER IS BETTING $2 BILLION ON ELECTRIC CARS
SAUDIS BUY MAJOR STAKE IN TESLA.(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Oregon Supreme Court hands Portland major victory on anti-fossil fuel infrastructure effort(ARTICLE BELOW)
*ExxonMobil's Support for a Carbon Tax Is a Total Sham
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*AMERICA SPENDS OVER $20BN PER YEAR ON FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES. ABOLISH THEM
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Oil Industry Has Launched a Preemptive Strike Over Washington State’s Carbon Tax Ballot Initiative(ARTICLE BELOW)
*US Refineries Persist in Using Toxic Acid, Despite Safer Alternatives
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Rhode Island sues major oil companies over climate change
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Oil Companies and Lobbyists Say They’re Ready to Solve Climate Change. Check the Fine Print.(ARTICLE BELOW)
*US oil and gas industry leaks 60 percent more methane than government says: study
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Construction planned to prepare Alaska’s Arctic refuge for oil drilling
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Processing drilling permits takes priority over protecting taxpayers from liability, GAO report says(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Taxpayers Still Shelling Out Billions Annually in Fossil Fuel Subsidies
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Shell foresaw climate dangers in 1988 and understood Big Oil’s big role
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Exclusive: EPA gives giant refiner a ‘hardship’ waiver from regulation
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The dark side of America's rise to oil superpower(ARTICLE BELOW)
*ROVER PIPELINE SPILLS ANOTHER 150,000 GALLONS OF DRILLING FLUID INTO OHIO WETLANDS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Exposed: Chevron Has a Secretive Drilling Site in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
(Excerpt BELOW)
*ON ITS HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY IN 1959, EDWARD TELLER WARNED THE OIL INDUSTRY ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING(article below)
oil funnies(at the end)
Another West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Declines to Step Aside in Another Natural Gas Case
A lawyer who represented new Supreme Court Justice Evan Jenkins is on the legal team representing the natural gas giant Antero. The opposing side asked Jenkins to recuse himself, but he said no.
by Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette-Mail - pro publica
Oct. 10, 5 a.m. EDT
In another recusal controversy involving the West Virginia Supreme Court and the natural gas industry, a newly appointed justice declined to step aside from hearing a case on Tuesday, despite the fact that he was personally represented by a lawyer now representing a company involved in the proceeding.
Former U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins hired Huntington lawyer Ancil Ramey, a former court clerk who often appears before the justices, to appear on his behalf last month when two lawyers tried to block Jenkins’ appointment to the court by arguing that he didn’t meet state constitutional requirements for the post.
Ramey won that case, and Jenkins was sworn in on Oct. 1.
Tuesday was the first day Jenkins was scheduled to hear oral arguments, and the second case on the docket was a major lawsuit filed by a group of Harrison County residents against Antero, West Virginia’s largest natural gas producer, alleging that the company is making life in their community unbearable.
Among the attorneys representing Antero: Ancil Ramey.
On Tuesday, Jenkins turned down a motion filed by the residents asking him to disqualify himself from the Antero case because of Ramey’s involvement in ensuring Jenkins got his seat on the Supreme Court.
In a one-page memo made public just before court was to begin for the day, Jenkins said he “had no prior relationship” with Ramey, “the representation was brief, and it has terminated.”
“Therefore, I find no reasonable grounds requiring my recusal,” Jenkins wrote.
The court has faced several recusal controversies in recent years.
Just weeks after taking office in 2017, Justice Beth Walker voted to rehear and then to overturn a previous ruling over how lease payments from gas producers to gas owners are calculated. Walker denied a motion to disqualify herself based on her husband’s stock holdings in energy industry companies. She said her husband had sold the shares before the case was argued.
Years earlier, then-Justice Brent Benjamin refused to recuse himself from hearing an appeal involving Massey Energy Co., even though its CEO at the time, Don Blankenship, had spent $3 million on a campaign against Benjamin’s opponent in the 2004 election. That case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in June 2009 that Benjamin should have stepped aside. Walker defeated Benjamin in the 2016 election.
The Jenkins controversy also comes as West Virginia’s Supreme Court faces a continuing crisis over spending — including allegedly using state cars for private trips and lavish office renovations that included a $32,000 couch — that has touched all five justices.
One justice, currently suspended, is on trial in federal court, contesting criminal charges that include fraud and obstruction; another justice resigned and then pleaded guilty to wire fraud; and a third retired after being impeached, but alleged the House GOP leadership was trying to take over another branch of government. A fourth was publicly reprimanded by the state Senate after an impeachment trial, but denied wrongdoing and avoided the more serious punishment of removal from office. The fifth faces an impeachment trial this fall, and has vowed to fight removal from office.
Jenkins was appointed to fill the seat of Robin Davis, the justice who retired after being impeached.
Attorneys for several Harrison County residents filed a motion last week urging Jenkins to not take part in the Antero matter.
“Justice Jenkins presiding over a case wherein his attorney is representing the respondents Antero raises reasonable questions about impartiality and has an appearance of impropriety which requires Justice Jenkins disqualify himself from this matter,” said the motion from Anthony Majestro, lawyer for the residents.
In a response filing on behalf of Antero, Ramey said that disqualification of Jenkins was not necessary, because Ramey’s representation of him had ended before Jenkins officially joined the court. The response also said that while Ramey helped write Antero’s briefs in the natural gas case, he was not the lead lawyer and would not be taking part in the oral arguments.
In the case, residents in the Cherry Camp area of Harrison County are appealing a lower court decision that threw out their lawsuit against Antero. The residents sued over a variety of natural gas production activities they argue create a nuisance, including unbearable traffic, “constant dust” that hangs in the air and settles on homes and vehicles, disruptive heavy equipment noise, and bright lights that shine into their homes day and night.
Antero attorneys say the company has only done what was reasonably necessary under its leases to extract gas, and that those operations don’t interfere with the residents’ use of their property. Antero lawyers said a panel of lower court judges was right when it threw out the case.
Hundreds of similar cases are pending in West Virginia courts, and the eventual ruling in the matter before the Supreme Court will likely set a precedent.
The issues raised in the cases are of growing concern in West Virginia, as the state’s natural gas industry continues to boom.
While Jenkins didn’t recuse himself, another new justice, Tim Armstead, did. It was not clear why Armstead recused himself from the Antero case, although, previously, Armstead, a former state House of Delegates speaker, worked as an attorney for a different natural gas company. Armstead was appointed to the court by Gov. Jim Justice at the same time as the governor appointed Jenkins.
No party filed a motion asking Armstead to disqualify himself, a court spokeswoman said. Armstead offered no explanation in a one-sentence memo to the court clerk.
His disqualification came just moments before the case was to be argued, so there was no time to find a replacement judge, a process that is allowed in West Virginia on a case-by-case basis. The residents asked that the argument be rescheduled for a later date, and the court agreed.
The seats held by Jenkins and Armstead are on the ballot in West Virginia’s general election next month. Both men are running.
Former U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins hired Huntington lawyer Ancil Ramey, a former court clerk who often appears before the justices, to appear on his behalf last month when two lawyers tried to block Jenkins’ appointment to the court by arguing that he didn’t meet state constitutional requirements for the post.
Ramey won that case, and Jenkins was sworn in on Oct. 1.
Tuesday was the first day Jenkins was scheduled to hear oral arguments, and the second case on the docket was a major lawsuit filed by a group of Harrison County residents against Antero, West Virginia’s largest natural gas producer, alleging that the company is making life in their community unbearable.
Among the attorneys representing Antero: Ancil Ramey.
On Tuesday, Jenkins turned down a motion filed by the residents asking him to disqualify himself from the Antero case because of Ramey’s involvement in ensuring Jenkins got his seat on the Supreme Court.
In a one-page memo made public just before court was to begin for the day, Jenkins said he “had no prior relationship” with Ramey, “the representation was brief, and it has terminated.”
“Therefore, I find no reasonable grounds requiring my recusal,” Jenkins wrote.
The court has faced several recusal controversies in recent years.
Just weeks after taking office in 2017, Justice Beth Walker voted to rehear and then to overturn a previous ruling over how lease payments from gas producers to gas owners are calculated. Walker denied a motion to disqualify herself based on her husband’s stock holdings in energy industry companies. She said her husband had sold the shares before the case was argued.
Years earlier, then-Justice Brent Benjamin refused to recuse himself from hearing an appeal involving Massey Energy Co., even though its CEO at the time, Don Blankenship, had spent $3 million on a campaign against Benjamin’s opponent in the 2004 election. That case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in June 2009 that Benjamin should have stepped aside. Walker defeated Benjamin in the 2016 election.
The Jenkins controversy also comes as West Virginia’s Supreme Court faces a continuing crisis over spending — including allegedly using state cars for private trips and lavish office renovations that included a $32,000 couch — that has touched all five justices.
One justice, currently suspended, is on trial in federal court, contesting criminal charges that include fraud and obstruction; another justice resigned and then pleaded guilty to wire fraud; and a third retired after being impeached, but alleged the House GOP leadership was trying to take over another branch of government. A fourth was publicly reprimanded by the state Senate after an impeachment trial, but denied wrongdoing and avoided the more serious punishment of removal from office. The fifth faces an impeachment trial this fall, and has vowed to fight removal from office.
Jenkins was appointed to fill the seat of Robin Davis, the justice who retired after being impeached.
Attorneys for several Harrison County residents filed a motion last week urging Jenkins to not take part in the Antero matter.
“Justice Jenkins presiding over a case wherein his attorney is representing the respondents Antero raises reasonable questions about impartiality and has an appearance of impropriety which requires Justice Jenkins disqualify himself from this matter,” said the motion from Anthony Majestro, lawyer for the residents.
In a response filing on behalf of Antero, Ramey said that disqualification of Jenkins was not necessary, because Ramey’s representation of him had ended before Jenkins officially joined the court. The response also said that while Ramey helped write Antero’s briefs in the natural gas case, he was not the lead lawyer and would not be taking part in the oral arguments.
In the case, residents in the Cherry Camp area of Harrison County are appealing a lower court decision that threw out their lawsuit against Antero. The residents sued over a variety of natural gas production activities they argue create a nuisance, including unbearable traffic, “constant dust” that hangs in the air and settles on homes and vehicles, disruptive heavy equipment noise, and bright lights that shine into their homes day and night.
Antero attorneys say the company has only done what was reasonably necessary under its leases to extract gas, and that those operations don’t interfere with the residents’ use of their property. Antero lawyers said a panel of lower court judges was right when it threw out the case.
Hundreds of similar cases are pending in West Virginia courts, and the eventual ruling in the matter before the Supreme Court will likely set a precedent.
The issues raised in the cases are of growing concern in West Virginia, as the state’s natural gas industry continues to boom.
While Jenkins didn’t recuse himself, another new justice, Tim Armstead, did. It was not clear why Armstead recused himself from the Antero case, although, previously, Armstead, a former state House of Delegates speaker, worked as an attorney for a different natural gas company. Armstead was appointed to the court by Gov. Jim Justice at the same time as the governor appointed Jenkins.
No party filed a motion asking Armstead to disqualify himself, a court spokeswoman said. Armstead offered no explanation in a one-sentence memo to the court clerk.
His disqualification came just moments before the case was to be argued, so there was no time to find a replacement judge, a process that is allowed in West Virginia on a case-by-case basis. The residents asked that the argument be rescheduled for a later date, and the court agreed.
The seats held by Jenkins and Armstead are on the ballot in West Virginia’s general election next month. Both men are running.
Energy Board Rushes Giant Alaska Project
Plan Calls for a New 800-Mile Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, Focuses on Shipping Liquefied Natural Gas to Asia
By Sarah Okeson - dc report
10/5/18
Federal energy regulators plan to rush through environmental reviews for a $45 billion liquified natural gas project in Alaska that would sell gas to Asian utilities and could help worsen climate change.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission plans to issue an environmental impact statement for the proposed 825-mile pipeline a month early, in November 2019. A decision on building the pipeline could be made in February 2020. By then, the commission is likely to have a three-person Republican majority. Trump has nominated long-time fossil fuel supporter Bernard McNamee to the five-person board.
“It’s incredibly reckless for Trump to try to fast-track the biggest natural gas project in U.S. history,” said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “A proper review would show this risky venture endangers Alaska’s wildlife and deepens our dependence on dirty fossil fuels.”
Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen told senators in September that exporting natural gas to China will fuel their country’s manufacturing industry at the expense of the U.S.
Our country is one of the biggest exporters of liquified natural gas, which is cooled to -260° Fahrenheit, to make it easier to ship and store. The U.S. exported $3.3 billion in liquified natural gas in 2017.
In April, more than a dozen federal agencies agreed to slash the time needed for environmental reviews and permitting on major infrastructure projects such as the pipeline. In August, FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre signed an agreement with the administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to speed up approving liquified natural gas transportation facilities.
The same day that the agreement was signed FERC announced revised review schedules for a dozen LNG projects including the Alaska pipeline. Other projects that would be speeded up included ones in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
“LNG export terminals are extremely complicated and dangerous facilities with wide-ranging harmful environmental impacts,”
said Moneen Nasmith, an attorney with Earthjustice. “It is irresponsible to arbitrarily expedite the review of these proposals.”
Republican senators, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who have received $4.7 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry have pushed FERC to approve liquified natural gas projects quicker.
Howard “Skip” Elliott, a former railroad executive with no previous pipeline experience, heads the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Alaska is working with three major China-owned institutions – oil company Sinopec, China Investment Corp., and Bank of China – that could invest in the project. Other potential gas buyers include PetroVietnam and Tokyo Gas.
Alaska’s major oil companies and the state originally developed the liquified natural gas project, but those companies dropped it because of low natural gas prices and an oversupply of liquified natural gas.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission plans to issue an environmental impact statement for the proposed 825-mile pipeline a month early, in November 2019. A decision on building the pipeline could be made in February 2020. By then, the commission is likely to have a three-person Republican majority. Trump has nominated long-time fossil fuel supporter Bernard McNamee to the five-person board.
“It’s incredibly reckless for Trump to try to fast-track the biggest natural gas project in U.S. history,” said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “A proper review would show this risky venture endangers Alaska’s wildlife and deepens our dependence on dirty fossil fuels.”
Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen told senators in September that exporting natural gas to China will fuel their country’s manufacturing industry at the expense of the U.S.
Our country is one of the biggest exporters of liquified natural gas, which is cooled to -260° Fahrenheit, to make it easier to ship and store. The U.S. exported $3.3 billion in liquified natural gas in 2017.
In April, more than a dozen federal agencies agreed to slash the time needed for environmental reviews and permitting on major infrastructure projects such as the pipeline. In August, FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre signed an agreement with the administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to speed up approving liquified natural gas transportation facilities.
The same day that the agreement was signed FERC announced revised review schedules for a dozen LNG projects including the Alaska pipeline. Other projects that would be speeded up included ones in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
“LNG export terminals are extremely complicated and dangerous facilities with wide-ranging harmful environmental impacts,”
said Moneen Nasmith, an attorney with Earthjustice. “It is irresponsible to arbitrarily expedite the review of these proposals.”
Republican senators, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who have received $4.7 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry have pushed FERC to approve liquified natural gas projects quicker.
Howard “Skip” Elliott, a former railroad executive with no previous pipeline experience, heads the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Alaska is working with three major China-owned institutions – oil company Sinopec, China Investment Corp., and Bank of China – that could invest in the project. Other potential gas buyers include PetroVietnam and Tokyo Gas.
Alaska’s major oil companies and the state originally developed the liquified natural gas project, but those companies dropped it because of low natural gas prices and an oversupply of liquified natural gas.
Another Court Ruling Against a West Virginia Pipeline, Then Another Effort to Change the Rules
A federal appeals court has revoked a key approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Now, state regulators are working to change the rules — again — so it can proceed.
by Ken Ward Jr. and Kate Mishkin, The Charleston Gazette-Mail - pro piblica
Oct. 4, 5 a.m. EDT
Time and again, opponents have tried to delay a natural gas pipeline that would stretch from Northern West Virginia to Southern Virginia, using lawsuits to stall permit approvals or construction.
And time and again, state and federal regulators have stepped in to remove such hurdles, even if it has meant rewriting their own rules.
Now, the process looks to be repeating itself.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court blocked a key permit for Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-mile natural gas project that’s known as MVP. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrongly approved a permit that allowed MVP to temporarily dam four of West Virginia’s rivers so the pipeline can be buried beneath the streambeds.
But rather than pausing or rethinking the project, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has already been rewriting the state construction standards for pipeline river crossings that prompted the appeals court to block the plan.
Once that happens, MVP will apply for a new Clean Water Act permit, which it expects to secure in early 2019, said Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for the pipeline’s developers. Developers still expect the pipeline to be in service by the fourth quarter of 2019, she said.
“MVP is committed to the safety of its communities, to the preservation and protection of the environment, and to the continued responsible construction of this important natural gas infrastructure project that will serve homes and business in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast United States,” Cox said in a statement.
The ruling against the pipeline and the effort to change the rules mirrors a review by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, in collaboration with ProPublica, which found that, over the past two years, federal and state agencies tasked with enforcing the nation’s environmental laws have moved repeatedly to clear roadblocks and expedite the pipeline, even changing the rules at times to ease the project’s approvals.
The stakes are high for West Virginia’s natural gas industry, which is booming and needs pipelines to move its product to East Coast and Southern cities. The issues also loom large for state residents who worry that West Virginia’s drive to encourage natural gas growth poses threats to the environment and their communities.
Last month, MVP developers said the cost of the project had risen from $3.7 billion to $4.6 billion, and they blamed about half of that increase on litigation-related delays.
Projects like MVP require a variety of permits before they can be built. Developers and regulators are supposed to study alternatives, articulate a clear need for the project and outline steps to minimize damage to the environment. In numerous instances, though, officials have allowed the pipeline to go ahead despite serious unanswered questions, the Gazette-Mail and ProPublica found after examining government documents and court records.
Tuesday’s ruling by the 4th Circuit focused on one such move by regulators, a change in guidelines for river crossings needed for four significant West Virginia rivers: Elk, Greenbrier, Meadow and Gauley.
The river crossings involve each river being dammed and excavated — sometimes with blasting — so that the 42-inch-diameter pipeline can be buried beneath the streambed.
This work requires a Clean Water Act “dredge-and-fill” permit from the Corps of Engineers. If the construction isn’t handled properly, sediment can increase in the water, oxygen can decrease and aquatic habitat can be harmed.
Because of those concerns, state officials put in place a 72-hour limit for completing these kinds of stream crossings when they approved the use of a streamlined Corps review process that MVP used.
MVP developers said each stream crossing would take four to six weeks to complete. Nonetheless, despite the 72-hour limit set by the state, the Corps approved the pipeline permit anyway, using the streamlined process that saved the developers time, money and scrutiny.
The Sierra Club, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and other groups sued and, in June, the 4th Circuit issued a stay of the Corps-approved permit. The stay prompted a late-night news release from Gov. Jim Justice, who said his Department of Environmental Protection would “continue to monitor these proceedings closely to determine what role the state may play in expediting the construction of this pipeline.”
Then, in July, the Corps rewrote its approval of the pipeline to essentially waive the 72-hour limit imposed by the DEP on the river crossing construction. Agency lawyers said the alternative of digging a trench for the pipeline, without diverting water flow, would cause more environmental damage. Citizen groups said the agencies could instead push for MVP to use a more conventional method to bore under the rivers, perhaps reducing the effects.
Last Friday, a three-judge panel of the appeals court heard arguments in the case, and then, on Tuesday, issued a ruling. The unanimous panel said its reasons would be “more fully explained” in a forthcoming opinion, but in a three-page orderoffered some clues as to its thinking.
The order said the Corps “lacked authority to substitute” one construction method for the 72-hour restriction issued by the DEP. But the DEP is pushing to exempt the stream-crossing method proposed by Mountain Valley Pipeline developers from its 72-hour limit, essentially changing the conditions it had earlier attached to the Clean Water Act permit. The agency is now reviewing public comments submitted by a mid-September deadline.
Kelly Martin, director of the Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign at the Sierra Club, which opposes the pipeline, urged the DEP not to follow through on those changes.
“This isn’t a goal-post-moving moment,” Martin said. “[The] DEP needs to end this game and do its job. Full stop.”
MVP developers submitted a letter in support of the changes. The West Virginia Rivers Coalition opposed the changes, and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a nonprofit law firm that represents citizen groups, argued that the DEP’s move is illegal.
DEP spokesman Jake Glance said that, although his agency is not a party to the lawsuit before the appeals court, it is “evaluating the ruling and will review the court’s opinion when it is released and respond accordingly.”
Corps spokesman Brian Maka declined to comment until the full 4th Circuit opinion is released.
As the court case has played out, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been acting to keep MVP construction moving.
On July 27, a panel of judges on the 4th Circuit vacated two construction permits, from the federal Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, saying Americans “deserve more than silent acquiescence to a pipeline company’s justification for upending large swaths of national forestlands.” Environmental groups considered the decision a victory, and the FERC ordered construction to stop.
The next week, MVP developers asked for and received permission from the FERC to continue work on the first 77 miles in Northern West Virginia, with the exception of a 7-mile stretch near the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike Trail.
By the end of August, the FERC had granted MVP permission to work on the rest of the pipeline, except for near the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike and Jefferson National Forest, over the objections of FERC Commissioners Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick.
“We have significant concerns with today’s decision to allow construction to resume while required right-of-way and temporary use permits remain outstanding,” Glick and LaFleur wrote in a joint statement Aug. 29.
And time and again, state and federal regulators have stepped in to remove such hurdles, even if it has meant rewriting their own rules.
Now, the process looks to be repeating itself.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court blocked a key permit for Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-mile natural gas project that’s known as MVP. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrongly approved a permit that allowed MVP to temporarily dam four of West Virginia’s rivers so the pipeline can be buried beneath the streambeds.
But rather than pausing or rethinking the project, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has already been rewriting the state construction standards for pipeline river crossings that prompted the appeals court to block the plan.
Once that happens, MVP will apply for a new Clean Water Act permit, which it expects to secure in early 2019, said Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for the pipeline’s developers. Developers still expect the pipeline to be in service by the fourth quarter of 2019, she said.
“MVP is committed to the safety of its communities, to the preservation and protection of the environment, and to the continued responsible construction of this important natural gas infrastructure project that will serve homes and business in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast United States,” Cox said in a statement.
The ruling against the pipeline and the effort to change the rules mirrors a review by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, in collaboration with ProPublica, which found that, over the past two years, federal and state agencies tasked with enforcing the nation’s environmental laws have moved repeatedly to clear roadblocks and expedite the pipeline, even changing the rules at times to ease the project’s approvals.
The stakes are high for West Virginia’s natural gas industry, which is booming and needs pipelines to move its product to East Coast and Southern cities. The issues also loom large for state residents who worry that West Virginia’s drive to encourage natural gas growth poses threats to the environment and their communities.
Last month, MVP developers said the cost of the project had risen from $3.7 billion to $4.6 billion, and they blamed about half of that increase on litigation-related delays.
Projects like MVP require a variety of permits before they can be built. Developers and regulators are supposed to study alternatives, articulate a clear need for the project and outline steps to minimize damage to the environment. In numerous instances, though, officials have allowed the pipeline to go ahead despite serious unanswered questions, the Gazette-Mail and ProPublica found after examining government documents and court records.
Tuesday’s ruling by the 4th Circuit focused on one such move by regulators, a change in guidelines for river crossings needed for four significant West Virginia rivers: Elk, Greenbrier, Meadow and Gauley.
The river crossings involve each river being dammed and excavated — sometimes with blasting — so that the 42-inch-diameter pipeline can be buried beneath the streambed.
This work requires a Clean Water Act “dredge-and-fill” permit from the Corps of Engineers. If the construction isn’t handled properly, sediment can increase in the water, oxygen can decrease and aquatic habitat can be harmed.
Because of those concerns, state officials put in place a 72-hour limit for completing these kinds of stream crossings when they approved the use of a streamlined Corps review process that MVP used.
MVP developers said each stream crossing would take four to six weeks to complete. Nonetheless, despite the 72-hour limit set by the state, the Corps approved the pipeline permit anyway, using the streamlined process that saved the developers time, money and scrutiny.
The Sierra Club, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and other groups sued and, in June, the 4th Circuit issued a stay of the Corps-approved permit. The stay prompted a late-night news release from Gov. Jim Justice, who said his Department of Environmental Protection would “continue to monitor these proceedings closely to determine what role the state may play in expediting the construction of this pipeline.”
Then, in July, the Corps rewrote its approval of the pipeline to essentially waive the 72-hour limit imposed by the DEP on the river crossing construction. Agency lawyers said the alternative of digging a trench for the pipeline, without diverting water flow, would cause more environmental damage. Citizen groups said the agencies could instead push for MVP to use a more conventional method to bore under the rivers, perhaps reducing the effects.
Last Friday, a three-judge panel of the appeals court heard arguments in the case, and then, on Tuesday, issued a ruling. The unanimous panel said its reasons would be “more fully explained” in a forthcoming opinion, but in a three-page orderoffered some clues as to its thinking.
The order said the Corps “lacked authority to substitute” one construction method for the 72-hour restriction issued by the DEP. But the DEP is pushing to exempt the stream-crossing method proposed by Mountain Valley Pipeline developers from its 72-hour limit, essentially changing the conditions it had earlier attached to the Clean Water Act permit. The agency is now reviewing public comments submitted by a mid-September deadline.
Kelly Martin, director of the Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign at the Sierra Club, which opposes the pipeline, urged the DEP not to follow through on those changes.
“This isn’t a goal-post-moving moment,” Martin said. “[The] DEP needs to end this game and do its job. Full stop.”
MVP developers submitted a letter in support of the changes. The West Virginia Rivers Coalition opposed the changes, and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a nonprofit law firm that represents citizen groups, argued that the DEP’s move is illegal.
DEP spokesman Jake Glance said that, although his agency is not a party to the lawsuit before the appeals court, it is “evaluating the ruling and will review the court’s opinion when it is released and respond accordingly.”
Corps spokesman Brian Maka declined to comment until the full 4th Circuit opinion is released.
As the court case has played out, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been acting to keep MVP construction moving.
On July 27, a panel of judges on the 4th Circuit vacated two construction permits, from the federal Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, saying Americans “deserve more than silent acquiescence to a pipeline company’s justification for upending large swaths of national forestlands.” Environmental groups considered the decision a victory, and the FERC ordered construction to stop.
The next week, MVP developers asked for and received permission from the FERC to continue work on the first 77 miles in Northern West Virginia, with the exception of a 7-mile stretch near the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike Trail.
By the end of August, the FERC had granted MVP permission to work on the rest of the pipeline, except for near the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike and Jefferson National Forest, over the objections of FERC Commissioners Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick.
“We have significant concerns with today’s decision to allow construction to resume while required right-of-way and temporary use permits remain outstanding,” Glick and LaFleur wrote in a joint statement Aug. 29.
States Allow For-Profit Pipeline Companies to Seize Private Property
BY Mike Ludwig Truthout
PUBLISHED
September 12, 2018
A Bayou Bridge Pipeline construction site in Louisiana's iconic Atchafalaya Basin, the nation's largest river swamp. Energy Transfer Partners agreed to halt construction of the pipeline on a parcel of private property this week after a conservation group filed a lawsuit on behalf of a landowner.
L'EAU EST LA VIE CAMP
According to Misha Mitchell, an attorney for a conservation group in Louisiana’s ecologically sensitive Atchafalaya Basin, Energy Transfer Partners and other private oil interests broke the law when they began building a section of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline on a parcel of private land in the iconic river swamp without permission from the landowners.
Mitchell filed a lawsuit against the pipeline project on behalf of landowner Peter Aaslestad and his family after construction began on their property in late July, but work continued on the property until Monday, when Energy Transfer Partners struck a deal in a local court with the plaintiffs to temporarily halt construction.
The company must now wait until at least November to finish, when a court will decide whether Energy Transfer Partners has the legal right to “expropriate” the property under state law. Workers have already built much of the pipeline easement on the property after clearing trees and grinding them into mulch. The deal is a setback for the company and a victory for environmentalists, but much of the project is already completed.
Aerial photos show unpermitted pipeline construction on Aaslestad’s property as far back as July 23, but the local police did not show up until the media and environmental activists arrived last month. Unlike Energy Transfer Partners, the activists claimed to have written permission from one of Aaslestad’s co-owners to be on the property, but several were arrested on felony charges and dragged off to jail after resorting to civil disobedience to halt construction.
“Everyone should be concerned that certain people get away with things that others can’t,” said Mitchell. “It’s not an equitable system, and there should be serious spotlight on accountability and compliance with the laws of this state.”
As the spoils of fracking and the Trump administration’s pro-drilling agenda increase demand for new fossil fuel infrastructure, private oil companies are seizing private property from landowners to build oil and gas pipelines across the country. In most cases, state regulators and courts have granted private firms like Energy Transfer Partners eminent domain or “expropriation” powers by framing their for-profit pipelines as public benefit.
Activists and landowners are fighting back, and some have been jailed in the process.
Ellen Sue Gerhart, a retired school teacher, grandmother and leading opponent of the Energy Transfer Partners’ Mariner East 2 Pipeline in Pennsylvania, is currently serving a minimum of two months in jail for allegedly baiting a bear onto a pipeline construction site on her rural property — a charge the activist and her family deny.
The Gerhart family challenged construction on their land in court and with protests, but Energy Transfer Partners won the right to build on the property and put the family under heavy surveillance, according to family members and their attorney.
In Louisiana, at least one journalist and 12 Water Protectors have been arrested in the Atchafalaya Basin and charged with felonies under a newly enacted state law that effectively criminalizes civil disobediencearound fossil fuel infrastructure. Activists believe the law specifically targets the direct action campaign against the Bayou Bridge Pipeline.
Last week, police aggressively arrested four activists as they attempted to peacefully block construction on the land co-owned by Aaslestad and other members of his family. The activists claimed to have written permission from property co-owner Theda Wright and her sisters to be there, but Energy Transfer Partners did not. Mitchell said the property has dozens of co-owners besides Wright and Aaslestad, and state law requires the company receive permission from all of them or take them to court in order to proceed with construction.
“I’ve been asked to protect this piece of land and I intend to do it,” said organizer Cherri Foytlin in a statement after her arrest, referring to family members who co-own the land.
Meanwhile, activists marched 100 miles in Iowa last week to bring attention to a major legal challenge to the Dakota Access Pipeline, the northern leg of the Energy Transfer Partners oil pipeline that faced sustained Indigenous-led resistance at Standing Rock. The Iowa Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case today, which pits Energy Transfer Partners and the Iowa Utility Board against Iowa farmers and landowners who own property in the pipeline’s path.
The Dakota Access Pipeline would pump oil from vast fracking fields in North Dakota across Midwestern states to Texas and the Gulf Coast. There, it will link up to Bayou Bridge, which bisects much of southern Louisiana and is expected to deliver oil to refineries and export terminals.
In 2016, the Iowa Utilities Board granted a the pipeline a sweeping permit for construction that allows Energy Transfer Partners, a private company, to exercise eminent domain like a public utility company. Under Iowa state law, such powers can only be granted to a private pipeline company if the project if the utilities board determines that the project will “promote public convenience and necessity.”
However, unlike a natural gas pipeline bringing fuel to homes, for example, the Dakota Access Pipeline does not serve Iowans directly. In their lawsuit challenging the permit, landowners and environmental groups argue that the utilities board has failed to show that the pipeline will serve the Iowa residents and the public good, so Energy Transfer Partners should be denied broad powers to seize property under eminent domain.
The Iowa Utilities Board and Energy Transfer Partners claim that Dakota Access meets federal requirements for interstate pipelines and will bring jobs and money into the state to the benefit of Iowa residents. Transporting oil by pipeline is safer than transporting it by rail, they claim, and the pipeline would promote energy independence to keep fuel prices down for Iowa farmers.
In a reply brief on behalf of the landowners, the Iowa Sierra Club points out that gasoline is already readily available to farmers in Iowa without the pipeline in place. Plus, data suggest that pipeline accidents are about as common as rail accidents — a point that was punctuated by a fiery explosion in rural Pennsylvania on Monday, where a natural gas pipeline operated by Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco sent flames shooting 150 feet into the air. At least one home was destroyed and residents were evacuated. Luckily, nobody was hurt, according to StateImpact Pennsylvania.
That pipeline reportedly feeds into the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. In 2017, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled 2-1 that Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco could exercise eminent domain over private property (including Ellen Sue Gerhart’s) to build the pipeline. The court found that the pipeline provides “public benefit” and serves the “public interest.” Much of the liquefied gases it transports from fracking fields in Pennsylvania will be sold outside the state and even overseas.
In Louisiana, pipelines such as Bayou Bridge must be a “common carrier for hire” that serve a “public and necessary purpose” in order to “expropriate” private property for construction. Like other parts of the US, pipeline builders typically offer residents some compensation before taking them to court. Mitchell said the initial offers are often paltry and only those who can afford a lawyer can negotiate a better deal.
“Most folks are unable to challenge [the pipeline] or are nervous to,” Mitchell said. “They are scared because they are going up against giants.”
Legal challenges like the lawsuits against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa typically only progress to higher courts when attorneys with large environmental groups intervene on behalf of landowners. Libertarian and property rights groups have also taken interest in the Iowa case and others, a sign that reforming the system for permitting pipelines could gain public support across ideological boundaries.
“The big picture is that very well-monied interests have sown discord for their own purpose and everyone else is in a big street fight in a ridiculous way, where everyone is being hurt except the big corporations,” said Deborah Sivas, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford University, in an interview with Truthout. “And how do you get people to see that? Maybe this is one of those issues.”
Lawsuits filed by landowners against Bayou Bridge are still winding their way through the courts, and Mitchell said there has yet to be a case challenging the application of state’s “public and necessary purpose” standard for authorizing expropriation of private land for major pipeline construction.
Louisiana is politically dominated by the oil and gas industry, and state regulators have ignored a judge’s order to halt construction of Bayou Bridge after the court ruled that a crucial permit did not contain an evacuation plan for a historic African-American community in the pipeline’s path.
However, for the activists opposed to Bayou Bridge and other pipelines, the fight is not just about private property rights. Pipeline constructions disrupts sensitive ecosystems in areas such as the Atchafalaya Basin and threatens them with leaks and spills. Continued reliance on fossil fuels only pushes us deeper into the throes of climate disruption. Perhaps courts and state regulators will one day recognize that maintaining a healthy planet can also serve the public interest.
Mitchell filed a lawsuit against the pipeline project on behalf of landowner Peter Aaslestad and his family after construction began on their property in late July, but work continued on the property until Monday, when Energy Transfer Partners struck a deal in a local court with the plaintiffs to temporarily halt construction.
The company must now wait until at least November to finish, when a court will decide whether Energy Transfer Partners has the legal right to “expropriate” the property under state law. Workers have already built much of the pipeline easement on the property after clearing trees and grinding them into mulch. The deal is a setback for the company and a victory for environmentalists, but much of the project is already completed.
Aerial photos show unpermitted pipeline construction on Aaslestad’s property as far back as July 23, but the local police did not show up until the media and environmental activists arrived last month. Unlike Energy Transfer Partners, the activists claimed to have written permission from one of Aaslestad’s co-owners to be on the property, but several were arrested on felony charges and dragged off to jail after resorting to civil disobedience to halt construction.
“Everyone should be concerned that certain people get away with things that others can’t,” said Mitchell. “It’s not an equitable system, and there should be serious spotlight on accountability and compliance with the laws of this state.”
As the spoils of fracking and the Trump administration’s pro-drilling agenda increase demand for new fossil fuel infrastructure, private oil companies are seizing private property from landowners to build oil and gas pipelines across the country. In most cases, state regulators and courts have granted private firms like Energy Transfer Partners eminent domain or “expropriation” powers by framing their for-profit pipelines as public benefit.
Activists and landowners are fighting back, and some have been jailed in the process.
Ellen Sue Gerhart, a retired school teacher, grandmother and leading opponent of the Energy Transfer Partners’ Mariner East 2 Pipeline in Pennsylvania, is currently serving a minimum of two months in jail for allegedly baiting a bear onto a pipeline construction site on her rural property — a charge the activist and her family deny.
The Gerhart family challenged construction on their land in court and with protests, but Energy Transfer Partners won the right to build on the property and put the family under heavy surveillance, according to family members and their attorney.
In Louisiana, at least one journalist and 12 Water Protectors have been arrested in the Atchafalaya Basin and charged with felonies under a newly enacted state law that effectively criminalizes civil disobediencearound fossil fuel infrastructure. Activists believe the law specifically targets the direct action campaign against the Bayou Bridge Pipeline.
Last week, police aggressively arrested four activists as they attempted to peacefully block construction on the land co-owned by Aaslestad and other members of his family. The activists claimed to have written permission from property co-owner Theda Wright and her sisters to be there, but Energy Transfer Partners did not. Mitchell said the property has dozens of co-owners besides Wright and Aaslestad, and state law requires the company receive permission from all of them or take them to court in order to proceed with construction.
“I’ve been asked to protect this piece of land and I intend to do it,” said organizer Cherri Foytlin in a statement after her arrest, referring to family members who co-own the land.
Meanwhile, activists marched 100 miles in Iowa last week to bring attention to a major legal challenge to the Dakota Access Pipeline, the northern leg of the Energy Transfer Partners oil pipeline that faced sustained Indigenous-led resistance at Standing Rock. The Iowa Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case today, which pits Energy Transfer Partners and the Iowa Utility Board against Iowa farmers and landowners who own property in the pipeline’s path.
The Dakota Access Pipeline would pump oil from vast fracking fields in North Dakota across Midwestern states to Texas and the Gulf Coast. There, it will link up to Bayou Bridge, which bisects much of southern Louisiana and is expected to deliver oil to refineries and export terminals.
In 2016, the Iowa Utilities Board granted a the pipeline a sweeping permit for construction that allows Energy Transfer Partners, a private company, to exercise eminent domain like a public utility company. Under Iowa state law, such powers can only be granted to a private pipeline company if the project if the utilities board determines that the project will “promote public convenience and necessity.”
However, unlike a natural gas pipeline bringing fuel to homes, for example, the Dakota Access Pipeline does not serve Iowans directly. In their lawsuit challenging the permit, landowners and environmental groups argue that the utilities board has failed to show that the pipeline will serve the Iowa residents and the public good, so Energy Transfer Partners should be denied broad powers to seize property under eminent domain.
The Iowa Utilities Board and Energy Transfer Partners claim that Dakota Access meets federal requirements for interstate pipelines and will bring jobs and money into the state to the benefit of Iowa residents. Transporting oil by pipeline is safer than transporting it by rail, they claim, and the pipeline would promote energy independence to keep fuel prices down for Iowa farmers.
In a reply brief on behalf of the landowners, the Iowa Sierra Club points out that gasoline is already readily available to farmers in Iowa without the pipeline in place. Plus, data suggest that pipeline accidents are about as common as rail accidents — a point that was punctuated by a fiery explosion in rural Pennsylvania on Monday, where a natural gas pipeline operated by Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco sent flames shooting 150 feet into the air. At least one home was destroyed and residents were evacuated. Luckily, nobody was hurt, according to StateImpact Pennsylvania.
That pipeline reportedly feeds into the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. In 2017, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled 2-1 that Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco could exercise eminent domain over private property (including Ellen Sue Gerhart’s) to build the pipeline. The court found that the pipeline provides “public benefit” and serves the “public interest.” Much of the liquefied gases it transports from fracking fields in Pennsylvania will be sold outside the state and even overseas.
In Louisiana, pipelines such as Bayou Bridge must be a “common carrier for hire” that serve a “public and necessary purpose” in order to “expropriate” private property for construction. Like other parts of the US, pipeline builders typically offer residents some compensation before taking them to court. Mitchell said the initial offers are often paltry and only those who can afford a lawyer can negotiate a better deal.
“Most folks are unable to challenge [the pipeline] or are nervous to,” Mitchell said. “They are scared because they are going up against giants.”
Legal challenges like the lawsuits against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa typically only progress to higher courts when attorneys with large environmental groups intervene on behalf of landowners. Libertarian and property rights groups have also taken interest in the Iowa case and others, a sign that reforming the system for permitting pipelines could gain public support across ideological boundaries.
“The big picture is that very well-monied interests have sown discord for their own purpose and everyone else is in a big street fight in a ridiculous way, where everyone is being hurt except the big corporations,” said Deborah Sivas, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford University, in an interview with Truthout. “And how do you get people to see that? Maybe this is one of those issues.”
Lawsuits filed by landowners against Bayou Bridge are still winding their way through the courts, and Mitchell said there has yet to be a case challenging the application of state’s “public and necessary purpose” standard for authorizing expropriation of private land for major pipeline construction.
Louisiana is politically dominated by the oil and gas industry, and state regulators have ignored a judge’s order to halt construction of Bayou Bridge after the court ruled that a crucial permit did not contain an evacuation plan for a historic African-American community in the pipeline’s path.
However, for the activists opposed to Bayou Bridge and other pipelines, the fight is not just about private property rights. Pipeline constructions disrupts sensitive ecosystems in areas such as the Atchafalaya Basin and threatens them with leaks and spills. Continued reliance on fossil fuels only pushes us deeper into the throes of climate disruption. Perhaps courts and state regulators will one day recognize that maintaining a healthy planet can also serve the public interest.
government by the stupid and the greedy!!!
US Says Conserving Oil Is No Longer An Economic Imperative
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER | tpm
August 19, 2018 10:01 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative for the U.S., the Trump administration declares in a major new policy statement that threatens to undermine decades of government campaigns for gas-thrifty cars and other conservation programs.
The position was outlined in a memo released last month in support of the administration’s proposal to relax fuel mileage standards. The government released the memo online this month without fanfare.
Growth of natural gas and other alternatives to petroleum has reduced the need for imported oil, which “in turn affects the need of the nation to conserve energy,” the Energy Department said. It also cites the now decade-old fracking revolution that has unlocked U.S. shale oil reserves, giving “the United States more flexibility than in the past to use our oil resources with less concern.”
With the memo, the administration is formally challenging old justifications for conservation — even congressionally prescribed ones, as with the mileage standards. The memo made no mention of climate change. Transportation is the single largest source of climate-changing emissions.
President Donald Trump has questioned the existence of climate change, embraced the notion of “energy dominance” as a national goal, and called for easing what he calls burdensome regulation of oil, gas and coal, including repealing the Obama Clean Power Plan.
Despite the increased oil supplies, the administration continues to believe in the need to “use energy wisely,” the Energy Department said, without elaboration. Department spokesmen did not respond Friday to questions about that statement.
Reaction was quick.
“It’s like saying, ‘I’m a big old fat guy, and food prices have dropped — it’s time to start eating again,'” said Tom Kloza, longtime oil analyst with the Maryland-based Oil Price Information Service.
“If you look at it from the other end, if you do believe that fossil fuels do some sort of damage to the atmosphere … you come up with a different viewpoint,” Kloza said. “There’s a downside to living large.”
Climate change is a “clear and present and increasing danger,” said Sean Donahue, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund.
In a big way, the Energy Department statement just acknowledges the world’s vastly changed reality when it comes to oil.
Just 10 years ago, in summer 2008, oil prices were peaking at $147 a barrel and pummeling the global economy. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was enjoying a massive transfer of wealth, from countries dependent on imported oil. Prices now are about $65.
Today, the U.S. is vying with Russia for the title of top world oil producer. U.S. oil production hit an all-time high this summer, aided by the technological leaps of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
How much the U.S. economy is hooked up to the gas pump, and vice versa, plays into any number of policy considerations, not just economic or environmental ones, but military and geopolitical ones, said John Graham, a former official in the George W. Bush administration, now dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.
“Our ability to play that role as a leader in the world is stronger when we are the strongest producer of oil and gas,” Graham said. “But there are still reasons to want to reduce the amount we consume.”
Current administration proposals include one that would freeze mileage standards for cars and light trucks after 2020, instead of continuing to make them tougher.
The proposal eventually would increase U.S. oil consumption by 500,000 barrels a day, the administration says. While Trump officials say the freeze would improve highway safety, documents released this month showed senior Environmental Protection Agency staffers calculate the administration’s move would actually increase highway deaths.
“American businesses, consumers and our environment are all the losers under his plan,” said Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat. “The only clear winner is the oil industry. It’s not hard to see whose side President Trump is on.”
Administration support has been tepid to null on some other long-running government programs for alternatives to gas-powered cars.
Bill Wehrum, assistant administration of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, spoke dismissively of electric cars — a young industry supported financially by the federal government and many states — this month in a call with reporters announcing the mileage freeze proposal.
“People just don’t want to buy them,” the EPA official said.
Oil and gas interests are campaigning for changes in government conservation efforts on mileage standards, biofuels and electric cars.
In June, for instance, the American Petroleum Institute and other industries wrote eight governors, promoting the dominance of the internal-combustion engine and questioning their states’ incentives to consumers for electric cars.
Surging U.S. and gas production has brought on “energy security and abundance,” Frank Macchiarola, a group director of the American Petroleum Institute trade association, told reporters this week, in a telephone call dedicated to urging scrapping or overhauling of one U.S. program for biofuels.
Fears of oil scarcity used to be a driver of U.S. energy policy, Macchiarola said.
Thanks partly to increased production, “that pillar has really been rendered essentially moot,” he said.
The position was outlined in a memo released last month in support of the administration’s proposal to relax fuel mileage standards. The government released the memo online this month without fanfare.
Growth of natural gas and other alternatives to petroleum has reduced the need for imported oil, which “in turn affects the need of the nation to conserve energy,” the Energy Department said. It also cites the now decade-old fracking revolution that has unlocked U.S. shale oil reserves, giving “the United States more flexibility than in the past to use our oil resources with less concern.”
With the memo, the administration is formally challenging old justifications for conservation — even congressionally prescribed ones, as with the mileage standards. The memo made no mention of climate change. Transportation is the single largest source of climate-changing emissions.
President Donald Trump has questioned the existence of climate change, embraced the notion of “energy dominance” as a national goal, and called for easing what he calls burdensome regulation of oil, gas and coal, including repealing the Obama Clean Power Plan.
Despite the increased oil supplies, the administration continues to believe in the need to “use energy wisely,” the Energy Department said, without elaboration. Department spokesmen did not respond Friday to questions about that statement.
Reaction was quick.
“It’s like saying, ‘I’m a big old fat guy, and food prices have dropped — it’s time to start eating again,'” said Tom Kloza, longtime oil analyst with the Maryland-based Oil Price Information Service.
“If you look at it from the other end, if you do believe that fossil fuels do some sort of damage to the atmosphere … you come up with a different viewpoint,” Kloza said. “There’s a downside to living large.”
Climate change is a “clear and present and increasing danger,” said Sean Donahue, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund.
In a big way, the Energy Department statement just acknowledges the world’s vastly changed reality when it comes to oil.
Just 10 years ago, in summer 2008, oil prices were peaking at $147 a barrel and pummeling the global economy. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was enjoying a massive transfer of wealth, from countries dependent on imported oil. Prices now are about $65.
Today, the U.S. is vying with Russia for the title of top world oil producer. U.S. oil production hit an all-time high this summer, aided by the technological leaps of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
How much the U.S. economy is hooked up to the gas pump, and vice versa, plays into any number of policy considerations, not just economic or environmental ones, but military and geopolitical ones, said John Graham, a former official in the George W. Bush administration, now dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.
“Our ability to play that role as a leader in the world is stronger when we are the strongest producer of oil and gas,” Graham said. “But there are still reasons to want to reduce the amount we consume.”
Current administration proposals include one that would freeze mileage standards for cars and light trucks after 2020, instead of continuing to make them tougher.
The proposal eventually would increase U.S. oil consumption by 500,000 barrels a day, the administration says. While Trump officials say the freeze would improve highway safety, documents released this month showed senior Environmental Protection Agency staffers calculate the administration’s move would actually increase highway deaths.
“American businesses, consumers and our environment are all the losers under his plan,” said Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat. “The only clear winner is the oil industry. It’s not hard to see whose side President Trump is on.”
Administration support has been tepid to null on some other long-running government programs for alternatives to gas-powered cars.
Bill Wehrum, assistant administration of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, spoke dismissively of electric cars — a young industry supported financially by the federal government and many states — this month in a call with reporters announcing the mileage freeze proposal.
“People just don’t want to buy them,” the EPA official said.
Oil and gas interests are campaigning for changes in government conservation efforts on mileage standards, biofuels and electric cars.
In June, for instance, the American Petroleum Institute and other industries wrote eight governors, promoting the dominance of the internal-combustion engine and questioning their states’ incentives to consumers for electric cars.
Surging U.S. and gas production has brought on “energy security and abundance,” Frank Macchiarola, a group director of the American Petroleum Institute trade association, told reporters this week, in a telephone call dedicated to urging scrapping or overhauling of one U.S. program for biofuels.
Fears of oil scarcity used to be a driver of U.S. energy policy, Macchiarola said.
Thanks partly to increased production, “that pillar has really been rendered essentially moot,” he said.
Colorado’s oil and gas industry goes after reporters and signature gatherers in new fracking fight
With large oil and gas reserves, Colorado often is at the center of the nation's fossil fuel wars.
MARK HAND - thinkprogress
AUG 16, 2018, 5:07 PM
As Colorado gears up for another fight over oil and gas drilling near homes and schools, this time the fossil fuel industry is reportedly doing whatever it takes to win.
In the latest flare-up, the oil and gas industry used a website to single out individual journalists for criticism. At the same time, pro-industry protesters were reportedly shadowing canvassers who were gathering signatures to get a measure — Initiative 97 — on the November ballot that would increase the distance between drilling sites and homes.
Colorado Rising, the anti-fracking group behind the ballot initiative, issued a statement last week claiming “harassers were paid to intimidate petition circulators and discourage voters from signing” the petition to get the initiative on the ballot.
Anne Lee Foster, a Colorado Rising volunteer, told Colorado Public Radio that an anonymous employee at Anadarko Petroleum shared an internal document that appeared to ask employees to report when they see Initiative 97 canvassers. The letter includes an email address and a text message hotline, Foster said.
Anadarko had not returned a request for comment from ThinkProgress at the time this article was published.
With huge reserves of oil and gas and an active environmental and clean energy movement, the state often finds itself at the center of the nation’s fossil fuel wars. Oil and gas companies have increasingly been moving into suburban and urban areas of Colorado in search of new drilling opportunities; at the same time, suburban sprawl is colliding with oil and gas fields as housing developers build new communities north of Denver.
Given the huge amounts of money on the line, oil and gas companies have ratcheted up their efforts to prevent the creation of regulatory roadblocks that could stop them from accessing more densely populated areas.
Under the proposed initiative, the current 500 foot setback for oil and gas development would be expanded to a minimum of 2,500 feet. The organizers of the ballot initiative campaign cite public safety and health as the primary reasons for expanding the setbacks.
They point to an April 2017 explosion in Firestone, Colorado — about 30 miles north of Denver — that killed two people at a home located about 200 feet from a natural gas well operated by Anadarko. According to a Denver Post investigation, in the eight months following the Firestone explosion, at least a dozen explosions and fires have been associated with oil and gas facilities along Colorado’s Front Range.
Low-income communities of color in Colorado have also fought against drilling efforts along the Front Range.
In the wake of such accidents, the oil and gas industry and its political supporters typically call for investigations and a temporary shut down of operations. But they remain steadfast in the belief that the economic benefits of drilling, even in more heavily populated regions of Colorado, outweigh the industry’s risks.
In a fiscal analysis of the initiative, the secretary of state’s office said the greater setbacks will reduce oil and gas development in Colorado, leading to less oil and gas employment, reduced rent and royalty income for mineral owners, and reduced profits for oil and gas producers.
For homeowners, the fiscal analysis found that the increased setback distance may preserve property value for homeowners most affected by the setback and “to the extent less development improves health outcomes for affected residents, may increase productivity and reduce medical costs.”
In its analysis of the proposal, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a state regulatory agency, estimated the initiative would bar oil and gas extraction on more than 85 percent of the state’s non-federal lands.
As activists were gathering signatures for Initiative 97, a new pro-fracking website, called the Energy Accountability Project, was launched, with its “About Me” page explaining the site was “sponsored by energy interests.” But after a Denver television station ran a news report on the website on August 8, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade association, contacted 9News to announce it was the entity behind the website.
Prior to the report, visitors to the website could sort through the industry group’s critiques of the news media by journalist. Even the names of behind-the-scenes producers, whose names and faces aren’t known to the public, were included on the drop-down menu, 9News reported.
After the news story ran, that sorting element of the website was fixed, COGA spokesperson Scott Prestidge said Thursday in an email to ThinkProgress. “At no point was a ‘dossier’ being collected on anybody,” he added.
“We were asked by 9News this week if the Colorado Oil & Gas Association was supporting this website, and we said yes. Whenever anyone asked, we said yes. We should have been forthcoming with that at the beginning,” Dan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said in statement posted on the Energy Accountability Project’s website last Thursday.
Haley explained that the website was established because “too often lately, we find reporters and elected leaders rely on activist studies, misrepresentations, and one-sided arguments for their coverage, and many times they are not responsive when we seek corrections or opportunities to tell our side of the story.”
Energy In Depth, a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, boasts a similar mission, but on a national level, serving as a rapid response site that offers critiques of journalists and anti-fracking activists.
Activists submitted 171,000 signatures to the Colorado secretary of state on August 6 for what they are calling the Safer Setbacks from Fracking initiative. The organizers needed to gather about 98,500 valid voter signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.
In a separate ballot initiative, the farming and energy industries want companies and individuals to be compensated if new regulations devalue their property. The groups reportedly spent $1.2 million on signature gathering for the initiative. The measure’s supporters were required to gather signatures from all 34 Colorado state senate districts because — unlike the fracking setback initiative — the “takings” measure would amend the state constitution.
Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), generally a supporter of the state’s oil and gas industry, said he opposes both ballot measures.
The secretary of state has 30 days to review the petitions, giving the state officials until September 5 to let the organizers known whether it is sufficient to appear on the ballot.
In the latest flare-up, the oil and gas industry used a website to single out individual journalists for criticism. At the same time, pro-industry protesters were reportedly shadowing canvassers who were gathering signatures to get a measure — Initiative 97 — on the November ballot that would increase the distance between drilling sites and homes.
Colorado Rising, the anti-fracking group behind the ballot initiative, issued a statement last week claiming “harassers were paid to intimidate petition circulators and discourage voters from signing” the petition to get the initiative on the ballot.
Anne Lee Foster, a Colorado Rising volunteer, told Colorado Public Radio that an anonymous employee at Anadarko Petroleum shared an internal document that appeared to ask employees to report when they see Initiative 97 canvassers. The letter includes an email address and a text message hotline, Foster said.
Anadarko had not returned a request for comment from ThinkProgress at the time this article was published.
With huge reserves of oil and gas and an active environmental and clean energy movement, the state often finds itself at the center of the nation’s fossil fuel wars. Oil and gas companies have increasingly been moving into suburban and urban areas of Colorado in search of new drilling opportunities; at the same time, suburban sprawl is colliding with oil and gas fields as housing developers build new communities north of Denver.
Given the huge amounts of money on the line, oil and gas companies have ratcheted up their efforts to prevent the creation of regulatory roadblocks that could stop them from accessing more densely populated areas.
Under the proposed initiative, the current 500 foot setback for oil and gas development would be expanded to a minimum of 2,500 feet. The organizers of the ballot initiative campaign cite public safety and health as the primary reasons for expanding the setbacks.
They point to an April 2017 explosion in Firestone, Colorado — about 30 miles north of Denver — that killed two people at a home located about 200 feet from a natural gas well operated by Anadarko. According to a Denver Post investigation, in the eight months following the Firestone explosion, at least a dozen explosions and fires have been associated with oil and gas facilities along Colorado’s Front Range.
Low-income communities of color in Colorado have also fought against drilling efforts along the Front Range.
In the wake of such accidents, the oil and gas industry and its political supporters typically call for investigations and a temporary shut down of operations. But they remain steadfast in the belief that the economic benefits of drilling, even in more heavily populated regions of Colorado, outweigh the industry’s risks.
In a fiscal analysis of the initiative, the secretary of state’s office said the greater setbacks will reduce oil and gas development in Colorado, leading to less oil and gas employment, reduced rent and royalty income for mineral owners, and reduced profits for oil and gas producers.
For homeowners, the fiscal analysis found that the increased setback distance may preserve property value for homeowners most affected by the setback and “to the extent less development improves health outcomes for affected residents, may increase productivity and reduce medical costs.”
In its analysis of the proposal, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a state regulatory agency, estimated the initiative would bar oil and gas extraction on more than 85 percent of the state’s non-federal lands.
As activists were gathering signatures for Initiative 97, a new pro-fracking website, called the Energy Accountability Project, was launched, with its “About Me” page explaining the site was “sponsored by energy interests.” But after a Denver television station ran a news report on the website on August 8, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade association, contacted 9News to announce it was the entity behind the website.
Prior to the report, visitors to the website could sort through the industry group’s critiques of the news media by journalist. Even the names of behind-the-scenes producers, whose names and faces aren’t known to the public, were included on the drop-down menu, 9News reported.
After the news story ran, that sorting element of the website was fixed, COGA spokesperson Scott Prestidge said Thursday in an email to ThinkProgress. “At no point was a ‘dossier’ being collected on anybody,” he added.
“We were asked by 9News this week if the Colorado Oil & Gas Association was supporting this website, and we said yes. Whenever anyone asked, we said yes. We should have been forthcoming with that at the beginning,” Dan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said in statement posted on the Energy Accountability Project’s website last Thursday.
Haley explained that the website was established because “too often lately, we find reporters and elected leaders rely on activist studies, misrepresentations, and one-sided arguments for their coverage, and many times they are not responsive when we seek corrections or opportunities to tell our side of the story.”
Energy In Depth, a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, boasts a similar mission, but on a national level, serving as a rapid response site that offers critiques of journalists and anti-fracking activists.
Activists submitted 171,000 signatures to the Colorado secretary of state on August 6 for what they are calling the Safer Setbacks from Fracking initiative. The organizers needed to gather about 98,500 valid voter signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.
In a separate ballot initiative, the farming and energy industries want companies and individuals to be compensated if new regulations devalue their property. The groups reportedly spent $1.2 million on signature gathering for the initiative. The measure’s supporters were required to gather signatures from all 34 Colorado state senate districts because — unlike the fracking setback initiative — the “takings” measure would amend the state constitution.
Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), generally a supporter of the state’s oil and gas industry, said he opposes both ballot measures.
The secretary of state has 30 days to review the petitions, giving the state officials until September 5 to let the organizers known whether it is sufficient to appear on the ballot.
World’s biggest oil exporter is betting $2 billion on electric cars
Saudis buy major stake in Tesla.
JOE ROMM - thinkprogress
AUG 8, 2018, 12:00 PM
The big headline-grabbing Tesla story Tuesday was that Elon Musk says he is considering taking the company private.
But we shouldn’t miss an equally important story. The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Saudi Arabia has acquired an “undisclosed stake of between 3 and 5 per cent of Tesla’s shares this year.” The position is worth some $2 to $3 billion, making the Saudis “one of Tesla’s largest shareholders.”
In other words, the world’s biggest oil exporter — whose entire economy is built around more than $100 billion in oil and oil-related exports a year — has placed a massive bet on the company whose entire goal is transitioning the world off of oil.
The investment came from Saudi Arabia’s $230 Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is the Saudi’s “sovereign wealth fund” — a state-owned investment vehicle.
Expanding the PIF with oil revenues — and using the fund to help transition the Saudi economy off of dependence on oil — has been a major strategy of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Back in March, the prince announced a plan to build a stunning 200 gigawatts of solar power capacity in Saudi Arabia for $200 billion. This is 100 times larger than the largest solar farm ever proposed. And, as Bloomberg has reported, it will provide “evening hour” power thanks to what will be “the largest utility-scale battery.”
Tesla has been the world leader in driving down the price of both batteries and electric cars to the point where countries from England and France to India and China have announced plans to ban gasoline powered cars outright.
A 2016 study by the credit rating agency Fitch concluded that advances in batteries could “tip the oil market from growth to contraction earlier than anticipated,” leading to an “investor death spiral” in the 2020s as savvy investors — and then everyone else — pull out of oil company assets such as stocks and bonds.
Interestingly, the Financial Times reported that before buying the Tesla shares in secondary markets, the PIF had first approached Musk to buy new shares directly from Tesla.
But Musk rejected the offer, since he’s trying to show Wall Street that he doesn’t need to issue more shares to raise money. Indeed, he has been endeavoring to convince investors that the company will be cash-flow positive in the second half of the year, after burning through $1.8 billion — nearly half of all its cash reserves — in the first two quarters of 2018.
Musk surprised the world Tuesday when he tweeted in the middle of the day, “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.”
That news, coming directly on the heels of the announcement of the massive Saudi investment, led to a jump in the stock, which had been trading at just above $340 a share yesterday and is now, at time of publishing, above $370.
Within hours of the first tweet, Musk had sent an email to employees, “Taking Tesla Private,” explaining that he wants to take the company public to escape “the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term.”
If indeed he succeeds in taking the company private, we won’t get as much public news on the company as we do today, but it will give more stability to a company that has been on one long roller-coaster ride to the future.
But we shouldn’t miss an equally important story. The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Saudi Arabia has acquired an “undisclosed stake of between 3 and 5 per cent of Tesla’s shares this year.” The position is worth some $2 to $3 billion, making the Saudis “one of Tesla’s largest shareholders.”
In other words, the world’s biggest oil exporter — whose entire economy is built around more than $100 billion in oil and oil-related exports a year — has placed a massive bet on the company whose entire goal is transitioning the world off of oil.
The investment came from Saudi Arabia’s $230 Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is the Saudi’s “sovereign wealth fund” — a state-owned investment vehicle.
Expanding the PIF with oil revenues — and using the fund to help transition the Saudi economy off of dependence on oil — has been a major strategy of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Back in March, the prince announced a plan to build a stunning 200 gigawatts of solar power capacity in Saudi Arabia for $200 billion. This is 100 times larger than the largest solar farm ever proposed. And, as Bloomberg has reported, it will provide “evening hour” power thanks to what will be “the largest utility-scale battery.”
Tesla has been the world leader in driving down the price of both batteries and electric cars to the point where countries from England and France to India and China have announced plans to ban gasoline powered cars outright.
A 2016 study by the credit rating agency Fitch concluded that advances in batteries could “tip the oil market from growth to contraction earlier than anticipated,” leading to an “investor death spiral” in the 2020s as savvy investors — and then everyone else — pull out of oil company assets such as stocks and bonds.
Interestingly, the Financial Times reported that before buying the Tesla shares in secondary markets, the PIF had first approached Musk to buy new shares directly from Tesla.
But Musk rejected the offer, since he’s trying to show Wall Street that he doesn’t need to issue more shares to raise money. Indeed, he has been endeavoring to convince investors that the company will be cash-flow positive in the second half of the year, after burning through $1.8 billion — nearly half of all its cash reserves — in the first two quarters of 2018.
Musk surprised the world Tuesday when he tweeted in the middle of the day, “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.”
That news, coming directly on the heels of the announcement of the massive Saudi investment, led to a jump in the stock, which had been trading at just above $340 a share yesterday and is now, at time of publishing, above $370.
Within hours of the first tweet, Musk had sent an email to employees, “Taking Tesla Private,” explaining that he wants to take the company public to escape “the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term.”
If indeed he succeeds in taking the company private, we won’t get as much public news on the company as we do today, but it will give more stability to a company that has been on one long roller-coaster ride to the future.
Oregon Supreme Court hands Portland major victory on anti-fossil fuel infrastructure effort
The "green wall of resistance" sees some reinforcement from the courts.
E.A. CRUNDEN - thinkprogress
AUG 1, 2018, 1:05 PM
Oregon’s Supreme Court has handed a major victory to Portland, upholding the city’s right to greatly restrict fossil fuel infrastructure. The measure has been a source of controversy and considerable back-and-forth over the past few years as business groups have sought to challenge the ordinance.
On Tuesday, the court declined to review a Oregon Court of Appeals decision issued in January that affirmed Portland’s constitutional right to prohibit new fossil fuel infrastructure, including storage and distribution terminals for oil and gas.
In 2016, the Portland City Council unanimously approved the ordinance limiting the construction of such terminals. This lead business groups to appeal the issueto Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). The Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, Portland Business Alliance and Western States Petroleum Association have led the opposition to the city’s efforts.
LUBA ruled that Portland had violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution in that it restricted interstate commerce, a decision that was later overturned by the Court of Appeals. Tuesday’s decision by the state Supreme Court upholds that ruling, finding that Portland’s ordinance is not unconstitutional after all.
But the Appeals Court decision in January upheld parts of LUBA’s earlier ruling, meaning that Portland will have to reimplement the ordinance in light of the Supreme Court’s move in order for it to go into effect. Once the ordinance is implemented, it will mark one of the strongest resolutions against fossil fuels in the country.
Environmentalists and sustainability advocates hailed the news. Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Audubon Society of Portland, the Center for Sustainable Economy, and Columbia Riverkeeper had all fought to allow Portland’s ordinance against fossil fuel infrastructure to move forward.
“We’re thrilled. The courts have affirmed that Portland and other communities can implement innovative protections to counter threats to human health and safety from dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Regna Merritt of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility in a statement.
The ordinance restricts the size of existing terminals and prohibits new terminals with a capacity exceeding 2 million gallons. Around 11 terminals in Portland will be significantly impacted by the ordinance, all in the city’s Northwest industrial district and storing much of the natural gas powering both Oregon and part of Washington. Owners of those terminals include energy giants Shell, BP, Kinder Morgan, Chevron, Phillips 66, and NW Natural, according to the Portland Tribune.
Portland’s ordinance has been hailed by climate activists as groundbreaking in a coastal state threatened by climate change. Like much of the West Coast, Oregon appeals to fossil fuel companies thanks to its ports and rail routes, which allow for the shipment of U.S. oil and coal to overseas markets. But the region is plagued by sea level rise linked to global warming, in addition to other growing environmental hazards exacerbated by climate change.
That reality has spurred communities across the Pacific Northwest to form a “green wall of resistance” in the fight against climate change, with cities like Portland working to pass legislation with an eye on sustainability. While the city is still intertwined with fossil fuels in many ways — including reliance on gas-powered cars — it still has control over zoning codes and land use, allowing for the ordinance’s formation in 2015 and passage a year later.
While the ordinance’s supporters faced an uphill battle since then, advocates say Portland’s victory on Tuesday will send a critical message to other cities.
“This is an important signal to other local governments that they can protect their residents from the many dangers of the fossil fuel industry,” said Nicholas Caleb, who serves as staff attorney for the Center for Sustainable Economy. “This precedent will allow much greater creativity from cities and counties that want to create safe, healthy, and sustainable communities for their residents.”
On Tuesday, the court declined to review a Oregon Court of Appeals decision issued in January that affirmed Portland’s constitutional right to prohibit new fossil fuel infrastructure, including storage and distribution terminals for oil and gas.
In 2016, the Portland City Council unanimously approved the ordinance limiting the construction of such terminals. This lead business groups to appeal the issueto Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). The Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, Portland Business Alliance and Western States Petroleum Association have led the opposition to the city’s efforts.
LUBA ruled that Portland had violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution in that it restricted interstate commerce, a decision that was later overturned by the Court of Appeals. Tuesday’s decision by the state Supreme Court upholds that ruling, finding that Portland’s ordinance is not unconstitutional after all.
But the Appeals Court decision in January upheld parts of LUBA’s earlier ruling, meaning that Portland will have to reimplement the ordinance in light of the Supreme Court’s move in order for it to go into effect. Once the ordinance is implemented, it will mark one of the strongest resolutions against fossil fuels in the country.
Environmentalists and sustainability advocates hailed the news. Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Audubon Society of Portland, the Center for Sustainable Economy, and Columbia Riverkeeper had all fought to allow Portland’s ordinance against fossil fuel infrastructure to move forward.
“We’re thrilled. The courts have affirmed that Portland and other communities can implement innovative protections to counter threats to human health and safety from dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Regna Merritt of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility in a statement.
The ordinance restricts the size of existing terminals and prohibits new terminals with a capacity exceeding 2 million gallons. Around 11 terminals in Portland will be significantly impacted by the ordinance, all in the city’s Northwest industrial district and storing much of the natural gas powering both Oregon and part of Washington. Owners of those terminals include energy giants Shell, BP, Kinder Morgan, Chevron, Phillips 66, and NW Natural, according to the Portland Tribune.
Portland’s ordinance has been hailed by climate activists as groundbreaking in a coastal state threatened by climate change. Like much of the West Coast, Oregon appeals to fossil fuel companies thanks to its ports and rail routes, which allow for the shipment of U.S. oil and coal to overseas markets. But the region is plagued by sea level rise linked to global warming, in addition to other growing environmental hazards exacerbated by climate change.
That reality has spurred communities across the Pacific Northwest to form a “green wall of resistance” in the fight against climate change, with cities like Portland working to pass legislation with an eye on sustainability. While the city is still intertwined with fossil fuels in many ways — including reliance on gas-powered cars — it still has control over zoning codes and land use, allowing for the ordinance’s formation in 2015 and passage a year later.
While the ordinance’s supporters faced an uphill battle since then, advocates say Portland’s victory on Tuesday will send a critical message to other cities.
“This is an important signal to other local governments that they can protect their residents from the many dangers of the fossil fuel industry,” said Nicholas Caleb, who serves as staff attorney for the Center for Sustainable Economy. “This precedent will allow much greater creativity from cities and counties that want to create safe, healthy, and sustainable communities for their residents.”
greed vs environment, greed wins!!!
ExxonMobil's Support for a Carbon Tax Is a Total Sham
More lip service as the oil giant snubs a new carbon tax bill.
By Elliott Negin / Independent Media Institute - alternet
July 31, 2018, 9:30 PM GMT
ExxonMobil executives just had another opportunity to convince skeptics that their support for a carbon tax is genuine.
They blew it.
On July 23, Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL-26) introduced a bill that would place a $24 per ton tax on carbon emissions and dedicate 70 percent of the revenue to rebuilding U.S. infrastructure.
ExxonMobil’s reaction? “We appreciate Rep. Curbelo’s effort to help generate a constructive discussion on this important issue” was all a company spokesman was willing to say.
ExxonMobil’s reluctance to seriously engage, however, should not come as a surprise.
Yes, the company has consistently paid lip service to a carbon tax since 2009. And yes, it is a founding member of the Climate Leadership Council—which supports a $40 per ton carbon tax—and it recently endorsed Americans for Carbon Dividends, a new bipartisan lobby group promoting a carbon tax that would return revenues to taxpayers.
But more telling is the fact that the oil giant has never publicly supported a carbon tax bill and consistently funds members of Congress who oppose a carbon tax.
How does that square with the company’s avowed position?
It doesn’t.
Just say no
Curbelo’s bill is hardly the first carbon tax legislation that ExxonMobil has snubbed. When Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA-33) asked ExxonMobil lobbyists to support a carbon tax bill in 2015, they refused. And when Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the “American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act” in 2016, the company would not endorse their bill or lobby on its behalf.
“Regarding ExxonMobil’s alleged seven years of support for a carbon fee, we’ve seen no meaningful evidence of that,” the senators wrote in a letter they sent to the company in August 2016. “None of the top executives that make up ExxonMobil’s management team has expressed interest in meeting with any of us to discuss the Whitehouse-Schatz proposal or any carbon fee legislation.”
Besides ExxonMobil’s unwillingness to support actual legislation, it rewards members of Congress who oppose a carbon tax by consistently funding their reelection campaigns.
The most recent example of ExxonMobil’s upside-down funding priorities was a nonbinding carbon tax resolution in the House, which stated that such a tax would be “detrimental” to the U.S. economy. The measure, which Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA-1) sponsored just days before Curbelo introduced his carbon tax bill, passed by a 229 to 180 vote, and a majority of ExxonMobil-funded lawmakers lined up in favor of it. All told, 78 percent of the 174 House members who have received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2013 voted for the resolution.
Scalise has introduced similarly worded measures before—with similar results. In March 2013, 156 House members cosponsored his resolution stating that “a carbon tax…is not in the best interest of the United States.” Ninety-three percent of the cosponsors, including Scalise, were funded by ExxonMobil. Three years later, the House passed a Scalise resolution with the same wording as the one earlier this month. Eighty-five percent of the 237 House members who voted for the resolution received ExxonMobil funding since 2013. The day before that vote, a reporter asked an ExxonMobil spokesman for the company’s opinion. Given its supposed support for a carbon tax, surely it would encourage the House to vote no.
His response? “We’re not commenting on the resolution.”
Most of ExxonMobil’s beneficiaries in the Senate also oppose a carbon tax. In March 2013, for example, Whitehouse offered a budget resolution amendment that would ensure that “all revenue from a fee on carbon pollution is returned to the American people.” That’s exactly what ExxonMobil claims to support: a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Regardless, 39 of the 48 senators on the floor that day who had received contributions from ExxonMobil between 2010 and 2014 opposed the amendment, which was defeated by a 58 to 41 vote. Two years later, the Senate voted 58 to 42 in favor of a budget resolution amendment introduced by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who received ExxonMobil campaign contributions, including Blunt, voted in favor of the amendment.
The $130-million question
A few years ago, a top ExxonMobil official claimed that since 2009, his company had been vigorously promoting a carbon tax with federal lawmakers as the most viable way to curb carbon emissions. “ExxonMobil executives,” he wrote, “have echoed that message in countless private briefings with members of Congress on carbon tax policy options.”
Since 2009, ExxonMobil has spent nearly $130 million on its Washington lobbying operation—more than any other oil and gas company—and another $9.6 million on federal campaigns. The $130-million question: What have ExxonMobil executives been saying during those countless private briefings?
To be sure, ExxonMobil is not the only fossil fuel company plying the halls of Congress, and Koch Industries and Murray Energy are definitely not trying to sell a carbon tax to anyone, so perhaps ExxonMobil lobbyists—no matter how hard they try—are overmatched. That said, the voting record compiled by ExxonMobil-funded lawmakers, the company’s refusal to back a bona fide carbon tax bill, and the fact that it continues to finance a climate disinformation campaign all suggest that the company is deliberately misleading the public while it sabotages federal efforts to address climate change.
They blew it.
On July 23, Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL-26) introduced a bill that would place a $24 per ton tax on carbon emissions and dedicate 70 percent of the revenue to rebuilding U.S. infrastructure.
ExxonMobil’s reaction? “We appreciate Rep. Curbelo’s effort to help generate a constructive discussion on this important issue” was all a company spokesman was willing to say.
ExxonMobil’s reluctance to seriously engage, however, should not come as a surprise.
Yes, the company has consistently paid lip service to a carbon tax since 2009. And yes, it is a founding member of the Climate Leadership Council—which supports a $40 per ton carbon tax—and it recently endorsed Americans for Carbon Dividends, a new bipartisan lobby group promoting a carbon tax that would return revenues to taxpayers.
But more telling is the fact that the oil giant has never publicly supported a carbon tax bill and consistently funds members of Congress who oppose a carbon tax.
How does that square with the company’s avowed position?
It doesn’t.
Just say no
Curbelo’s bill is hardly the first carbon tax legislation that ExxonMobil has snubbed. When Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA-33) asked ExxonMobil lobbyists to support a carbon tax bill in 2015, they refused. And when Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the “American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act” in 2016, the company would not endorse their bill or lobby on its behalf.
“Regarding ExxonMobil’s alleged seven years of support for a carbon fee, we’ve seen no meaningful evidence of that,” the senators wrote in a letter they sent to the company in August 2016. “None of the top executives that make up ExxonMobil’s management team has expressed interest in meeting with any of us to discuss the Whitehouse-Schatz proposal or any carbon fee legislation.”
Besides ExxonMobil’s unwillingness to support actual legislation, it rewards members of Congress who oppose a carbon tax by consistently funding their reelection campaigns.
The most recent example of ExxonMobil’s upside-down funding priorities was a nonbinding carbon tax resolution in the House, which stated that such a tax would be “detrimental” to the U.S. economy. The measure, which Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA-1) sponsored just days before Curbelo introduced his carbon tax bill, passed by a 229 to 180 vote, and a majority of ExxonMobil-funded lawmakers lined up in favor of it. All told, 78 percent of the 174 House members who have received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2013 voted for the resolution.
Scalise has introduced similarly worded measures before—with similar results. In March 2013, 156 House members cosponsored his resolution stating that “a carbon tax…is not in the best interest of the United States.” Ninety-three percent of the cosponsors, including Scalise, were funded by ExxonMobil. Three years later, the House passed a Scalise resolution with the same wording as the one earlier this month. Eighty-five percent of the 237 House members who voted for the resolution received ExxonMobil funding since 2013. The day before that vote, a reporter asked an ExxonMobil spokesman for the company’s opinion. Given its supposed support for a carbon tax, surely it would encourage the House to vote no.
His response? “We’re not commenting on the resolution.”
Most of ExxonMobil’s beneficiaries in the Senate also oppose a carbon tax. In March 2013, for example, Whitehouse offered a budget resolution amendment that would ensure that “all revenue from a fee on carbon pollution is returned to the American people.” That’s exactly what ExxonMobil claims to support: a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Regardless, 39 of the 48 senators on the floor that day who had received contributions from ExxonMobil between 2010 and 2014 opposed the amendment, which was defeated by a 58 to 41 vote. Two years later, the Senate voted 58 to 42 in favor of a budget resolution amendment introduced by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who received ExxonMobil campaign contributions, including Blunt, voted in favor of the amendment.
The $130-million question
A few years ago, a top ExxonMobil official claimed that since 2009, his company had been vigorously promoting a carbon tax with federal lawmakers as the most viable way to curb carbon emissions. “ExxonMobil executives,” he wrote, “have echoed that message in countless private briefings with members of Congress on carbon tax policy options.”
Since 2009, ExxonMobil has spent nearly $130 million on its Washington lobbying operation—more than any other oil and gas company—and another $9.6 million on federal campaigns. The $130-million question: What have ExxonMobil executives been saying during those countless private briefings?
To be sure, ExxonMobil is not the only fossil fuel company plying the halls of Congress, and Koch Industries and Murray Energy are definitely not trying to sell a carbon tax to anyone, so perhaps ExxonMobil lobbyists—no matter how hard they try—are overmatched. That said, the voting record compiled by ExxonMobil-funded lawmakers, the company’s refusal to back a bona fide carbon tax bill, and the fact that it continues to finance a climate disinformation campaign all suggest that the company is deliberately misleading the public while it sabotages federal efforts to address climate change.
America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies. Abolish them
While we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground, America is giving the fossil fuel industry billions to extract more
Dana Nuccitelli
the guardian
Mon 30 Jul 2018 06.00 EDT
Imagine that instead of taxing cigarettes, America subsidized the tobacco industry in order to make each pack of smokes cheaper.
A report from Oil Change International (OCI) investigated American energy industry subsidies and found that in 2015–2016, the federal government provided $14.7bn per year to the oil, gas, and coal industries, on top of $5.8bn of state-level incentives (globally, the figure is around $500bn). And the report only accounted for production subsides, excluding consumption subsidies (support to consumers to lower the cost of fossil fuel use – another $14.5bn annually) as well as the costs of carbon and other fossil fuel pollutants.
At a time when we need to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, the federal and state governments are giving the industry tens of billions of dollars to make the production of their dirty, dangerous products more profitable.
We already have to leave tapped fossil fuels in the ground
Crucially, the OCI report noted that if we want to meet the Paris target of limiting global warming to less than 2°C (and we do!), not only does the fossil fuel industry have stop developing new reserves, but “some already-tapped reserves must be retired early.”
This reality is incompatible with continued US government subsidization of fossil fuel industry production, including $2.5bn per year for the exploration of new fossil fuel resources – new resources that simply cannot be developed if we’re to meet the Paris climate target.
To achieve that goal, we instead need to replace fossil fuels with clean energy as quickly as possible. And yet, OCI notes that permanent tax breaks to the US fossil fuel industry are more than seven times larger than those for renewable energy. Some of those fossil fuel subsidies have been around for over a century. And they’re making it profitable for the oil industry to extract resources that would otherwise be left in the ground:
at current prices, the production of nearly half of all U.S. oil is not economically viable, except with federal and state subsidies.
And as David Roberts notes, federal policy is also propping up the coal industry. Were they forced to meet modern pollution standards, 98% of currently operating coal power plants would be unprofitable compared to an equivalent natural gas plant. Coal power plants only stay open through regulations allowing pollution exemptions, and by forcing taxpayers to pick up the climate change bill.
Add another trillion dollars in climate subsidies
Without a price on carbon pollution, Americans are effectively subsidizing the fossil fuel industry for the costs incurred through its products’ climate change damages. For example, think about the added costs to taxpayers for worse wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and flooding, all amplified by human-caused climate change. In the absence of a price on carbon pollution, the fossil fuel industry doesn’t pay a cent of those costs. Taxpayers pick up the whole tab.
These costs can be estimated via the ‘social cost of carbon.’ It’s a difficult number to pin down, but even at the extremely conservative US federal estimate of $37 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution (some recent research pegs the value at more than five times higher), that’s about $200bn per year for America and $1.3tn globally. While direct government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are expensive, they’re dwarfed by the costs incurred by failing to tax carbon pollution.
The fossil fuel industry owns the GOP
The OCI report noted that the Obama administration actually proposed to eliminate 60% of federal fossil fuel industry subsidies, but that proposal went nowhere for one obvious reason:
In the 2015-2016 election cycle oil, gas, and coal companies spent $354 million in campaign contributions and lobbying and received $29.4 billion in federal subsidies in total over those same years - an 8,200% return on investment.
Of those fossil fuel industry contributions to political campaigns, 88% went to Republican politicians. As a result, 97% of House Republicans oppose taxing carbon pollution, and the Trump administration is looking into every possible scheme to further prop up the dying coal industry. The GOP might as well rebrand itself as the Grand Oil Party.
American needs to rethink what subsidies are for
Subsidies are a way for the government to assist an industry, hypothetically for good reason. For example, wind and solar power help meet our energy needs without producing harmful pollution in the process. Because of the associated societal benefits, it’s possible to justify subsidizing clean energy. Alternatively, we could eliminate all energy subsidies and instead tax carbon and other forms of pollution. If rising energy prices are a concern, we could offset those costs by returning the pollution tax revenue to taxpayers.
There are numerous different policy options available to achieve the Paris climate target. We can avoid unacceptably risky levels of global warming while also achieving cleaner air, water, and public health without destroying whole landscapes. But continuing to funnel tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry is perverse and counter-productive, as the OCI report noted:
Removing these highly inefficient [fossil fuel] subsidies – which waste billions of dollars propping up an industry incompatible with safe climate limits – should be the first priority of fiscally responsible climate, energy, and tax reform policies.
Perhaps the Democratic Party should add ‘abolish fossil fuel subsidies’ to its platform.
A report from Oil Change International (OCI) investigated American energy industry subsidies and found that in 2015–2016, the federal government provided $14.7bn per year to the oil, gas, and coal industries, on top of $5.8bn of state-level incentives (globally, the figure is around $500bn). And the report only accounted for production subsides, excluding consumption subsidies (support to consumers to lower the cost of fossil fuel use – another $14.5bn annually) as well as the costs of carbon and other fossil fuel pollutants.
At a time when we need to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, the federal and state governments are giving the industry tens of billions of dollars to make the production of their dirty, dangerous products more profitable.
We already have to leave tapped fossil fuels in the ground
Crucially, the OCI report noted that if we want to meet the Paris target of limiting global warming to less than 2°C (and we do!), not only does the fossil fuel industry have stop developing new reserves, but “some already-tapped reserves must be retired early.”
This reality is incompatible with continued US government subsidization of fossil fuel industry production, including $2.5bn per year for the exploration of new fossil fuel resources – new resources that simply cannot be developed if we’re to meet the Paris climate target.
To achieve that goal, we instead need to replace fossil fuels with clean energy as quickly as possible. And yet, OCI notes that permanent tax breaks to the US fossil fuel industry are more than seven times larger than those for renewable energy. Some of those fossil fuel subsidies have been around for over a century. And they’re making it profitable for the oil industry to extract resources that would otherwise be left in the ground:
at current prices, the production of nearly half of all U.S. oil is not economically viable, except with federal and state subsidies.
And as David Roberts notes, federal policy is also propping up the coal industry. Were they forced to meet modern pollution standards, 98% of currently operating coal power plants would be unprofitable compared to an equivalent natural gas plant. Coal power plants only stay open through regulations allowing pollution exemptions, and by forcing taxpayers to pick up the climate change bill.
Add another trillion dollars in climate subsidies
Without a price on carbon pollution, Americans are effectively subsidizing the fossil fuel industry for the costs incurred through its products’ climate change damages. For example, think about the added costs to taxpayers for worse wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and flooding, all amplified by human-caused climate change. In the absence of a price on carbon pollution, the fossil fuel industry doesn’t pay a cent of those costs. Taxpayers pick up the whole tab.
These costs can be estimated via the ‘social cost of carbon.’ It’s a difficult number to pin down, but even at the extremely conservative US federal estimate of $37 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution (some recent research pegs the value at more than five times higher), that’s about $200bn per year for America and $1.3tn globally. While direct government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are expensive, they’re dwarfed by the costs incurred by failing to tax carbon pollution.
The fossil fuel industry owns the GOP
The OCI report noted that the Obama administration actually proposed to eliminate 60% of federal fossil fuel industry subsidies, but that proposal went nowhere for one obvious reason:
In the 2015-2016 election cycle oil, gas, and coal companies spent $354 million in campaign contributions and lobbying and received $29.4 billion in federal subsidies in total over those same years - an 8,200% return on investment.
Of those fossil fuel industry contributions to political campaigns, 88% went to Republican politicians. As a result, 97% of House Republicans oppose taxing carbon pollution, and the Trump administration is looking into every possible scheme to further prop up the dying coal industry. The GOP might as well rebrand itself as the Grand Oil Party.
American needs to rethink what subsidies are for
Subsidies are a way for the government to assist an industry, hypothetically for good reason. For example, wind and solar power help meet our energy needs without producing harmful pollution in the process. Because of the associated societal benefits, it’s possible to justify subsidizing clean energy. Alternatively, we could eliminate all energy subsidies and instead tax carbon and other forms of pollution. If rising energy prices are a concern, we could offset those costs by returning the pollution tax revenue to taxpayers.
There are numerous different policy options available to achieve the Paris climate target. We can avoid unacceptably risky levels of global warming while also achieving cleaner air, water, and public health without destroying whole landscapes. But continuing to funnel tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry is perverse and counter-productive, as the OCI report noted:
Removing these highly inefficient [fossil fuel] subsidies – which waste billions of dollars propping up an industry incompatible with safe climate limits – should be the first priority of fiscally responsible climate, energy, and tax reform policies.
Perhaps the Democratic Party should add ‘abolish fossil fuel subsidies’ to its platform.
The Oil Industry Has Launched a Preemptive Strike Over Washington State’s Carbon Tax Ballot Initiative
“They have a lot of money, we have a lot of people.”
Kate Yoder - mother jones
Jul. 8, 2018 6:00 AM
A bunch of heavy boxes arrived in the Washington state capital on Monday morning. They were filled with thousands of petitions in support of the proposed “Protect Washington Act”--a first-of-its-kind “carbon fee.”
Initiative 1631 has collected nearly 380,000 signatures from Washington voters—120,000 more than necessary for it to appear on the ballot this fall. If voters pass the measure in November, Washington would be the first state in the country to adopt anything like a carbon tax.
“We’re all set,” says Nick Abraham, communications director at the Yes on 1631 campaign. “It’ll take a week to two weeks to certify and verify all the signatures, and then we are officially on the ballot.”
It’s one of three carbon pricing efforts to watch in the United States this year. In Washington, D.C., Councilmember Mary Cheh is expected to introduce a “carbon fee” bill to the district’s progressive city council this month. The Massachusetts state legislature is also mulling over a (somewhat vague) carbon price.
Washington state’s proposal would charge industrial emitters $15 per metric ton on carbon emissions starting in 2020, ramping up by $2 per year until Washington state meets its climate goals. The revenue raised would go toward investing in clean energy, protecting clean water and forests, and helping to make sure the communities that suffer the most from carbon emissions prepare for the effects of wildfires and sea-level rise.
Surprise, surprise—major oil and gas companies are already trying to fight it. The Western States Petroleum Association recently formed the “No on 1631” political action committee. The Seattle Times reports that the PAC has the support of the big guys, like BP, Shell, Chevron, Phillips 66.
So far, opponents to the carbon fee are arguing that prices will rise at the gas pump, hitting average people where it hurts. Mark Funk, a spokesperson for No on 1631, told the Seattle Times that the fee would “place the burden for initiative squarely on middle-income and lower-income people.”
The PAC has already paid more than $130,000 in fees to a national consulting firm that helps wage battles over ballot measures, Winner & Mandabach Campaigns. (The company’s website boasts that it has a 90 percent success rate.)
The carbon fee initiative has something going for it, though. It’s backed by more than 200 groups across Washington state, from labor groups and faith communities to tribal nations.
“This is the largest and most diverse coalition in the political history of the state,” says Aiko Schaefer, director of Front and Centered—an alliance of organizations advocating for low-income residents and people of color that played a key role in drafting the initiative.
The Yes on 1631 campaign is going to be knocking on doors and making phone calls, Abraham says, working to educate people all over the state about climate change and what the initiative could do for their local communities. It’s also focusing on mobilizing voters.
“Polls show that people of color care deeply about these issues,” Schaefer says. “Our job is to show them that they have an opportunity to act on that concern this November.”
Polls have shown that both Latinos and African Americans want climate action more than the population at large. More than 80 percent of Latinos, for instance, support a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies, according to a 2017 survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Just two years ago, Washington voters rejected a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Kyle Murphy, executive director of Carbon Washington (the group behind that 2016 attempt) says his group supports the new campaign—and he has some advice.
Murphy says grassroots organizing is the best way to counter the oil and gas industry’s message. “People will always believe their neighbors, the local firefighter, or the local clergyman over ads on TV from the oil industry,” Murphy says. “It’s gotta be normal people, regular people out there fighting for this.”
The initiative also has to find a way to reach voters in the middle of the political spectrum, he says: “We need some sliver of Republicans and moderates to join Democrats in passing something here.”
Public opinion polls say that almost 70 percent of Washington voters would support a measure to regulate carbon pollution; that includes more than half of Republicans. One of the big challenges for the I-1631 campaign, Murphy says, is convincing people that this initiative is the one that they want.
That, and of course, the fossil fuel industry. Schaefer says that she knows they will do everything they can to fight the initiative. But she still feels confident.
“They have a lot of money, we have a lot of people,” Schaefer says. “So our job is to mobilize people.”
Initiative 1631 has collected nearly 380,000 signatures from Washington voters—120,000 more than necessary for it to appear on the ballot this fall. If voters pass the measure in November, Washington would be the first state in the country to adopt anything like a carbon tax.
“We’re all set,” says Nick Abraham, communications director at the Yes on 1631 campaign. “It’ll take a week to two weeks to certify and verify all the signatures, and then we are officially on the ballot.”
It’s one of three carbon pricing efforts to watch in the United States this year. In Washington, D.C., Councilmember Mary Cheh is expected to introduce a “carbon fee” bill to the district’s progressive city council this month. The Massachusetts state legislature is also mulling over a (somewhat vague) carbon price.
Washington state’s proposal would charge industrial emitters $15 per metric ton on carbon emissions starting in 2020, ramping up by $2 per year until Washington state meets its climate goals. The revenue raised would go toward investing in clean energy, protecting clean water and forests, and helping to make sure the communities that suffer the most from carbon emissions prepare for the effects of wildfires and sea-level rise.
Surprise, surprise—major oil and gas companies are already trying to fight it. The Western States Petroleum Association recently formed the “No on 1631” political action committee. The Seattle Times reports that the PAC has the support of the big guys, like BP, Shell, Chevron, Phillips 66.
So far, opponents to the carbon fee are arguing that prices will rise at the gas pump, hitting average people where it hurts. Mark Funk, a spokesperson for No on 1631, told the Seattle Times that the fee would “place the burden for initiative squarely on middle-income and lower-income people.”
The PAC has already paid more than $130,000 in fees to a national consulting firm that helps wage battles over ballot measures, Winner & Mandabach Campaigns. (The company’s website boasts that it has a 90 percent success rate.)
The carbon fee initiative has something going for it, though. It’s backed by more than 200 groups across Washington state, from labor groups and faith communities to tribal nations.
“This is the largest and most diverse coalition in the political history of the state,” says Aiko Schaefer, director of Front and Centered—an alliance of organizations advocating for low-income residents and people of color that played a key role in drafting the initiative.
The Yes on 1631 campaign is going to be knocking on doors and making phone calls, Abraham says, working to educate people all over the state about climate change and what the initiative could do for their local communities. It’s also focusing on mobilizing voters.
“Polls show that people of color care deeply about these issues,” Schaefer says. “Our job is to show them that they have an opportunity to act on that concern this November.”
Polls have shown that both Latinos and African Americans want climate action more than the population at large. More than 80 percent of Latinos, for instance, support a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies, according to a 2017 survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Just two years ago, Washington voters rejected a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Kyle Murphy, executive director of Carbon Washington (the group behind that 2016 attempt) says his group supports the new campaign—and he has some advice.
Murphy says grassroots organizing is the best way to counter the oil and gas industry’s message. “People will always believe their neighbors, the local firefighter, or the local clergyman over ads on TV from the oil industry,” Murphy says. “It’s gotta be normal people, regular people out there fighting for this.”
The initiative also has to find a way to reach voters in the middle of the political spectrum, he says: “We need some sliver of Republicans and moderates to join Democrats in passing something here.”
Public opinion polls say that almost 70 percent of Washington voters would support a measure to regulate carbon pollution; that includes more than half of Republicans. One of the big challenges for the I-1631 campaign, Murphy says, is convincing people that this initiative is the one that they want.
That, and of course, the fossil fuel industry. Schaefer says that she knows they will do everything they can to fight the initiative. But she still feels confident.
“They have a lot of money, we have a lot of people,” Schaefer says. “So our job is to mobilize people.”
US Refineries Persist in Using Toxic Acid, Despite Safer Alternatives
BY Daniel Ross Truthout
PUBLISHED
July 5, 2018
Fifty refineries across the United States use hydrofluoric acid. Because this highly toxic substance can travel for miles in the form of a potentially fatal ground-hugging cloud, however, use of the chemical continues to prove highly controversial — rarely more so than now, given recent accidents at some of these refineries and potential rule changes that call into question the chemical’s long-term future in the oil refining industry.
In January 2017, California regulators announced that they were taking steps to potentially phase out a modified version of the acid being used at the two refineries in the state, but the rule is still being thrashed out, and it’s too soon to say whether an outright ban on hydrofluoric acid will be enacted there.
Hydrofluoric acid is used as a catalyst to transform crude oil into high-octane gasoline. If released into the environment in California, its ability to travel for miles would put at risk the densely populated neighborhoods surrounding both refineries in the South Bay region of Los Angeles.
Proponents of the status quo warn of the costs associated with switching to alternative processes, which could mean gasoline price spikes and plants potentially shuttered.
But Sally Hayati, president of the Torrance Refinery Action Alliance, a local community group pushing for hydrofluoric acid to be phased out, believes that industry is exaggerating the costs of moving away from the chemical, and warns of the potential consequences of allowing its continued use. The Air Quality Management District (AQMD) is “bending too much to political and economic pressure by the refineries, and they’re not paying enough attention to their mandate to protect public safety,” she said about the agency responsible for the rule change. “There’s no other solution other than to get rid of [hydrofluoric acid].”
Much impetus for the ban stems from a February 2015 accident at the Torrance refinery, when weaknesses in the plant’s safety management system caused an explosion that catapulted a 40-ton chunk of debris which narrowly missed two settler tanks containing hydrofluoric acid. Had the massive hunk of metal struck the tanks, a worst-case-scenario release could have put hundreds of thousands of people at risk of injury.
Many are worried about more than just the plant’s safety record, however. Hayati, an engineering Ph.D., recently sent the AQMD a report that highlights how both plants are a major security risk, susceptible to targeted attacks by terrorists both from the ground and from the air.
An Air Quality Management District spokesperson confirmed that Hayati’s findings will be reviewed as part of the rule-making process. And if facilities that store large quantities of hydrofluoric acid are innately vulnerable to a terrorist attack, Hayati’s findings reverberate nationally. That’s because nearly 18 million people are estimated to be at risk in the event of worst-case scenario releases at the refineries across the US that still use hydrofluoric acid or modified hydrofluoric acid.
Modified hydrofluoric acid uses an additive that limits the chemical’s ability to form an aerosol cloud. It’s a major sticking point in the debate surrounding the proposed rule in California — industry figures argue that it’s the safest affordable option, among them Kim Nibarger, head of the United Steel Workers (USW) oil union, who said there is “not a lot of research or test results to prove or disprove the claims” made about modified hydrofluoric acid’s dangers.
But many experts disagree. The use of modified hydrofluoric acid can reduce the “magnitude” of a release, but it still poses a “significant risk” to surrounding communities, said Ron White, a senior fellow with the Union of Concerned Scientists. In modifying the acid, “the intention is to reduce the scope of the release — it doesn’t make it less toxic,” said White, who explained that modified hydrofluoric acid is almost as volatile as hydrofluoric acid in terms of relevant temperatures and pressures.
Viable alternatives to hydrofluoric acid — like ionic liquid catalysts — are “significantly safer” options, he said, adding that the cost of switching over to these safer alternatives can run into hundreds of millions of dollars, but the potential risks of not doing so are too great.
“It does not take a whole lot of [hydrofluoric acid] to cause death or severe health impacts,” White said. “Unfortunately, it could take a potentially disastrous release to really move this issue in a significant way. The thing is, the possibility under this administration for a positive response is unlikely.”
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers failed to respond to multiple emailed requests for comment.
The Deadly Risk of a Traveling Plume
For a number of years, serious doubts have been raised over the safety of these facilities and their preparedness for accidents and emergencies.
In 2011, the Center for Public Integrity published a damning series of reports on the safety records at a number of refineries, including those that use hydrofluoric acid and its modified version.
The series detailed multiple fires within months at Sunoco, Inc.’s oil refinery in Philadelphia, for example, and highlighted how such events can be “key indicators” of larger problems at the facility. In the five years prior to the investigative series, 32 of the 50 refineries had been cited for “willful, serious or repeated violations” of safety rules. Of those 32 refineries, inspectors found more than 1,000 separate violations.
USW, the largest industrial union in North America, subsequently published their own report titled “A Risk too Great,” which argued that refiners still using hydrofluoric acid have inadequate safety systems, and as a result, are unprepared for accidental releases.
Their analysis of safety records collected from a number of different federal agencies and industry organizations showed that there had been 131 hydrofluoric-acid-related incidents or near misses during the previous three years. At 16 of these sites, the most serious incidents either did or could have injured workers, the report found. Half of these serious incidents could have caused injuries to the people in the surrounding communities.
While the USW report describes modified hydrofluoric acid as a safer alternative to the unmodified chemical, it also explains that the modification of the acid “does not keep it from vaporizing and creating a traveling plume,” nor does it reduce its toxicity. “If the release was accompanied by a fire — and many refinery accidents involve fires — the vaporization of even modified [hydrofluoric acid] would be greatly increased,” the report adds. Indeed, the industry’s own material data sheets show that the chemical can form toxic clouds upon release, just like hydrofluoric acid.
Since those reports were published, accidents continue to occur at refineries where hydrofluoric acid is stored and used. In April, a fire at the Husky Energy oil refinery in Superior, Wisconsin, reportedly sent 17 people to hospital and forced mandatory evacuations in the surrounding community. A tank containing roughly 15,000 pounds of hydrogen fluoride was at risk, though it wasn’t compromised. The Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency tasked with investigating major chemical accidents, is currently looking into the incident.
Communities that live in the shadow of hydrofluoric acid refineries are now reflecting on their own safety history. EPA records identify 1.7 million people at risk of exposure to the chemical in the event of a worst-case disaster scenario at the Andeavor refinery in St. Paul, Minnesota. A trace amount of hydrofluoric acid was released in an incident at the refinery just this past April.
Experts also point to other risks associated with the chemical — including those that come with its transportation. According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) figures from 2009, nearly 30,000 tons of hydrofluoric acid is transported by truck every year, and more than 264,000 tons by rail.
Fred Millar, an independent chemical expert, believes that the possible risks associated with transporting the chemical have never been “looked at carefully,” but added that in the early 1990s, the South Coast Air Quality Management District board found the bulk transportation of hydrofluoric acid to the refineries posed “unacceptable disaster release” potentials in California. Because of this and other risks, he said, the board back then voted to phase out the chemical — a decision later overturned.
In his 2007 book, The Edge of Disaster, national security expert Stephen Flynn warns — in terms similar to Hayati’s — of the potential for terrorist attacks where hydrofluoric acid is stored in bulk. Critics also voice concern about the potential vulnerabilities of these facilities to cyber assaults — a concern heightened by the growing number of cyberattacks on the nation’s power grid.
In August 2017, a Saudi Arabian petrochemical company was the victim of a cyberattack that was meant to “sabotage the firm’s operations and trigger an explosion” at the company’s plant, The New York Timesreported. An explosion was averted only because of an error in the attacker’s computer code.
Paul Orum is an expert in chemical safety policy who has given multiple Congressional testimonies on the effectiveness of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program — an arm of the US Department of Homeland Security focused on high-risk chemical facilities. While the program requires facilities that fall under its umbrella to maintain certain standards of cyber security, he questions the rigorousness of this enforcement mechanism. At the end of the day, the program fails to take advantage of measures that would “reduce the target itself,” he said.
“In other words, reduce or remove the hazardous chemicals that serve as an attractive target for terrorists,” said Orum. “Otherwise, all you have to do is get your threat assessment wrong, and your security measures are obsolete.”
Resistance to Safer Alternatives
Hovering over the issue is the delayed implementation of a rule designed to tighten safety procedures at facilities covered by the EPA’s Risk Management Plan.
Finalized and passed during the waning months of the Obama administration, the federal rule was also geared toward better protecting first responders and fenceline communities. But last year, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the agency would delay implementation of the new rule until February 2019. Then in May of this year, the EPA put out for public comment a series of changes to the Obama-era rule, rescinding some amendments and modifying others, including those related to things like information disclosure.
“Accident prevention is a top priority at EPA, and this proposed rule will ensure proper emergency planning and continue the trend of fewer significant accidents involving chemicals,” Pruitt is reported as saying in explanation of these latest changes.
The Obama-era Risk Management Plan rule changes included amendments related to safer technologies, ordering certain chemical manufacturers, refineries and pulp and paper mills to examine and consider safer alternatives where practical. Some experts point out that, when it comes to hydrofluoric acid, the amendment could have forced refineries to switch to safer chemical catalysts. It could have also required refineries to store smaller quantities of the chemical. But the EPA’s latest changes rescind the safer technologies amendment entirely.
According to Gordon Sommers, associate attorney with Earthjustice, it is “unbelievable that the EPA won’t even require companies to consider” whether safer alternatives to hydrofluoric acid exist. And many community groups point out that neighborhoods that sit in the shadow of these refineries are often unaware of the risks.
“The public, understandably, has many other things to worry about,” Denni Cawley, executive director of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, told Truthout. “It often takes community organizations to make them aware.”
Other safer options do exist. Chevron’s refinery in Salt Lake City, Utah, is in the process of switching over from hydrofluoric acid to a new ionic liquids alkylation plant. “Once the Chevron plant’s up and running, I think people need to take a serious look at making the switch,” said USW’s Kim Nibarger.
The problem, said Paul Orum, is that refinery operators as a whole aren’t incentivized enough to make the switch unilaterally. “An innovation like that, nobody wants to be the first adapter — they want someone else to work all the bugs out first,” he said, highlighting the costs associated with adapting to safer technologies. One industry estimate pins the installation cost of a new sulfuric acid alkylation unit at the Torrance refinery in California at roughly $600 million, for example. Though it should be noted that critics argue that the industry’s estimates have been inflated.
Ultimately, said Orum, “change might take a major catalyst like a bad event, or some sort of regulatory driver.”
In California, where possible regulatory changes are currently playing out, Hayati is pinning her hopes on the new rule forcing refineries to go the way of Chevron. If it doesn’t, and the state’s two modified hydrofluoric acid-using refineries still employ the chemical when the Olympic Games roll around in 2028, the potential risks associated with a successful terrorist attack at either of the facilities during the event would be “absolutely catastrophic,” she warned. “The eyes of the world will be watching,”
Hayati said. “And because of the false safety claims that have been made, there would be hell to pay.”
In January 2017, California regulators announced that they were taking steps to potentially phase out a modified version of the acid being used at the two refineries in the state, but the rule is still being thrashed out, and it’s too soon to say whether an outright ban on hydrofluoric acid will be enacted there.
Hydrofluoric acid is used as a catalyst to transform crude oil into high-octane gasoline. If released into the environment in California, its ability to travel for miles would put at risk the densely populated neighborhoods surrounding both refineries in the South Bay region of Los Angeles.
Proponents of the status quo warn of the costs associated with switching to alternative processes, which could mean gasoline price spikes and plants potentially shuttered.
But Sally Hayati, president of the Torrance Refinery Action Alliance, a local community group pushing for hydrofluoric acid to be phased out, believes that industry is exaggerating the costs of moving away from the chemical, and warns of the potential consequences of allowing its continued use. The Air Quality Management District (AQMD) is “bending too much to political and economic pressure by the refineries, and they’re not paying enough attention to their mandate to protect public safety,” she said about the agency responsible for the rule change. “There’s no other solution other than to get rid of [hydrofluoric acid].”
Much impetus for the ban stems from a February 2015 accident at the Torrance refinery, when weaknesses in the plant’s safety management system caused an explosion that catapulted a 40-ton chunk of debris which narrowly missed two settler tanks containing hydrofluoric acid. Had the massive hunk of metal struck the tanks, a worst-case-scenario release could have put hundreds of thousands of people at risk of injury.
Many are worried about more than just the plant’s safety record, however. Hayati, an engineering Ph.D., recently sent the AQMD a report that highlights how both plants are a major security risk, susceptible to targeted attacks by terrorists both from the ground and from the air.
An Air Quality Management District spokesperson confirmed that Hayati’s findings will be reviewed as part of the rule-making process. And if facilities that store large quantities of hydrofluoric acid are innately vulnerable to a terrorist attack, Hayati’s findings reverberate nationally. That’s because nearly 18 million people are estimated to be at risk in the event of worst-case scenario releases at the refineries across the US that still use hydrofluoric acid or modified hydrofluoric acid.
Modified hydrofluoric acid uses an additive that limits the chemical’s ability to form an aerosol cloud. It’s a major sticking point in the debate surrounding the proposed rule in California — industry figures argue that it’s the safest affordable option, among them Kim Nibarger, head of the United Steel Workers (USW) oil union, who said there is “not a lot of research or test results to prove or disprove the claims” made about modified hydrofluoric acid’s dangers.
But many experts disagree. The use of modified hydrofluoric acid can reduce the “magnitude” of a release, but it still poses a “significant risk” to surrounding communities, said Ron White, a senior fellow with the Union of Concerned Scientists. In modifying the acid, “the intention is to reduce the scope of the release — it doesn’t make it less toxic,” said White, who explained that modified hydrofluoric acid is almost as volatile as hydrofluoric acid in terms of relevant temperatures and pressures.
Viable alternatives to hydrofluoric acid — like ionic liquid catalysts — are “significantly safer” options, he said, adding that the cost of switching over to these safer alternatives can run into hundreds of millions of dollars, but the potential risks of not doing so are too great.
“It does not take a whole lot of [hydrofluoric acid] to cause death or severe health impacts,” White said. “Unfortunately, it could take a potentially disastrous release to really move this issue in a significant way. The thing is, the possibility under this administration for a positive response is unlikely.”
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers failed to respond to multiple emailed requests for comment.
The Deadly Risk of a Traveling Plume
For a number of years, serious doubts have been raised over the safety of these facilities and their preparedness for accidents and emergencies.
In 2011, the Center for Public Integrity published a damning series of reports on the safety records at a number of refineries, including those that use hydrofluoric acid and its modified version.
The series detailed multiple fires within months at Sunoco, Inc.’s oil refinery in Philadelphia, for example, and highlighted how such events can be “key indicators” of larger problems at the facility. In the five years prior to the investigative series, 32 of the 50 refineries had been cited for “willful, serious or repeated violations” of safety rules. Of those 32 refineries, inspectors found more than 1,000 separate violations.
USW, the largest industrial union in North America, subsequently published their own report titled “A Risk too Great,” which argued that refiners still using hydrofluoric acid have inadequate safety systems, and as a result, are unprepared for accidental releases.
Their analysis of safety records collected from a number of different federal agencies and industry organizations showed that there had been 131 hydrofluoric-acid-related incidents or near misses during the previous three years. At 16 of these sites, the most serious incidents either did or could have injured workers, the report found. Half of these serious incidents could have caused injuries to the people in the surrounding communities.
While the USW report describes modified hydrofluoric acid as a safer alternative to the unmodified chemical, it also explains that the modification of the acid “does not keep it from vaporizing and creating a traveling plume,” nor does it reduce its toxicity. “If the release was accompanied by a fire — and many refinery accidents involve fires — the vaporization of even modified [hydrofluoric acid] would be greatly increased,” the report adds. Indeed, the industry’s own material data sheets show that the chemical can form toxic clouds upon release, just like hydrofluoric acid.
Since those reports were published, accidents continue to occur at refineries where hydrofluoric acid is stored and used. In April, a fire at the Husky Energy oil refinery in Superior, Wisconsin, reportedly sent 17 people to hospital and forced mandatory evacuations in the surrounding community. A tank containing roughly 15,000 pounds of hydrogen fluoride was at risk, though it wasn’t compromised. The Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency tasked with investigating major chemical accidents, is currently looking into the incident.
Communities that live in the shadow of hydrofluoric acid refineries are now reflecting on their own safety history. EPA records identify 1.7 million people at risk of exposure to the chemical in the event of a worst-case disaster scenario at the Andeavor refinery in St. Paul, Minnesota. A trace amount of hydrofluoric acid was released in an incident at the refinery just this past April.
Experts also point to other risks associated with the chemical — including those that come with its transportation. According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) figures from 2009, nearly 30,000 tons of hydrofluoric acid is transported by truck every year, and more than 264,000 tons by rail.
Fred Millar, an independent chemical expert, believes that the possible risks associated with transporting the chemical have never been “looked at carefully,” but added that in the early 1990s, the South Coast Air Quality Management District board found the bulk transportation of hydrofluoric acid to the refineries posed “unacceptable disaster release” potentials in California. Because of this and other risks, he said, the board back then voted to phase out the chemical — a decision later overturned.
In his 2007 book, The Edge of Disaster, national security expert Stephen Flynn warns — in terms similar to Hayati’s — of the potential for terrorist attacks where hydrofluoric acid is stored in bulk. Critics also voice concern about the potential vulnerabilities of these facilities to cyber assaults — a concern heightened by the growing number of cyberattacks on the nation’s power grid.
In August 2017, a Saudi Arabian petrochemical company was the victim of a cyberattack that was meant to “sabotage the firm’s operations and trigger an explosion” at the company’s plant, The New York Timesreported. An explosion was averted only because of an error in the attacker’s computer code.
Paul Orum is an expert in chemical safety policy who has given multiple Congressional testimonies on the effectiveness of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program — an arm of the US Department of Homeland Security focused on high-risk chemical facilities. While the program requires facilities that fall under its umbrella to maintain certain standards of cyber security, he questions the rigorousness of this enforcement mechanism. At the end of the day, the program fails to take advantage of measures that would “reduce the target itself,” he said.
“In other words, reduce or remove the hazardous chemicals that serve as an attractive target for terrorists,” said Orum. “Otherwise, all you have to do is get your threat assessment wrong, and your security measures are obsolete.”
Resistance to Safer Alternatives
Hovering over the issue is the delayed implementation of a rule designed to tighten safety procedures at facilities covered by the EPA’s Risk Management Plan.
Finalized and passed during the waning months of the Obama administration, the federal rule was also geared toward better protecting first responders and fenceline communities. But last year, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the agency would delay implementation of the new rule until February 2019. Then in May of this year, the EPA put out for public comment a series of changes to the Obama-era rule, rescinding some amendments and modifying others, including those related to things like information disclosure.
“Accident prevention is a top priority at EPA, and this proposed rule will ensure proper emergency planning and continue the trend of fewer significant accidents involving chemicals,” Pruitt is reported as saying in explanation of these latest changes.
The Obama-era Risk Management Plan rule changes included amendments related to safer technologies, ordering certain chemical manufacturers, refineries and pulp and paper mills to examine and consider safer alternatives where practical. Some experts point out that, when it comes to hydrofluoric acid, the amendment could have forced refineries to switch to safer chemical catalysts. It could have also required refineries to store smaller quantities of the chemical. But the EPA’s latest changes rescind the safer technologies amendment entirely.
According to Gordon Sommers, associate attorney with Earthjustice, it is “unbelievable that the EPA won’t even require companies to consider” whether safer alternatives to hydrofluoric acid exist. And many community groups point out that neighborhoods that sit in the shadow of these refineries are often unaware of the risks.
“The public, understandably, has many other things to worry about,” Denni Cawley, executive director of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, told Truthout. “It often takes community organizations to make them aware.”
Other safer options do exist. Chevron’s refinery in Salt Lake City, Utah, is in the process of switching over from hydrofluoric acid to a new ionic liquids alkylation plant. “Once the Chevron plant’s up and running, I think people need to take a serious look at making the switch,” said USW’s Kim Nibarger.
The problem, said Paul Orum, is that refinery operators as a whole aren’t incentivized enough to make the switch unilaterally. “An innovation like that, nobody wants to be the first adapter — they want someone else to work all the bugs out first,” he said, highlighting the costs associated with adapting to safer technologies. One industry estimate pins the installation cost of a new sulfuric acid alkylation unit at the Torrance refinery in California at roughly $600 million, for example. Though it should be noted that critics argue that the industry’s estimates have been inflated.
Ultimately, said Orum, “change might take a major catalyst like a bad event, or some sort of regulatory driver.”
In California, where possible regulatory changes are currently playing out, Hayati is pinning her hopes on the new rule forcing refineries to go the way of Chevron. If it doesn’t, and the state’s two modified hydrofluoric acid-using refineries still employ the chemical when the Olympic Games roll around in 2028, the potential risks associated with a successful terrorist attack at either of the facilities during the event would be “absolutely catastrophic,” she warned. “The eyes of the world will be watching,”
Hayati said. “And because of the false safety claims that have been made, there would be hell to pay.”
Rhode Island sues major oil companies over climate change
ON MON, JUL 2ND, 2018
By Nate Raymond REUTERS - politicus usa
(Reuters) – Rhode Island on Monday sued several major oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp and BP plc, accusing them of contributing to climate change that is damaging infrastructure and coastal communities in the state.
The lawsuit announced by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin was the first by a state seeking to hold oil companies responsible for costs associated with climate change and followed similar cases by several local governments nationally.
The lawsuit alleged that various oil companies had created a public nuisance in the state and failed to adequately warn customers, consumers and regulators about the risks posed by their products.
“For a very long time, there has been this perception that ‘Big Oil’ was too big to take on, but here we are – the smallest state – taking on some of the biggest corporate polluters in the world,” Kilmartin said in a statement.
The lawsuit, filed in Providence County Superior Court, named as defendants Exxon, BP, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Chevron Corp, among other companies.
Shell, in a statement, said, “lawsuits that masquerade as climate action and impede the collaboration needed for meaningful change” were not the answer to climate change. The other companies did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit by the Democratic attorney general follows similar cases by U.S. cities and local governments, arguing the production of fossil fuels had led to rising tides that damaged shorelines, roads and other properties requiring remediation.
The lawsuit contended that the companies sought to refute scientific findings regarding how greenhouse gas pollution was causing climate change, and failed to prevent the harm that would result from consumers’ using fossil fuel products.
The lawsuit said that companies also violated the state’s Environmental Rights Act by polluting and destroying natural resources in Rhode Island.
Kilmartin is seeking to force the companies to pay for damages associated with climate change, citing the costs taxpayers were incurring to repair roads and bridges and rebuild coastal structures.
The complaint seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages as well as orders requiring the companies to pay abatement costs and to disgorge profits.
The lawsuit announced by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin was the first by a state seeking to hold oil companies responsible for costs associated with climate change and followed similar cases by several local governments nationally.
The lawsuit alleged that various oil companies had created a public nuisance in the state and failed to adequately warn customers, consumers and regulators about the risks posed by their products.
“For a very long time, there has been this perception that ‘Big Oil’ was too big to take on, but here we are – the smallest state – taking on some of the biggest corporate polluters in the world,” Kilmartin said in a statement.
The lawsuit, filed in Providence County Superior Court, named as defendants Exxon, BP, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Chevron Corp, among other companies.
Shell, in a statement, said, “lawsuits that masquerade as climate action and impede the collaboration needed for meaningful change” were not the answer to climate change. The other companies did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit by the Democratic attorney general follows similar cases by U.S. cities and local governments, arguing the production of fossil fuels had led to rising tides that damaged shorelines, roads and other properties requiring remediation.
The lawsuit contended that the companies sought to refute scientific findings regarding how greenhouse gas pollution was causing climate change, and failed to prevent the harm that would result from consumers’ using fossil fuel products.
The lawsuit said that companies also violated the state’s Environmental Rights Act by polluting and destroying natural resources in Rhode Island.
Kilmartin is seeking to force the companies to pay for damages associated with climate change, citing the costs taxpayers were incurring to repair roads and bridges and rebuild coastal structures.
The complaint seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages as well as orders requiring the companies to pay abatement costs and to disgorge profits.
just another scam!!!
Oil Companies and Lobbyists Say They’re Ready to Solve Climate Change. Check the Fine Print.
David Halperin Republic Report - truthout
PUBLISHED
June 27, 2018
Last week, former senators Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Breaux (D-LA) announced, with a big public relations blitz, a new campaign, Americans for Carbon Dividends, to address the threat of climate change. The effort is being heralded as a breakthrough by some because it is endorsed by big oil and gas companies Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Total, and it calls for a $40-a-ton carbon tax, incurred at the source of emissions, with revenues to be returned to citizens as dividends, perhaps $2000 a year for each American family of four.
A Lott-Breaux op-ed in the New York Times presents the deal as a compelling bipartisan solution and touts the support not only of oil companies but also the non-profit Nature Conservancy. The campaign website lists a bunch of newspaper and environmental group endorsements for the underlying $40 carbon tax concept, which was proposed last year under the banner of a group called the Climate Leadership Council, launched by Republican former secretaries of state James Baker and George Shultz and other conservatives, and now including oil companies and various establishment Democrats and Republicans.
The website of the new, affiliated Americans for Carbon Dividends shows its own campaign leadership roster that includes not only Republican Lott and Democrat Breaux, but also former George W. Bush adviser Karen Hughes and Mark McKinnon, plus Bill Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart.
So it sounds like Democrats and Republicans alike, and even some environmental groups, are supportive, the oil companies are at last willing to pay for their dangerous carbon emissions, citizens will get a dividend, and everyone will be happy.
But when one examines the fine print of the deal — and the financial benefits flowing to some of the people touting it — the effort looks much less utopian.
Lott and Breaux vaguely mention in the op-ed that there are “various policy details that will need to be addressed,” and assert that “this market-based solution would render carbon regulations unnecessary.” What they don’t tell you in the op-ed, but you can find on the campaign website, is that their plan is more concrete than that in terms of guaranteeing benefits to the fossil fuel industries.
“Much of the EPA’s regulatory authority over carbon dioxide emissions would be phased out, including an outright repeal of the Clean Power Plan,” according to the Lott-Breaux campaign site. That’s a reference to the 2015 plan issued by the Obama administration to control greenhouse gas emissions, after Congress rejected climate change legislation in 2009. The Trump administration is trying to kill the plan, but they will need to win a court battle to do so.
Some critics are calling the new initiative an empty public relations gesture on the part of the fossil fuel companies, and just maybe it is: A carbon tax is unlikely to pass Congress in the present environment. Even if it did, energy companies would likely be able to pass the costs of a new carbon tax on to consumers, thus wiping out the gains of the promised dividend checks. But properly constructed, a carbon tax could perhaps achieve many of the aims of the Clean Power Plan.
However, there’s another twist.
The Lott-Breaux website adds, as the penultimate sentence in their plan outline, something the Lott-Breaux Times op-ed conveniently omits: “Robust carbon taxes would also make possible an end to federal and state tort liability for emitters.” (The Climate Leadership Council calls for the same outcome in one of its documents and a more vague prescription in another.) That gentle formulation seems to mean this: The plan proponents are insisting that a solution must bar everyone and anyone from suing fossil fuel companies for the harms done by global warming — past, present, and future.
You might be aware by now that some thirteen cities and counties in the states of California, Colorado, New York, and Washington have recently sued major fossil fuel companies over alleged harms from emissions — coastal erosion, floods, wildfires, drought, floods, and other effects of climate change.
These new lawsuits could pack a powerful punch. They allege that ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and others knew for decades that fossil fuel-driven global warming and rising seas threatened human life, but continued to expand their production, while deceiving consumers about the risks. Asserting that this conduct violates various state tort rules — public nuisance, failure to warn, design defect, negligence, trespass, conspiracy — the suits demand that the companies, rather than taxpayers, cover the costs of the environmental harms.
Prior lawsuits using similar theories, brought a decade or more ago, were dismissed. But today there is much more evidence that global warming is real, accelerating, and caused by burning fossil fuels, and that oil companies knew such information, suppressed it, and sought to counter it. Also, lawyers for cities and counties believe that recent scientific advances will make it easier to prove that the specific defendants’ activities harmed or threaten their client communities.
Which is why the big oil companies are scared. They face potentially billions in liability, plus the likelihood that protracted litigation will disclose new internal company records and highlight the extensive efforts made by Exxon and other companies over decades to conceal the dangers of fossil fueling burning, and to support fake-science climate denial organizations and politicians.
In addition to seeking to dismiss the cases and keep their company documents hidden, the oil companies have resorted to filing desperate countersuits claiming that the cities, as well as the Massachusetts and New York state attorneys generals, plus private lawyers, are engaged in conspiracies to violate their constitutional rights. These efforts are succeeding in delaying and wasting money, but they are unlikely to wipe out the threat the suits pose.
So the fossil fuel companies want badly to get rid of these cases. And now, they have joined hands with Lott and Breaux for a comprehensive climate change solution, one that would let them off the hook for enormous potential liability for past and ongoing harms. (The case law is not entirely settled as to whether a federal ban on liability would conclusively bar all such state tort law suits, given the constitutional due process rights of those injured, but for the fossil fuel industries, it’s certainly worth a try.)
The effort includes some deceptions already. Linked to a page on the Lott-Breaux campaign site called “Who Supports” is a June 20 statement from the pro-environment Union of Concerned Scientists. But that UCS statement, while praising the concept of a carbon tax, expressly opposes key elements of the new Lott-Bureaux package: the trading away of government regulations and the rights of municipalities to obtain compensation for climate change harms. The statement concludes: “Taking away legal rights and rolling back public health safeguards are clearly not in the American public’s interest.”
In addition to overstating support for the plan and soft-pedaling the oil companies’ demand for immunity from ongoing lawsuits, Lott, Breaux, and company aren’t offering all the details of the financial incentives behind the new coalition.
Ted Halstead, CEO of the Climate Leadership Council, the partner group to the new Lott-Breaux effort, told the New York Times that his group, which includes as members Exxon, Shell, BP, Total, and other big companies inside and outside of the energy sector, did not accept corporate contributions.
But given the New York Times’ enhanced policy of disclosure of conflicts of interest by op-ed writers, the two former senators were compelled to mention that Americans for Carbon Dividends “has hired” their law firm, DC lobbying powerhouse Squire Patton Boggs, “to help with the campaign,” which they call “a multifaceted media and lobbying campaign to promote this winning solution.” That means that, however sincerely Trent Lott and John Breaux believe in this cause, they are not acting merely as elder statesmen; they also are getting paid to advance it, just as they have been paid for years to lobby for oil companies, health care companies, for-profit colleges, Russian government-owned Gazprombank, tech companies, and other special interests. In the case of this new campaign, we don’t know how much money they’re getting, or where it’s all coming from.
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Americans for Carbon Dividends is not required to disclose its donors, but Axios reports that funders so far include nuclear-power giant Exelon ($1 million), First Solar, and the American Wind Energy Association. “Other corporate donors exist,” writes Axios, “but are opting not to disclose…. No oil and gas companies are funding the effort yet, but they’re likely to in the coming months, according to a source familiar with the effort.”
Lott, one of the swampiest lobbyists in the DC swamp, knows well how to play this game. He is also a senior fellow and energy policy project co-chair at a DC think-tank called the Bipartisan Policy Center, which also has styled itself as presenting sensible non-partisan answers to difficult problems, but which has tilted its positions in favor of fossil fuel industries and has accepted funding from numerous companies in those industries.
Given the urgent need to fight climate change, and the Trump administration’s outright hostility to addressing the problem, advocates for a carbon tax, including Republicans, deserve credit for seeking a bold solution. But tying the approach to an end to legitimate claims by cities and counties that they have been harmed by global warming, as Lott and Breaux seek, is asking way too much. As the debate goes forward, advocates for taxpayers, consumers, and the environment should guard against including in any deal a grant of immunity to the fossil fuel industries for decades of climate change deception.
A Lott-Breaux op-ed in the New York Times presents the deal as a compelling bipartisan solution and touts the support not only of oil companies but also the non-profit Nature Conservancy. The campaign website lists a bunch of newspaper and environmental group endorsements for the underlying $40 carbon tax concept, which was proposed last year under the banner of a group called the Climate Leadership Council, launched by Republican former secretaries of state James Baker and George Shultz and other conservatives, and now including oil companies and various establishment Democrats and Republicans.
The website of the new, affiliated Americans for Carbon Dividends shows its own campaign leadership roster that includes not only Republican Lott and Democrat Breaux, but also former George W. Bush adviser Karen Hughes and Mark McKinnon, plus Bill Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart.
So it sounds like Democrats and Republicans alike, and even some environmental groups, are supportive, the oil companies are at last willing to pay for their dangerous carbon emissions, citizens will get a dividend, and everyone will be happy.
But when one examines the fine print of the deal — and the financial benefits flowing to some of the people touting it — the effort looks much less utopian.
Lott and Breaux vaguely mention in the op-ed that there are “various policy details that will need to be addressed,” and assert that “this market-based solution would render carbon regulations unnecessary.” What they don’t tell you in the op-ed, but you can find on the campaign website, is that their plan is more concrete than that in terms of guaranteeing benefits to the fossil fuel industries.
“Much of the EPA’s regulatory authority over carbon dioxide emissions would be phased out, including an outright repeal of the Clean Power Plan,” according to the Lott-Breaux campaign site. That’s a reference to the 2015 plan issued by the Obama administration to control greenhouse gas emissions, after Congress rejected climate change legislation in 2009. The Trump administration is trying to kill the plan, but they will need to win a court battle to do so.
Some critics are calling the new initiative an empty public relations gesture on the part of the fossil fuel companies, and just maybe it is: A carbon tax is unlikely to pass Congress in the present environment. Even if it did, energy companies would likely be able to pass the costs of a new carbon tax on to consumers, thus wiping out the gains of the promised dividend checks. But properly constructed, a carbon tax could perhaps achieve many of the aims of the Clean Power Plan.
However, there’s another twist.
The Lott-Breaux website adds, as the penultimate sentence in their plan outline, something the Lott-Breaux Times op-ed conveniently omits: “Robust carbon taxes would also make possible an end to federal and state tort liability for emitters.” (The Climate Leadership Council calls for the same outcome in one of its documents and a more vague prescription in another.) That gentle formulation seems to mean this: The plan proponents are insisting that a solution must bar everyone and anyone from suing fossil fuel companies for the harms done by global warming — past, present, and future.
You might be aware by now that some thirteen cities and counties in the states of California, Colorado, New York, and Washington have recently sued major fossil fuel companies over alleged harms from emissions — coastal erosion, floods, wildfires, drought, floods, and other effects of climate change.
These new lawsuits could pack a powerful punch. They allege that ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and others knew for decades that fossil fuel-driven global warming and rising seas threatened human life, but continued to expand their production, while deceiving consumers about the risks. Asserting that this conduct violates various state tort rules — public nuisance, failure to warn, design defect, negligence, trespass, conspiracy — the suits demand that the companies, rather than taxpayers, cover the costs of the environmental harms.
Prior lawsuits using similar theories, brought a decade or more ago, were dismissed. But today there is much more evidence that global warming is real, accelerating, and caused by burning fossil fuels, and that oil companies knew such information, suppressed it, and sought to counter it. Also, lawyers for cities and counties believe that recent scientific advances will make it easier to prove that the specific defendants’ activities harmed or threaten their client communities.
Which is why the big oil companies are scared. They face potentially billions in liability, plus the likelihood that protracted litigation will disclose new internal company records and highlight the extensive efforts made by Exxon and other companies over decades to conceal the dangers of fossil fueling burning, and to support fake-science climate denial organizations and politicians.
In addition to seeking to dismiss the cases and keep their company documents hidden, the oil companies have resorted to filing desperate countersuits claiming that the cities, as well as the Massachusetts and New York state attorneys generals, plus private lawyers, are engaged in conspiracies to violate their constitutional rights. These efforts are succeeding in delaying and wasting money, but they are unlikely to wipe out the threat the suits pose.
So the fossil fuel companies want badly to get rid of these cases. And now, they have joined hands with Lott and Breaux for a comprehensive climate change solution, one that would let them off the hook for enormous potential liability for past and ongoing harms. (The case law is not entirely settled as to whether a federal ban on liability would conclusively bar all such state tort law suits, given the constitutional due process rights of those injured, but for the fossil fuel industries, it’s certainly worth a try.)
The effort includes some deceptions already. Linked to a page on the Lott-Breaux campaign site called “Who Supports” is a June 20 statement from the pro-environment Union of Concerned Scientists. But that UCS statement, while praising the concept of a carbon tax, expressly opposes key elements of the new Lott-Bureaux package: the trading away of government regulations and the rights of municipalities to obtain compensation for climate change harms. The statement concludes: “Taking away legal rights and rolling back public health safeguards are clearly not in the American public’s interest.”
In addition to overstating support for the plan and soft-pedaling the oil companies’ demand for immunity from ongoing lawsuits, Lott, Breaux, and company aren’t offering all the details of the financial incentives behind the new coalition.
Ted Halstead, CEO of the Climate Leadership Council, the partner group to the new Lott-Breaux effort, told the New York Times that his group, which includes as members Exxon, Shell, BP, Total, and other big companies inside and outside of the energy sector, did not accept corporate contributions.
But given the New York Times’ enhanced policy of disclosure of conflicts of interest by op-ed writers, the two former senators were compelled to mention that Americans for Carbon Dividends “has hired” their law firm, DC lobbying powerhouse Squire Patton Boggs, “to help with the campaign,” which they call “a multifaceted media and lobbying campaign to promote this winning solution.” That means that, however sincerely Trent Lott and John Breaux believe in this cause, they are not acting merely as elder statesmen; they also are getting paid to advance it, just as they have been paid for years to lobby for oil companies, health care companies, for-profit colleges, Russian government-owned Gazprombank, tech companies, and other special interests. In the case of this new campaign, we don’t know how much money they’re getting, or where it’s all coming from.
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Americans for Carbon Dividends is not required to disclose its donors, but Axios reports that funders so far include nuclear-power giant Exelon ($1 million), First Solar, and the American Wind Energy Association. “Other corporate donors exist,” writes Axios, “but are opting not to disclose…. No oil and gas companies are funding the effort yet, but they’re likely to in the coming months, according to a source familiar with the effort.”
Lott, one of the swampiest lobbyists in the DC swamp, knows well how to play this game. He is also a senior fellow and energy policy project co-chair at a DC think-tank called the Bipartisan Policy Center, which also has styled itself as presenting sensible non-partisan answers to difficult problems, but which has tilted its positions in favor of fossil fuel industries and has accepted funding from numerous companies in those industries.
Given the urgent need to fight climate change, and the Trump administration’s outright hostility to addressing the problem, advocates for a carbon tax, including Republicans, deserve credit for seeking a bold solution. But tying the approach to an end to legitimate claims by cities and counties that they have been harmed by global warming, as Lott and Breaux seek, is asking way too much. As the debate goes forward, advocates for taxpayers, consumers, and the environment should guard against including in any deal a grant of immunity to the fossil fuel industries for decades of climate change deception.
US oil and gas industry leaks 60 percent more methane than government says: study
Agence France-Presse - raw story
21 JUN 2018 AT 15:14 ET
The US oil and gas industry leaks 60 percent more methane than official government estimates, a report said Thursday, warning of this potent greenhouse gas’s effect on the environment.
US industry emits some 13 million metric tons each year, far more than the amount estimated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the findings published in the journal Science.
Researchers said the actual leak rate of 2.3 percent — compared to EPA inventory estimates of 1.4 percent — represents enough natural gas to fuel 10 million homes.
The dollar value of the lost gas amounts to $2 billion, said the report compiled by more than 140 researchers, in cooperation with 50 oil and gas companies that provided site access and technical advice.
“Scientists have uncovered a huge problem, but also an enormous opportunity,” said co-author Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
“Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is the fastest, most cost effective way we have to slow the rate of warming today, even as the larger transition to lower-carbon energy continues.”
Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and packs more than 80 times the climate warming impact of carbon dioxide over a 20-year timespan, experts say.
Natural gas is a fossil fuel that emits less carbon dioxide than oil or coal, but its efficiency depends a lot on keeping methane leaks to a minimum.
Some oil giants have already begun to recognize the problem and take action.
BP sets its first methane target in April, and ExxonMobil committed in May to cut methane emissions. Shell and Qatar Petroleum have also committed to cutting methane emissions.
Researchers said the reason for the discrepancy between US government estimates and actual emissions “is likely a result of existing inventory methods not capturing methane emissions that occur during abnormal operating conditions, like malfunctions.”
US industry emits some 13 million metric tons each year, far more than the amount estimated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the findings published in the journal Science.
Researchers said the actual leak rate of 2.3 percent — compared to EPA inventory estimates of 1.4 percent — represents enough natural gas to fuel 10 million homes.
The dollar value of the lost gas amounts to $2 billion, said the report compiled by more than 140 researchers, in cooperation with 50 oil and gas companies that provided site access and technical advice.
“Scientists have uncovered a huge problem, but also an enormous opportunity,” said co-author Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
“Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is the fastest, most cost effective way we have to slow the rate of warming today, even as the larger transition to lower-carbon energy continues.”
Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and packs more than 80 times the climate warming impact of carbon dioxide over a 20-year timespan, experts say.
Natural gas is a fossil fuel that emits less carbon dioxide than oil or coal, but its efficiency depends a lot on keeping methane leaks to a minimum.
Some oil giants have already begun to recognize the problem and take action.
BP sets its first methane target in April, and ExxonMobil committed in May to cut methane emissions. Shell and Qatar Petroleum have also committed to cutting methane emissions.
Researchers said the reason for the discrepancy between US government estimates and actual emissions “is likely a result of existing inventory methods not capturing methane emissions that occur during abnormal operating conditions, like malfunctions.”
Construction planned to prepare Alaska’s Arctic refuge for oil drilling
Reuters - raw story
08 JUN 2018 AT 06:54 ET
The Trump administration said on Thursday it would spend $4 million on construction projects in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in preparation for oil drilling in the nation’s biggest wildlife park.
In an announcement that touted planned improvements to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visitor facilities, the Department of the Interior said it has approved spending on projects for “Oil Exploration Readiness” in the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge.
The Trump administration is pushing for an oil lease sale in the refuge to be held as early as next year. The tax-overhaul bill passed by the U.S. Congress last December includes a provision mandating two oil lease sales, each offering at least 400,000 acres (161,874.26 hectares), within seven years.
The 19-million-acre (7.7 million-hectare) Arctic refuge, the largest in the U.S. national wildlife refuge system, contains some of the wildest territory in North America. There are no roads, established trails or buildings of any type within the refuge border, and no cell phone service, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
“This is a true wilderness Refuge,” the Arctic refuge website advises.
Political and business leaders in oil-dependent Alaska have tried for decades to pry open the refuge’s coastal plain, which is believed to hold potential for billions of barrels of oil. But the plain, between the Brooks Range mountains and the Arctic Ocean, is prized for its importance to caribou, polar bears and other wildlife. Oil development there had been banned until Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski led a move to insert a pro-drilling provision into the 2017 tax bill signed by President Donald Trump.
In Alaska, the development plan is largely embraced, but not universally so. Drilling opponents gathered outside of last week’s Anchorage and Fairbanks hearings about the proposed lease sales to protest the plan.
Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift, in an email, said the $4 million “will be used to support six projects designed to improve and construct existing outbuildings, facilities and research operations.”
That work will include improvements to facilities located outside the refuge, in the Inupiat village of Kaktovik and at Galbraith Lake along the Trans Alaska Pipeline corridor, she said in the email.
The $4 million appropriation for Arctic refuge projects is one of the largest single items in a total of $50 million in planned DOI construction spending.
“The President is a builder, he loves to build and he loves our public lands, so it is a natural fit that the Trump Administration is dedicating so much attention to rebuilding our aging Fish and Wildlife Service infrastructure,” Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement on Thursday.
A partnership of three companies is seeking to do seismic surveys in the refuge starting this winter. That plan, from SAExploration and two Alaska Native corporations, was panned by the U.S., Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington Post reported last month.
There has been no decision on that application, Swift said on Thursday. “It was a draft application. The Department does not make decisions based upon early drafts,” she said by email.
In an announcement that touted planned improvements to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visitor facilities, the Department of the Interior said it has approved spending on projects for “Oil Exploration Readiness” in the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge.
The Trump administration is pushing for an oil lease sale in the refuge to be held as early as next year. The tax-overhaul bill passed by the U.S. Congress last December includes a provision mandating two oil lease sales, each offering at least 400,000 acres (161,874.26 hectares), within seven years.
The 19-million-acre (7.7 million-hectare) Arctic refuge, the largest in the U.S. national wildlife refuge system, contains some of the wildest territory in North America. There are no roads, established trails or buildings of any type within the refuge border, and no cell phone service, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
“This is a true wilderness Refuge,” the Arctic refuge website advises.
Political and business leaders in oil-dependent Alaska have tried for decades to pry open the refuge’s coastal plain, which is believed to hold potential for billions of barrels of oil. But the plain, between the Brooks Range mountains and the Arctic Ocean, is prized for its importance to caribou, polar bears and other wildlife. Oil development there had been banned until Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski led a move to insert a pro-drilling provision into the 2017 tax bill signed by President Donald Trump.
In Alaska, the development plan is largely embraced, but not universally so. Drilling opponents gathered outside of last week’s Anchorage and Fairbanks hearings about the proposed lease sales to protest the plan.
Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift, in an email, said the $4 million “will be used to support six projects designed to improve and construct existing outbuildings, facilities and research operations.”
That work will include improvements to facilities located outside the refuge, in the Inupiat village of Kaktovik and at Galbraith Lake along the Trans Alaska Pipeline corridor, she said in the email.
The $4 million appropriation for Arctic refuge projects is one of the largest single items in a total of $50 million in planned DOI construction spending.
“The President is a builder, he loves to build and he loves our public lands, so it is a natural fit that the Trump Administration is dedicating so much attention to rebuilding our aging Fish and Wildlife Service infrastructure,” Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement on Thursday.
A partnership of three companies is seeking to do seismic surveys in the refuge starting this winter. That plan, from SAExploration and two Alaska Native corporations, was panned by the U.S., Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington Post reported last month.
There has been no decision on that application, Swift said on Thursday. “It was a draft application. The Department does not make decisions based upon early drafts,” she said by email.
Processing drilling permits takes priority over protecting taxpayers from liability, GAO report says
U.S. taxpayers are being left on the hook for the costs of cleaning up after oil and gas companies.
MARK HAND - thinkprogress
JUN 6, 2018, 1:04 PM
The federal government’s oversight of oil and gas wells located on federal lands remains in disarray. According to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), U.S. taxpayers are often left to pay for the restoration of abandoned oil and gas well sites because companies improperly shut down their operations or are unable to cover the restoration costs.
The lack of attention to liability for oil and gas wells can be partly attributed to Congress failing to allocate sufficient funds to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Department of the Interior agency that oversees oil and gas drilling on millions of acres of federal lands, according to the report.
But in its report, the GAO also noted the BLM’s highest priority is processing new oil and gas drilling permits as quickly as possible, not enforcing corporate cleanup of drill sites. Taxpayers are then often forced to foot the bill for cleanup, a predicament that could have been avoided if the BLM had weeded out the financially struggling companies that would not have the financial resources to repair the damage they caused to the environment.
“BLM prioritizes processing drilling permits over well and bond adequacy reviews in part because the agency is required by statute to process drilling permits within 30 days of receiving a complete application,” the GAO explained in the report, released Tuesday.
The BLM’s responsibilities are immense. The agency manages millions of acres where oil and gas drilling occurs. In fiscal year 2016, oil and gas companies operated about 94,000 oil and gas wells on federal lands overseen by the BLM.
Once these wells stop production, they can become inactive. Inactive wells, which are non-producing wells, have the potential to create physical and environmental hazards if the companies fail to reclaim the well sites. Inactive wells that are not plugged, or not properly plugged, can leak methane or contaminate surface water and groundwater.
Reclamation helps ensure that the effects of oil and gas development on the land are not permanent. According to the BLM, the ultimate objective of reclamation is ecosystem restoration, including restoration of natural vegetation and wildlife habitats. In most cases, this means restoring the sites to a condition equal to that which existed before the land was disturbed by drilling operations.
Oil and gas companies are required to post bonds — effectively an insurance policy — when drilling on federal lands. The bonds ensure retired wells are cleaned up and do not pose a risk to lands and water when a company abandons them or goes bankrupt.
It’s not uncommon, however, for companies to shirk their clean-up responsibilities, whether operating on public or private lands. After high natural gas prices went bust in the late 2000s, companies abandoned thousands of coal-bed methane wells in Wyoming. Last year, two oil and gas companies walked away from more than 50 wells located on private property in southwest Colorado, leaving state taxpayers on the hook for the cost of cleaning up after the oil and gas companies.
Cleaning up the roughly 94,000 oil and gas wells on U.S. public lands managed by the BLM could cost a potential $6.1 billion, far exceeding the $162 million in reclamation bonds paid by oil and gas operators, according to a recent study released by the Center for Western Priorities, a nonprofit conservation and advocacy organization in the western United States.
According to the GAO report, federal rules and requirements are extremely lenient for companies that drill for oil and gas on public lands. For example, companies are not required to notify the BLM when they stop operations at an oil and gas well.
The GAO report was requested by three members of Congress — Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources; and Jared Polis (D-CO).
The lawmakers asked the GAO to research how the BLM manages its potential oil and gas well liabilities and how its costs and potential liabilities changed from 2010 through 2017.
The GAO noted that the costs and potential liabilities for the BLM — and U.S. taxpayers — “likely increased” from 2010 through 2017, the GAO said. The full extent of the increase is not known, though, because the BLM does not systematically track whether the companies that drilled the wells handled the cleanup or if they shirked their legal responsibilities, forcing U.S. taxpayers to pay the costs.
The BLM’s database does not collect information on costs incurred or on potential liabilities that might result from an increase in the number of orphaned wells. “Without systematically tracking such information, BLM does not have assurance that it has sufficient bonds or financial assurances to cover the costs of reclaiming orphaned wells,” the GAO said in its report.
Drilling for oil and gas on federal lands, however, is a big business. In fiscal year 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, wells on federal and Native American lands were responsible for providing 11 percent of the natural gas and 7 percent of the oil used in the United States.
The BLM administers its programs through its headquarters office in Washington, D.C. and 12 state offices. Most of the state offices are located in the western United States. At the end of FY’15, about 32 million acres of BLM-managed lands were leased for oil and gas operations. The agency also oversees oil and gas operations on 56 million acres of Native American lands.
Among its other recommendations, the GAO suggested the BLM develop a management plan that addresses resources needed for conducting well and bond adequacy reviews and reclaiming orphaned wells. In addition, upon revising its bond adequacy review policy, the BLM should ensure that the reviews of nationwide and statewide bonds reflect the overall risk presented by oil and gas companies.
The lack of attention to liability for oil and gas wells can be partly attributed to Congress failing to allocate sufficient funds to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Department of the Interior agency that oversees oil and gas drilling on millions of acres of federal lands, according to the report.
But in its report, the GAO also noted the BLM’s highest priority is processing new oil and gas drilling permits as quickly as possible, not enforcing corporate cleanup of drill sites. Taxpayers are then often forced to foot the bill for cleanup, a predicament that could have been avoided if the BLM had weeded out the financially struggling companies that would not have the financial resources to repair the damage they caused to the environment.
“BLM prioritizes processing drilling permits over well and bond adequacy reviews in part because the agency is required by statute to process drilling permits within 30 days of receiving a complete application,” the GAO explained in the report, released Tuesday.
The BLM’s responsibilities are immense. The agency manages millions of acres where oil and gas drilling occurs. In fiscal year 2016, oil and gas companies operated about 94,000 oil and gas wells on federal lands overseen by the BLM.
Once these wells stop production, they can become inactive. Inactive wells, which are non-producing wells, have the potential to create physical and environmental hazards if the companies fail to reclaim the well sites. Inactive wells that are not plugged, or not properly plugged, can leak methane or contaminate surface water and groundwater.
Reclamation helps ensure that the effects of oil and gas development on the land are not permanent. According to the BLM, the ultimate objective of reclamation is ecosystem restoration, including restoration of natural vegetation and wildlife habitats. In most cases, this means restoring the sites to a condition equal to that which existed before the land was disturbed by drilling operations.
Oil and gas companies are required to post bonds — effectively an insurance policy — when drilling on federal lands. The bonds ensure retired wells are cleaned up and do not pose a risk to lands and water when a company abandons them or goes bankrupt.
It’s not uncommon, however, for companies to shirk their clean-up responsibilities, whether operating on public or private lands. After high natural gas prices went bust in the late 2000s, companies abandoned thousands of coal-bed methane wells in Wyoming. Last year, two oil and gas companies walked away from more than 50 wells located on private property in southwest Colorado, leaving state taxpayers on the hook for the cost of cleaning up after the oil and gas companies.
Cleaning up the roughly 94,000 oil and gas wells on U.S. public lands managed by the BLM could cost a potential $6.1 billion, far exceeding the $162 million in reclamation bonds paid by oil and gas operators, according to a recent study released by the Center for Western Priorities, a nonprofit conservation and advocacy organization in the western United States.
According to the GAO report, federal rules and requirements are extremely lenient for companies that drill for oil and gas on public lands. For example, companies are not required to notify the BLM when they stop operations at an oil and gas well.
The GAO report was requested by three members of Congress — Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources; and Jared Polis (D-CO).
The lawmakers asked the GAO to research how the BLM manages its potential oil and gas well liabilities and how its costs and potential liabilities changed from 2010 through 2017.
The GAO noted that the costs and potential liabilities for the BLM — and U.S. taxpayers — “likely increased” from 2010 through 2017, the GAO said. The full extent of the increase is not known, though, because the BLM does not systematically track whether the companies that drilled the wells handled the cleanup or if they shirked their legal responsibilities, forcing U.S. taxpayers to pay the costs.
The BLM’s database does not collect information on costs incurred or on potential liabilities that might result from an increase in the number of orphaned wells. “Without systematically tracking such information, BLM does not have assurance that it has sufficient bonds or financial assurances to cover the costs of reclaiming orphaned wells,” the GAO said in its report.
Drilling for oil and gas on federal lands, however, is a big business. In fiscal year 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, wells on federal and Native American lands were responsible for providing 11 percent of the natural gas and 7 percent of the oil used in the United States.
The BLM administers its programs through its headquarters office in Washington, D.C. and 12 state offices. Most of the state offices are located in the western United States. At the end of FY’15, about 32 million acres of BLM-managed lands were leased for oil and gas operations. The agency also oversees oil and gas operations on 56 million acres of Native American lands.
Among its other recommendations, the GAO suggested the BLM develop a management plan that addresses resources needed for conducting well and bond adequacy reviews and reclaiming orphaned wells. In addition, upon revising its bond adequacy review policy, the BLM should ensure that the reviews of nationwide and statewide bonds reflect the overall risk presented by oil and gas companies.
Taxpayers Still Shelling Out Billions Annually in Fossil Fuel Subsidies
Lorraine Chow - ecowatch
Jun. 04, 2018 01:30PM EST
The world's richest countries continue to subsidize at least $100 billion a year in subsidies for the production and use of coal, oil and gas, despite repeated pledges to phase out fossil fuels by 2025.
The Group of Seven, or G7, consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the U.S. The group, as well as the larger G20, agreed as early as 2009 to phase out fossil fuels in order to combat climate change.
But a new report from Britain's Overseas Development Institute (ODI) reveals that on average per year in 2015 and 2016, the G7 governments supplied at least $81 billion in fiscal support and $20 billion in public finance, for both production and consumption of oil, gas and coal at home and overseas.
"With less than seven years to meet their 2025 phase-out deadline, G7 governments continue to provide substantial support the production and use of oil, gas and coal," the authors stated.
The study, co-authored by Oil Change International, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Natural Resources Defense Council, was issued Monday ahead of the G7 summit in Canada.
"Governments often say they have no public resources to support the clean energy transition," the study's lead author Shelagh Whitley told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "What we're trying to do is highlight that those resources are there (but) it is being used inefficiently."
For the study, each G7 member was rated on the following measures: transparency; pledges and commitments; ending support for fossil fuel exploration; ending support for coal mining; ending support for oil and gas production; ending support for fossil fuel-based power; and ending support for fossil fuel use.
France ranked the highest overall, with 63 out of 100 points. While the country is lagging behind in its support for fossil fuel use, France earned the top spot for making early progress in ending fossil fuel exploration and production and ending coal mining, the researchers determined. Germany (62 points) and Canada (54 points) rounded out the top three in the dubious list.
Unsurprisingly—due to President Donald Trump's intention to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement and his administration's unrelenting push of fossil fuels—the U.S. was ranked lowest on the list, scoring only 42 out of 100 points.
The report showed that the U.S. spent $26 billion a year supporting fossil fuels and scored the worst in ending support for coal mining, a pet project of President Trump.
"Despite their numerous commitments, not only have G7 governments taken limited action to address fossil fuel subsidies but they have also failed to put in place any mechanisms to define and document the full extent of their support to oil, gas and coal, or to hold themselves accountable for achieving these pledges," the authors said.
The researchers urged the governments to establish concrete plans to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 as promised, Reuters reported.
"What should be a low-hanging fruit in terms of moving public resources away from fossil fuels is not happening, or where it is happening, it's not happening fast enough," Whitley told the news service.
The Group of Seven, or G7, consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the U.S. The group, as well as the larger G20, agreed as early as 2009 to phase out fossil fuels in order to combat climate change.
But a new report from Britain's Overseas Development Institute (ODI) reveals that on average per year in 2015 and 2016, the G7 governments supplied at least $81 billion in fiscal support and $20 billion in public finance, for both production and consumption of oil, gas and coal at home and overseas.
"With less than seven years to meet their 2025 phase-out deadline, G7 governments continue to provide substantial support the production and use of oil, gas and coal," the authors stated.
The study, co-authored by Oil Change International, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Natural Resources Defense Council, was issued Monday ahead of the G7 summit in Canada.
"Governments often say they have no public resources to support the clean energy transition," the study's lead author Shelagh Whitley told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "What we're trying to do is highlight that those resources are there (but) it is being used inefficiently."
For the study, each G7 member was rated on the following measures: transparency; pledges and commitments; ending support for fossil fuel exploration; ending support for coal mining; ending support for oil and gas production; ending support for fossil fuel-based power; and ending support for fossil fuel use.
France ranked the highest overall, with 63 out of 100 points. While the country is lagging behind in its support for fossil fuel use, France earned the top spot for making early progress in ending fossil fuel exploration and production and ending coal mining, the researchers determined. Germany (62 points) and Canada (54 points) rounded out the top three in the dubious list.
Unsurprisingly—due to President Donald Trump's intention to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement and his administration's unrelenting push of fossil fuels—the U.S. was ranked lowest on the list, scoring only 42 out of 100 points.
The report showed that the U.S. spent $26 billion a year supporting fossil fuels and scored the worst in ending support for coal mining, a pet project of President Trump.
"Despite their numerous commitments, not only have G7 governments taken limited action to address fossil fuel subsidies but they have also failed to put in place any mechanisms to define and document the full extent of their support to oil, gas and coal, or to hold themselves accountable for achieving these pledges," the authors said.
The researchers urged the governments to establish concrete plans to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 as promised, Reuters reported.
"What should be a low-hanging fruit in terms of moving public resources away from fossil fuels is not happening, or where it is happening, it's not happening fast enough," Whitley told the news service.
Shell foresaw climate dangers in 1988 and understood Big Oil’s big role
By Steven Mufson and Chris Mooney - waashington post
April 5 at 4:28 PM
A Dutch journalist has uncovered Royal Dutch Shell documents as old as 1988 that showed the oil company understood the gravity of climate change, the company’s large contribution to it and how hard it would be to stop it.
The 1988 report titled “The Greenhouse Effect” calculated that the Shell group alone was contributing 4 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions through its oil, natural gas and coal products. “By the time global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation,” the report warned.
The report, written by members of Shell’s Greenhouse Effect Working Group, said that scientists believed that the effects would become detectable late in the 20th or early 21st century.
It was based on a 1986 study, although the document reveals that Shell had commissioned “greenhouse effect” reports as early as 1981.
The documents were found by Jelmer Mommers, a reporter with De Correspondent. They were posted on the Climate Files website, which is sponsored by the Climate Investigations Center, an environmental activist group.
Shell’s working group knew three decades ago that climate change was real and formidable, warning that it would affect living standards and food supplies and have social, economic and political consequences.
The working group also warned that rising sea levels could impair offshore installations, coastal facilities, harbors, refineries and depots.
The documents contrast with Shell’s public stance on climate change during the 1990s, when the company was a member of the Global Climate Coalition. The industry group raised doubts about the science of climate change and opposed the Kyoto Protocol, the global agreement reached in 1997 to fight climate change.
Shell withdrew from the industry group in 1998, with then-President Mark Moody-Stuart saying: “We recently met them, and it was concluded our differences of opinion were irreconcilable. We will not renew our subscription,” according to a contemporary press report.
The 1988 report estimated that in 1981, 44 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions came from oil, 38 percent from coal and 17 percent from natural gas.
“With fossil fuel combustion being a major source of CO2 in the atmosphere, a forward looking approach by the energy industry is clearly desirable, seeking to play its part with governments and others in the development of appropriate measures to tackle the problem,” the report said.
At the same time, however, the report said that “the likely time scale of possible change does not necessitate immediate remedial action.”
On Thursday, Shell issued a statement in response to the publication of the report.
“The Shell Group’s position on climate change has been a matter of public record for decades. We strongly support the Paris Agreement [on climate change] and the need for society to transition to a lower carbon future, while also extending the economic and social benefits of energy to everyone,” the company said. “Successfully navigating this dual challenge requires sound government policy and cultural change to drive low-carbon choices for businesses and consumers. It requires cooperation between all segments of society.”
The 1988 report titled “The Greenhouse Effect” calculated that the Shell group alone was contributing 4 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions through its oil, natural gas and coal products. “By the time global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation,” the report warned.
The report, written by members of Shell’s Greenhouse Effect Working Group, said that scientists believed that the effects would become detectable late in the 20th or early 21st century.
It was based on a 1986 study, although the document reveals that Shell had commissioned “greenhouse effect” reports as early as 1981.
The documents were found by Jelmer Mommers, a reporter with De Correspondent. They were posted on the Climate Files website, which is sponsored by the Climate Investigations Center, an environmental activist group.
Shell’s working group knew three decades ago that climate change was real and formidable, warning that it would affect living standards and food supplies and have social, economic and political consequences.
The working group also warned that rising sea levels could impair offshore installations, coastal facilities, harbors, refineries and depots.
The documents contrast with Shell’s public stance on climate change during the 1990s, when the company was a member of the Global Climate Coalition. The industry group raised doubts about the science of climate change and opposed the Kyoto Protocol, the global agreement reached in 1997 to fight climate change.
Shell withdrew from the industry group in 1998, with then-President Mark Moody-Stuart saying: “We recently met them, and it was concluded our differences of opinion were irreconcilable. We will not renew our subscription,” according to a contemporary press report.
The 1988 report estimated that in 1981, 44 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions came from oil, 38 percent from coal and 17 percent from natural gas.
“With fossil fuel combustion being a major source of CO2 in the atmosphere, a forward looking approach by the energy industry is clearly desirable, seeking to play its part with governments and others in the development of appropriate measures to tackle the problem,” the report said.
At the same time, however, the report said that “the likely time scale of possible change does not necessitate immediate remedial action.”
On Thursday, Shell issued a statement in response to the publication of the report.
“The Shell Group’s position on climate change has been a matter of public record for decades. We strongly support the Paris Agreement [on climate change] and the need for society to transition to a lower carbon future, while also extending the economic and social benefits of energy to everyone,” the company said. “Successfully navigating this dual challenge requires sound government policy and cultural change to drive low-carbon choices for businesses and consumers. It requires cooperation between all segments of society.”
The dark side of America's rise to oil superpower
Bloomberg
Javier Blas
The last time U.S. drillers pumped 10 million barrels of crude a day, Richard Nixon was in the White House. The first oil crisis hadn’t yet scared Americans into buying Toyotas, and fracking was an experimental technique a handful of engineers were trying, with meager success, to popularize. It was 1970, and oil sold for $1.80 a barrel.
Almost five decades later, with oil hovering near $65 a barrel, daily U.S. crude output is about to hit the eight-digit mark again. It’s a significant milestone on the way to fulfilling a dream that a generation ago seemed far-fetched: By the end of the year, the U.S. may well be the world’s biggest oil producer. With that, America takes a big step toward energy independence.
The U.S. crowing from the top of a hill long occupied by Saudi Arabia or Russia would scramble geopolitics. A new world energy order could emerge. That shuffling will be good for America but not so much for the planet.
For one, the influence of one of the most powerful forces of the past half-century, the modern petrostate, would be diminished. No longer would “America First” diplomats need to tiptoe around oil-supplying nations such as Saudi Arabia. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would find it tougher to agree on production guidelines, and lower prices could result, reopening old wounds in the cartel. That would take some muscle out of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy, while Russia’s oligarchs would find it more difficult to maintain the lifestyles to which they’ve become accustomed.
President Donald Trump, sensing an opportunity, is looking past independence to what he calls energy dominance. His administration plans to open vast ocean acreage to offshore exploration and for the first time in 40 years allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It may take years to tap, but the Alaska payoff alone is eye-popping—an estimated 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude.
It sounds good, but be careful what you wish for. The last three years have been the hottest since recordkeeping began in the 19th century, and there’s little room in Trump’s plan for energy sources that treat the planet kindly. Governors of coastal states have already pointed out that an offshore spill could devastate tourism—another trillion-dollar industry—not to mention wreck fragile littoral environments. Florida has already applied for a waiver from such drilling.
More supply could lower prices, in turn discouraging investments in renewables such as solar and wind. Those tend to spike when oil prices rise, so enthusiasm for nonpolluting, nonwarming energies of the future could wane.
For now, though, the petroleum train is chugging. And you can thank the resilience of the U.S. shale industry for it.
Shale’s triumph seemed impossible a few years ago. In late 2014, Saudi Arabia targeted rivals, including American drillers. Rather than cutting production to keep prices high, Saudi Arabia persuaded OPEC to open the taps, sending prices lower than $40 a barrel in December, down from more than $100 a barrel just four months previous. The Saudis were hoping to starve the shale revolution. At first, they seemed poised to succeed, like they had in the past. U.S. production fell from a peak of 9.6 million barrels a day to 8.5 million barrels a day. Bankruptcies riddled shale patches from Texas’ Permian Basin to the Bakken Formation in North Dakota, and tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs.
Rather than declare defeat, shale companies dug in, slashing costs and borrowing like crazy to keep drilling. By late 2016 the Saudis blinked. They persuaded OPEC and the Russians to cut output. Slowly, steadily, West Texas Intermediate, the oil benchmark traded in New York, rose from $26 a barrel in February 2016 to where it lingers today.
What didn’t kill shale drillers made them stronger. The survivors have transformed themselves into leaner, faster versions that can thrive even at lower oil prices. Shale isn’t any longer just about grit, sweat, and luck. Technology is key. Geologists use smartphones to direct drilling, and companies are putting in longer and longer wells. At current prices, drillers can walk and chew gum at the same time—lifting production and profits simultaneously.
Fracking—blasting water and sand deep underground to free oil from shale rock — has improved, too. It’s what many call Shale 2.0. And it’s not just the risk-taking pioneers who dominated the first phase of the revolution, such as Trump friend Harold Hamm of Continental Resources Inc., who are benefiting from the surge. Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and other major oil groups are joining the rush. U.S. shale is “seemingly on steroids,” says Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultant Energy Aspects Ltd. in London. “The market remains enchanted by the ability of shale producers to adapt to lower prices and to continue to grow.”
The results are historic. In October, American net imports of crude and refined products dropped below 2.5 million barrels a day, the lowest since official data were first collected in 1973. A decade ago, U.S. net oil imports stood at more than 12 million barrels a day. “For the last 40 years, since the Arab oil embargo, we’ve had a mindset of energy scarcity,” says Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former Obama administration official. “As a result of the shale revolution, the U.S. has emerged as an energy superpower.”
For OPEC, the emergent superpower presents an unprecedented challenge. If the cartel cuts production, shale drillers can respond by boosting output, stealing market share from OPEC nations and undermining their effort to manipulate prices. The only solution for OPEC is to prolong the limits, as it’s doing now, and hope for the best. If cooperation between OPEC and Russia breaks down, it’s not impossible that OPEC breaks down, too.
If Shale 2.0 output keeps prices low, Russia would be a big loser. Moscow has used oil revenue to finance aggressive foreign intervention from Ukraine to Syria. The only solution is to continue cooperating with Saudi Arabia on keeping production low — not something the oligarchs relish.
With shale surging, U.S. imports of Saudi oil plunged to a 30-year low last year. The turnabout makes China and Japan far more dependent than the U.S. on the Middle East. It’s now possible for the U.S. to argue that other countries should help shoulder the burden of policing the shipping lanes leading to Middle Eastern and North African oil exporters.
Yet not all traffic lights are green for the U.S. It’s not immune from the ups and downs of the world market. When the price rises because of, say, political upheaval in the Middle East, it doesn’t matter where you are and how much you pump. The price rises in America, too.
There’s another problem: Shale 2.0 could hurt refiners. Shale oil is too good. For years, refiners spent billions of dollars on special equipment to process the dense, high-sulphur, low-quality crudes coming from Mexico, Venezuela, Canada and Saudi Arabia. The quality of shale oil is so high that it yields little diesel, the fuel that powers manufacturing.
Such limitations may be mere speed bumps. But U.S. dominance is far from a panacea. It won’t reverse climate change. It won’t lessen the political influence of fossil-fuel producers in Washington. Nor will it completely neutralize the political influence of erratic petrostates.
With demand rising despite the emergence of renewables and the development of electric vehicles, shale may struggle to keep pace with global consumption. There’s a chance the world will witness that rarest of market loop-de-loops — high oil prices as well as rising U.S. production.
Saudi Arabia and Russia could then remain formidable obstacles to U.S. energy independence. They would be crowing from the top of the hill even as they keep a wary eye on America’s shale drillers.
These are troubles that would have been an embarrassment of riches for Americans who had to wait in line to fill up in the 1970s, when the U.S. determining its own energy future was just a dream. Any celebration over this accomplishment ignores the evidence that such dependence on fossil fuels is no independence at all.
Almost five decades later, with oil hovering near $65 a barrel, daily U.S. crude output is about to hit the eight-digit mark again. It’s a significant milestone on the way to fulfilling a dream that a generation ago seemed far-fetched: By the end of the year, the U.S. may well be the world’s biggest oil producer. With that, America takes a big step toward energy independence.
The U.S. crowing from the top of a hill long occupied by Saudi Arabia or Russia would scramble geopolitics. A new world energy order could emerge. That shuffling will be good for America but not so much for the planet.
For one, the influence of one of the most powerful forces of the past half-century, the modern petrostate, would be diminished. No longer would “America First” diplomats need to tiptoe around oil-supplying nations such as Saudi Arabia. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would find it tougher to agree on production guidelines, and lower prices could result, reopening old wounds in the cartel. That would take some muscle out of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy, while Russia’s oligarchs would find it more difficult to maintain the lifestyles to which they’ve become accustomed.
President Donald Trump, sensing an opportunity, is looking past independence to what he calls energy dominance. His administration plans to open vast ocean acreage to offshore exploration and for the first time in 40 years allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It may take years to tap, but the Alaska payoff alone is eye-popping—an estimated 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude.
It sounds good, but be careful what you wish for. The last three years have been the hottest since recordkeeping began in the 19th century, and there’s little room in Trump’s plan for energy sources that treat the planet kindly. Governors of coastal states have already pointed out that an offshore spill could devastate tourism—another trillion-dollar industry—not to mention wreck fragile littoral environments. Florida has already applied for a waiver from such drilling.
More supply could lower prices, in turn discouraging investments in renewables such as solar and wind. Those tend to spike when oil prices rise, so enthusiasm for nonpolluting, nonwarming energies of the future could wane.
For now, though, the petroleum train is chugging. And you can thank the resilience of the U.S. shale industry for it.
Shale’s triumph seemed impossible a few years ago. In late 2014, Saudi Arabia targeted rivals, including American drillers. Rather than cutting production to keep prices high, Saudi Arabia persuaded OPEC to open the taps, sending prices lower than $40 a barrel in December, down from more than $100 a barrel just four months previous. The Saudis were hoping to starve the shale revolution. At first, they seemed poised to succeed, like they had in the past. U.S. production fell from a peak of 9.6 million barrels a day to 8.5 million barrels a day. Bankruptcies riddled shale patches from Texas’ Permian Basin to the Bakken Formation in North Dakota, and tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs.
Rather than declare defeat, shale companies dug in, slashing costs and borrowing like crazy to keep drilling. By late 2016 the Saudis blinked. They persuaded OPEC and the Russians to cut output. Slowly, steadily, West Texas Intermediate, the oil benchmark traded in New York, rose from $26 a barrel in February 2016 to where it lingers today.
What didn’t kill shale drillers made them stronger. The survivors have transformed themselves into leaner, faster versions that can thrive even at lower oil prices. Shale isn’t any longer just about grit, sweat, and luck. Technology is key. Geologists use smartphones to direct drilling, and companies are putting in longer and longer wells. At current prices, drillers can walk and chew gum at the same time—lifting production and profits simultaneously.
Fracking—blasting water and sand deep underground to free oil from shale rock — has improved, too. It’s what many call Shale 2.0. And it’s not just the risk-taking pioneers who dominated the first phase of the revolution, such as Trump friend Harold Hamm of Continental Resources Inc., who are benefiting from the surge. Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and other major oil groups are joining the rush. U.S. shale is “seemingly on steroids,” says Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultant Energy Aspects Ltd. in London. “The market remains enchanted by the ability of shale producers to adapt to lower prices and to continue to grow.”
The results are historic. In October, American net imports of crude and refined products dropped below 2.5 million barrels a day, the lowest since official data were first collected in 1973. A decade ago, U.S. net oil imports stood at more than 12 million barrels a day. “For the last 40 years, since the Arab oil embargo, we’ve had a mindset of energy scarcity,” says Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former Obama administration official. “As a result of the shale revolution, the U.S. has emerged as an energy superpower.”
For OPEC, the emergent superpower presents an unprecedented challenge. If the cartel cuts production, shale drillers can respond by boosting output, stealing market share from OPEC nations and undermining their effort to manipulate prices. The only solution for OPEC is to prolong the limits, as it’s doing now, and hope for the best. If cooperation between OPEC and Russia breaks down, it’s not impossible that OPEC breaks down, too.
If Shale 2.0 output keeps prices low, Russia would be a big loser. Moscow has used oil revenue to finance aggressive foreign intervention from Ukraine to Syria. The only solution is to continue cooperating with Saudi Arabia on keeping production low — not something the oligarchs relish.
With shale surging, U.S. imports of Saudi oil plunged to a 30-year low last year. The turnabout makes China and Japan far more dependent than the U.S. on the Middle East. It’s now possible for the U.S. to argue that other countries should help shoulder the burden of policing the shipping lanes leading to Middle Eastern and North African oil exporters.
Yet not all traffic lights are green for the U.S. It’s not immune from the ups and downs of the world market. When the price rises because of, say, political upheaval in the Middle East, it doesn’t matter where you are and how much you pump. The price rises in America, too.
There’s another problem: Shale 2.0 could hurt refiners. Shale oil is too good. For years, refiners spent billions of dollars on special equipment to process the dense, high-sulphur, low-quality crudes coming from Mexico, Venezuela, Canada and Saudi Arabia. The quality of shale oil is so high that it yields little diesel, the fuel that powers manufacturing.
Such limitations may be mere speed bumps. But U.S. dominance is far from a panacea. It won’t reverse climate change. It won’t lessen the political influence of fossil-fuel producers in Washington. Nor will it completely neutralize the political influence of erratic petrostates.
With demand rising despite the emergence of renewables and the development of electric vehicles, shale may struggle to keep pace with global consumption. There’s a chance the world will witness that rarest of market loop-de-loops — high oil prices as well as rising U.S. production.
Saudi Arabia and Russia could then remain formidable obstacles to U.S. energy independence. They would be crowing from the top of the hill even as they keep a wary eye on America’s shale drillers.
These are troubles that would have been an embarrassment of riches for Americans who had to wait in line to fill up in the 1970s, when the U.S. determining its own energy future was just a dream. Any celebration over this accomplishment ignores the evidence that such dependence on fossil fuels is no independence at all.
they knew!!!
On its hundredth birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming
Somebody cut the cake – new documents reveal that American oil writ large was warned of global warming at its 100th birthday party.
Benjamin Franta
the guardian
Mon 1 Jan ‘18 06.00 EST
...The nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller had, by 1959, become ostracized by the scientific community for betraying his colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer, but he retained the embrace of industry and government. Teller’s task that November fourth was to address the crowd on “energy patterns of the future,” and his words carried an unexpected warning:
Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. But I would [...] like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. [....] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. [....] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?
Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect [....] It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.
How, precisely, Mr. Dunlop and the rest of the audience reacted is unknown, but it’s hard to imagine this being welcome news. After his talk, Teller was asked to “summarize briefly the danger from increased carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere in this century.” The physicist, as if considering a numerical estimation problem, responded:
At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 per cent, by 1980, 8 per cent, by 1990, 16 per cent [about 360 parts per million, by Teller’s accounting], if we keep on with our exponential rise in the use of purely conventional fuels. By that time, there will be a serious additional impediment for the radiation leaving the earth. Our planet will get a little warmer. It is hard to say whether it will be 2 degrees Fahrenheit or only one or 5.
But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise. Well, I don’t know whether they will cover the Empire State Building or not, but anyone can calculate it by looking at the map and noting that the icecaps over Greenland and over Antarctica are perhaps five thousand feet thick.
And so, at its hundredth birthday party, American oil was warned of its civilization-destroying potential.
Talk about a buzzkill.
How did the petroleum industry respond? Eight years later, on a cold, clear day in March, Robert Dunlop walked the halls of the U.S. Congress. The 1967 oil embargo was weeks away, and the Senate was investigating the potential of electric vehicles. Dunlop, testifying now as the Chairman of the Board of the American Petroleum Institute, posed the question, “tomorrow’s car: electric or gasoline powered?” His preferred answer was the latter:
We in the petroleum industry are convinced that by the time a practical electric car can be mass-produced and marketed, it will not enjoy any meaningful advantage from an air pollution standpoint. Emissions from internal-combustion engines will have long since been controlled.
Dunlop went on to describe progress in controlling carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbon emissions from automobiles. Absent from his list? The pollutant he had been warned of years before: carbon dioxide.
We might surmise that the odorless gas simply passed under Robert Dunlop’s nose unnoticed. But less than a year later, the American Petroleum Institute quietly received a report on air pollution it had commissioned from the Stanford Research Institute, and its warning on carbon dioxide was direct:
Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000, and these could bring about climatic changes. [...] there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe. [...] pollutants which we generally ignore because they have little local effect, CO2 and submicron particles, may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes.
Thus, by 1968, American oil held in its hands yet another notice of its products’ world-altering side effects, one affirming that global warming was not just cause for research and concern, but a reality needing corrective action: “Past and present studies of CO2 are detailed,” the Stanford Research Institute advised. “What is lacking, however, is [...] work toward systems in which CO2 emissions would be brought under control.”
This early history illuminates the American petroleum industry’s long-running awareness of the planetary warming caused by its products. Teller’s warning, revealed in documentation I found while searching archives, is another brick in a growing wall of evidence.
In the closing days of those optimistic 1950s, Robert Dunlop may have been one of the first oilmen to be warned of the tragedy now looming before us. By the time he departed this world in 1995, the American Petroleum Institute he once led was denying the climate science it had been informed of decades before, attacking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and fighting climate policies wherever they arose.
This is a history of choices made, paths not taken, and the fall from grace of one of the greatest enterprises – oil, the “prime mover” – ever to tread the earth. Whether it’s also a history of redemption, however partial, remains to be seen.
American oil’s awareness of global warming – and its conspiracy of silence, deceit, and obstruction – goes further than any one company. It extends beyond (though includes) ExxonMobil. The industry is implicated to its core by the history of its largest representative, the American Petroleum Institute.
It is now too late to stop a great deal of change to our planet’s climate and its global payload of disease, destruction, and death. But we can fight to halt climate change as quickly as possible, and we can uncover the history of how we got here. There are lessons to be learned, and there is justice to be served.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. But I would [...] like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. [....] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. [....] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?
Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect [....] It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.
How, precisely, Mr. Dunlop and the rest of the audience reacted is unknown, but it’s hard to imagine this being welcome news. After his talk, Teller was asked to “summarize briefly the danger from increased carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere in this century.” The physicist, as if considering a numerical estimation problem, responded:
At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 per cent, by 1980, 8 per cent, by 1990, 16 per cent [about 360 parts per million, by Teller’s accounting], if we keep on with our exponential rise in the use of purely conventional fuels. By that time, there will be a serious additional impediment for the radiation leaving the earth. Our planet will get a little warmer. It is hard to say whether it will be 2 degrees Fahrenheit or only one or 5.
But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise. Well, I don’t know whether they will cover the Empire State Building or not, but anyone can calculate it by looking at the map and noting that the icecaps over Greenland and over Antarctica are perhaps five thousand feet thick.
And so, at its hundredth birthday party, American oil was warned of its civilization-destroying potential.
Talk about a buzzkill.
How did the petroleum industry respond? Eight years later, on a cold, clear day in March, Robert Dunlop walked the halls of the U.S. Congress. The 1967 oil embargo was weeks away, and the Senate was investigating the potential of electric vehicles. Dunlop, testifying now as the Chairman of the Board of the American Petroleum Institute, posed the question, “tomorrow’s car: electric or gasoline powered?” His preferred answer was the latter:
We in the petroleum industry are convinced that by the time a practical electric car can be mass-produced and marketed, it will not enjoy any meaningful advantage from an air pollution standpoint. Emissions from internal-combustion engines will have long since been controlled.
Dunlop went on to describe progress in controlling carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbon emissions from automobiles. Absent from his list? The pollutant he had been warned of years before: carbon dioxide.
We might surmise that the odorless gas simply passed under Robert Dunlop’s nose unnoticed. But less than a year later, the American Petroleum Institute quietly received a report on air pollution it had commissioned from the Stanford Research Institute, and its warning on carbon dioxide was direct:
Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000, and these could bring about climatic changes. [...] there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe. [...] pollutants which we generally ignore because they have little local effect, CO2 and submicron particles, may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes.
Thus, by 1968, American oil held in its hands yet another notice of its products’ world-altering side effects, one affirming that global warming was not just cause for research and concern, but a reality needing corrective action: “Past and present studies of CO2 are detailed,” the Stanford Research Institute advised. “What is lacking, however, is [...] work toward systems in which CO2 emissions would be brought under control.”
This early history illuminates the American petroleum industry’s long-running awareness of the planetary warming caused by its products. Teller’s warning, revealed in documentation I found while searching archives, is another brick in a growing wall of evidence.
In the closing days of those optimistic 1950s, Robert Dunlop may have been one of the first oilmen to be warned of the tragedy now looming before us. By the time he departed this world in 1995, the American Petroleum Institute he once led was denying the climate science it had been informed of decades before, attacking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and fighting climate policies wherever they arose.
This is a history of choices made, paths not taken, and the fall from grace of one of the greatest enterprises – oil, the “prime mover” – ever to tread the earth. Whether it’s also a history of redemption, however partial, remains to be seen.
American oil’s awareness of global warming – and its conspiracy of silence, deceit, and obstruction – goes further than any one company. It extends beyond (though includes) ExxonMobil. The industry is implicated to its core by the history of its largest representative, the American Petroleum Institute.
It is now too late to stop a great deal of change to our planet’s climate and its global payload of disease, destruction, and death. But we can fight to halt climate change as quickly as possible, and we can uncover the history of how we got here. There are lessons to be learned, and there is justice to be served.
oil funnies
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