Category Archives: fossil fuels

climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, natural resource management

CREDO action: Building the new wave of resistance to Keystone XL: Action leader trainings this summer.

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Now that we kicked off the Pledge of Resistance with an amazing action on Monday in Chicago, the next step is make this much, much bigger.1

The core of the Pledge, and of our strategy to put enough pressure on President Obama that he has no choice but to reject Keystone XL, will be the threat of hundreds of peaceful civil disobedience actions across the country just like the one in Chicago. These actions will be planned and ready to be deployed if Obama’s State Department recommends that he approve Keystone XL — a decision we expect later in the fall.

It will take hundreds of trained activists across the country to organize these actions, and train tens of thousands of activists to safely take part in peaceful and dignified civil disobedience.

CREDO, Rainforest Action Network and the Other 98% have spent the past few months putting together the resources to train you to become a Pledge of Resistance action leader in your community.

Starting on June 29th, and running through July, we’re putting on weekend-long trainings in 25 cities to train activists to lead Pledge of Resistance actions in their own communities. Here’s the schedule:

June 29-30: San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Boston
July 6-7: DC, Detroit, Portland, Los Angeles
July 13-14: NYC, Cincinnati, Denver, Phoenix, Albuquerque
July 20-21: Tampa, Miami, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas, Houston
July 27-28: Raleigh, Atlanta, Des Moines, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Tulsa

To make the Pledge of Resistance a game-changer in our fight against Keystone XL, we need hundreds of people like you, ready to take the next step in their activism. Click here to find your nearest training and RSVP.

These trainings are free. No experience is required. We have developed an amazing curriculum which will provide you with the resources and support you need to pull this off – even if you’ve never done anything like it before. But leading a local pledge of resistance action will be a significant commitment over the next few months. Here’s what we ask if you want to sign up for an Action Leader training:

Come to both days of the training. (If you don’t live in the city, that means you’ll need to find a place to stay overnight.)
Bring a friend. (There will be a lot to learn, so it’ll help to have someone else there to help you remember.)
Be firmly committed to principles of non-violence.
Have a serious intention to lead an action where you live. (That requires working with a training coach to develop an action blueprint from a list of local targets, assigning roles on your team, training activists to take action, then being ready for a decision on KXL.)

Not everyone will be able to lead a local action. For example if you live in a major city, there may be larger events planned, and we’d be relying on you to play a major planning and support role. In some places there may be multiple local leaders, and we’ll have you team up. Regardless, to pull this off, and have any chance of defeating Keystone XL, we need hundreds of highly trained climate organizers in cities and towns all over the country.

Whether you are now a seasoned organizer or an activist looking to get involved, this training will give you everything you need to be a leader in the fight against Keystone XL. You’ll learn all the tools you need to plan a civil disobedience action where you live, build an action team, and train your fellow activists to safely engage in peaceful and dignified civil disobedience. And you’ll be empowered with skills that you can continue to use to advocate for climate action beyond the Keystone XL fight.

This won’t be a game-changer unless people are ready to commit to it. If you are a ready to step up and be a leader in the Keystone XL Pledge of Resistance, click here to find your nearest training and RSVP.

Thanks for fighting Keystone XL.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

If you can’t attend a training or aren’t ready to make a commitment, the best way you can support this effort right now is by donating to fund this massive organizing effort to stop Keystone XL.

1. “22 Arrested in New Wave of Resistance to Keystone XL Pipeline

fossil fuels, Gulf restoration, marine mammals, offshore oil

E&E: OFFSHORE DRILLING: Landmark settlement aims to protect Gulf whales and dolphins

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Jeremy P. Jacobs, E&E reporters
Published: Friday, June 21, 2013

Conservation groups, the Interior Department and oil and gas representatives yesterday reached a landmark settlement that will place restrictions on the use of seismic surveys to protect vulnerable populations of whales and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.

The settlement focuses on the use of high-intensity air guns, which fire air into the water every 10 to 12 seconds for weeks and months at a time. The technology is critical to prospecting in the Gulf of Mexico for new places to drill.

Advocates including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and Gulf Restoration Network allege that the blasts — which are sometimes as intense as dynamite — threaten bottlenose dolphins and sperm whales, both of which have experienced die-offs since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

“Today’s agreement is a landmark for marine mammal protection in the Gulf,” said Michael Jasny of NRDC. “For years this problem has languished, even as the threat posed by the industry’s widespread, disruptive activity has become clearer and clearer.”

The environmental groups filed their lawsuit in 2010 in a Louisiana federal court. They claimed that the blasts disrupted the whales, dolphins and other ocean species that rely on sound to feed, mate and navigate, though industry groups strongly dispute that characterization.

The environmentalists claimed that Interior violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act when it permitted the use of air guns without preparing an environmental impact statement.

Several industry groups, however, pushed back on the lawsuit and NRDC’s claims. Moreover, Chip Gill, president of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, classified the settlement as a “huge victory” because his members were already implementing many of its terms.

The lawsuit, he said, contained “numerous outlandish and unsubstantiated allegations. The environmental groups can’t prove them, so they are settling.”

Gill said a worst-case scenario would have been for the court to throw out Interior’s 2004 National Environmental Policy Act review. If that happened, permits could have been revoked or a hold could have been placed on future permits. None of that is part of yesterday’s settlement, he said.

Sperm whales and bottlenose dolphins have experienced significant and unexplained die-offs in the Gulf of Mexico since the 2010 spill. Environmentalists have sought to point the finger at the spill, but government scientists are continuing to study the cause, and the air guns are seen as a confounding variable in solving the problem.

The settlement prohibits the use of air guns in biologically important areas, such as the DeSoto Canyon, which is particularly important to endangered sperm whales. The canyon is also critical to Bryde’s whales.

Under the agreement, industry also may not use air guns along coastal areas during the main calving season of bottlenose dolphins between March 1 and April 30, and the settlement requires a minimum separation distance between surveys.

Additionally, the settlement, which still must be approved by the court, requires the use of listening devices to make sure the air guns aren’t disrupting marine mammals.

“The settlement not only secures new protections for whales and dolphins harmed by deafening air guns but also establishes a process for investigating alternatives to air gun surveys,” said Ellen Medlin of the Sierra Club, referring to a mandated Bureau of Ocean Energy Management report on new standards and multiyear research project to be developed on an less harmful alternative.

“As a result,” Medlin said, “the settlement not only delivers immediate benefits for Gulf marine mammals, but also takes the first step towards a long-term solution.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, natural resource management, tar sands

Desmogblog.com: A Gamble on Shale Job Growth Fails to Pay Off for Governor Corbett, as Fracking Worries Grow Nationwide

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http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/20/gamble-fracking-job-growth-fails-pay-governor-fracking-worries-grow-nationwide

Fri, 2013-06-21 04:00
SHARON KELLY

Last Friday in Philadelphia, a small crowd gathered outside the Franklin Institute, protest signs in hand. Only a few days before, word went out that Governor Tom Corbett, one of the nation’s least popular governors, would be in Philadelphia, a city that has borne the brunt of many of Mr. Corbett’s crippling budget cuts, and protest organizers said they had mobilized fast.

Inside the museum, Mr. Corbett was speaking at a shale gas summit sponsored by the Keystone Energy Forum, and he was once again touting the benefits of the Marcellus fracking boom.

“The shale gas industry is helping to sustain more than 240,000 jobs in every corner of our state,” Corbett said. (Many analysts say these numbers are overblown and the impact on the state’s employment has been negligible.) The speech was textbook Corbett – unapologetic championing of the oil and gas industry, puzzlement at the mounting tide of opposition to fracking, a deep-seated faith in the good intentions of drillers and the benefits they want to bring to Pennsylvania and America. During this speech, Mr. Corbett made no mention of one drilling services company – Minuteman Environmental Services – that he had extolled as “an American success story” a year ago in a similar speech only to see the company raided by the FBI months later. And for all the talk about jobs and drilling, no one in the crowd asked him about the recent ranking of Pennsylvania as 49th of 50 states in terms of new job creation. Mr. Corbett has seen plummeting support, not just in Philadelphia, but in rural areas across Pennsylvania. But even as state voters have increasingly grown disenchanted with his policies, Mr. Corbett has remained intractable.

“First thing they wanted to do was impose a tax on this new industry just as it was growing in Pennsylvania,” said Mr. Corbett, describing how his administration decided instead to charge drillers an impact fee, a move backed by the gas industry which critics have charged led to cuts to public services across the state.

“It’s pretty simple,” state Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Philadelphia Democrat, told MSNBC recently. “Governor Corbett was elected, and he immediately began cutting education funding. At the same time, he gave tax giveaways to the largest corporations in the commonwealth.”

Both in Pennsylvania and across the country, the politics surrounding shale gas and fracking are far more divided and becoming even more so by the day. Just one day after Mr. Corbett’s Philadelphia speech, Pennsylvania’s Democratic party added a fracking moratorium to their state platform. In New York state lawmakers have grown increasingly concerned about the tens of thousands of tons of hazardous waste from fracking shipped in from states like Pennsylvania for disposal in their landfills. In Virginia, natural gas campaign finance is an issue in the state’s gubernatorial race. In California, the Los Angeles Times editorial board recently backed a fracking moratorium in that state, saying it was “alarming how little state government has done to learn about or oversee the practice.”

Fewer and fewer parts of the country remain untouched by the boom and surrounding controversies. In seven southwestern states, including Texas and Colorado, drought conditions are found in the vast majority of counties where fracking is occurring, according to an Associated Press investigation. This has led to water-use disputes and driven some farmers to switch from growing crops to selling their water rights to energy companies. And in Illinois, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill that set environmental rules for fracking, under criticism from environmental groups who were pressing for a moratorium.

Oil and gas companies are increasingly acknowledging the conflicts their industry has caused. Earlier this month, Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Watson told a conference in D.C. that energy companies must confront “legitimate concerns” that gas development associated with fracking is hazardous by following tougher voluntary standards.

Even in places where drilling is put on hold, and emphasis is on caution and advance study, the impact of the shale boom is already being felt. In New York, where a moratorium on shale gas extraction has been maintained since 2010, lawmakers are eyeing the waste generated by fracking in the region. A recently-introduced bill would stop out-of-state fracking waste disposal in New York. New Jersey’s legislature passed a similar bill last year, but Governor Chris Christie vetoed it in November.

Virginia is yet another place where the impacts of the unconventional drilling boom are reverberating. A Pennsylvania driller involved in a dispute over coal bed methane gas in the state has been bankrolling Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, the Washington Post reported earlier this month. Pennsylvania-based CNX Gas, a subsidiary of Consol Energy, donated $100,000 to the campaign of Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Mr. Cuccinelli has recently taken heat for not revealing that a lawyer from his office was actively assisting CNX and another company, EQT, in the case.

In California, where drilling supporters say the Monterey Shale’s oil could be worth $1 trillion, residents are concerned about the unknown hazards of fracking and wastewater disposal on active fault lines. Historically quake-free areas like Ohio and Oklahoma have experienced earthquakes as strong as 5.7 on the Richter scale and federal researchers have tied these quakes to the practice of injecting fracking waste underground for disposal. Fracking in California is neither regulated nor tracked by the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. A major battle is brewing over how California would regulate a potential shale boom (or the financial bust that could follow it), with talk of ballot-based voter initiatives if the state legislature fails to act soon.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus fracking bonanza is well underway, there are signs of a growing resistance to the industry. On Saturday, June 15, the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee voted to add a call for a fracking moratorium “until such time as the practice can be done safely” to their party platform. The vote passed 59 percent to 41 percent, roughly the same margin by which a recent Muhlenberg College poll found Pennsylvania voters support a statewide moratorium. At a prior state Democratic party meeting, a similar proposal did not even make it to the floor for a vote.

Concern about the shale drilling industry is starting to catch up with its foremost promoters in the state that has been ground zero for the Marcellus gas rush.

Governor Corbett’s strategy of promoting drilling to foster job growth has not returned impressive results across much of the state. Though new jobs have certainly been created in the state’s drilling industry, Pennsylvania’s overall unemployment rate in April was at 7.6% — meaning it was slightly higher than the national unemployment rate of 7.5% — and as of March, the state ranked 49th out of 50 states in job creation, according to data from Arizona State University. Jobs in the energy industry – including coal mining and conventional oil and gas drilling – account for only one half of one percent of Pennsylvania’s economy.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Corbett has performed abysmally in the polls this year. One polling company official labeled Mr. Corbett “the most endangered Governor in the country up for reelection next year.” A poll by Franklin and Marshall College released last month found that only 25 percent of Pennsylvania voters believed Mr. Corbett deserved re-election – the lowest for a sitting governor in the 18-year history of the poll. Only 13 percent gave him a grade of “B” or higher for job creation.
Image credit: Harrisburg via Shutterstock.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, natural resource management, tar sands

Common Dreams via Tar Sands Blockade: Dozens Storm Pipeline Regulator PHMSA Event, Demanding Stricter Safety Regulations for Tar Sands Bitumen

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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/06/19-4

And the protests grow against the Keystone XL.…………..DV

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 19, 2013
1:54 PM

CONTACT: Tar Sands Blockade kxlblockade@gmail.com

RICHARDSON, TX – June 19 – Dozens of concerned community members and activists from the Texas Action Coalition for the Environment and Tar Sands Blockade have stormed the lobby at the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Pipeline Safety Public Awareness Workshop, being held at the Hyatt Regency in Richardson. The protesters staged a tar sands spill and are carrying banners and signs to say that tar sands aren’t being regulated and must be stopped. Activists are expected to stay outside in demonstration until dusk, when they will hold lighted billboards reading “PHMSA: No Tar Sands Pipelines” and “Water > Oil”.
Early this morning many from across the Keystone XL pipeline route attended the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) “Pipeline Safety Public Awareness Workshop”, held inside the Richardson Hyatt Regency Hotel. Texas ACE and TSB are airing their grievances directly to regulators, asking pertinent questions during panel Q&A sessions in order to draw out a complete record of the PHMSA assessment of its awareness efforts.

The sad truth is that PHMSA fails to properly regulate diluted tar sands bitumen – the deadly substance which has leaked in the hundreds of thousands of gallons from shoddily maintained pipelines regulated by PHMSA, poisoning communities like Mayflower, Arkansas and Kalamazoo, Michigan. In fact, Senator Edward Markey recently revealed that while PHMSA issued a Corrective Action Order against Exxon Mobil for the Pegasus tar sands pipeline, they allowed Exxon to use a disaster response plan that had not yet been approved without facing any consequences. Exxon did not detect and respond to the spill in Mayflower, Arkansas within the required time limit of the formally approved safety plan. This is just one of many examples of industry and government collusion and oversight to keep the high risk and toxicity of tar sands out of the eyes and mind of the public.

Of particular concern is the fact that tar sands (diluted bitumen or “dilbit”) is a different chemical composition than crude oil, and yet it is only classified as such when it benefits the industry bottom line. On the basis that tar sands dilbit is “synthetic crude” and not crude oil, the transport of tar sands through pipelines in the US is exempt from payments into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Otherwise, regulators claim that tar sands bitumen is a type of crude oil. Tar sands are far more difficult and costly to clean up and spills are more toxic to water, wildlife and affected persons as a result of the differences in composition. “Tar sands dilbit needs to be recognized and classified as different from crude oil, for the sake of public awareness and pipeline safety,” says Aly Tharp, one of the organizers of today’s protest.
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Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and organizers using nonviolent direct action to physically stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, natural resource management, tar sands

Common Dreams: Nobel Laureates to Obama: No Keystone XL!

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/19-4
Published on Wednesday, June 19, 2013

‘Risks of tar sands oil and the threats of dangerous climate change have only become clearer’
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

A group of Nobel Peace laureates called for the immediate rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline in a letter sent to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry Tuesday.

cop15-archbishop-desmond--001_0

Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Copenhagen climate change conference. (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images) “We are writing to urge you to once and for all reject the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline,” begins the letter penned by 10 Nobel Peace Prize winners—including Mairead Maguire, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Betty Williams, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

“Since we first wrote you, in September of 2011, the risks of tar sands oil and the threats of dangerous climate change have only become clearer,” the laureates write.

They continue:

Tragic extreme weather events, including hurricanes, drought and forest fires in your own country, have devastated hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Recent tar sands oil spills in Kalamazoo, MI and Mayflower, AR, have served as a harsh reminder that shipping the world’s dirtiest oil will never likely be safe enough for human health and the environment.

Alberta’s oil sands are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution and emissions are projected to double over the next seven years. […]

As leaders who have spoken out strongly on these issues, we urge you, once again, to be on the right side of history and send a clear message that you are serious about moving beyond dirty oil. [read the full text below]

The letter follows an earlier letter sent in 2011 also calling for a rejection of Keystone XL.

Regarding the letter, Danielle Droitsch writes for the NRDC Switchboard Blog:

When the great moral leaders of our time, including Archbishop Tutu, call for a rejection of tar sands in the face of catastrophic climate change, it is time for the U.S. to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, a linchpin enabling the tripling of expansion of this dirty oil.

“The rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is a critical step towards limiting the expansion of the Canadian oil sands—Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution,” said the Nobel Women’s Initiative Tuesday, adding, “the oil sands also have devastating impacts on local land, water, air, and communities.”

The letter follows alarming news last month that the world hit a “sobering milestone” of 400 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere—a first in human history—far surpassing the 350 ppm limit considered safe by climate experts.

If Keystone XL is approved, Canada will be sure to dig up and churn out all of its toxic tar sands—a move that climate experts such as Bill McKibben and James Hansen have repeatedly warned will send CO2 levels far through the roof, spelling game over for the climate.

However, while promising to “respond to the threat of climate change,” both Obama and Kerry have remained vague over whether or not they will approve construction of the northern leg of the pipeline.

Read the full letter below:

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

June 17, 2013

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry,

We are writing to urge you to once and for all reject the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

Like millions of others, we were buoyed by words in the President’s second inaugural address: “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” Mr. President and Secretary Kerry, this is an opportunity to begin to fulfill that promise. While there is no one policy or action that will avoid dangerous climate change, saying ‘no’ to the Keystone XL pipeline is a critical step in the right direction. Now is the time for unwavering leadership.

Climate change threatens all of us, but it is the world’s most vulnerable who are already paying for developed countries’ failure to act with their lives and livelihoods. This will only become more tragic as impacts become worse and conflicts are exacerbated as precious natural resources, like water and food, become more and more scarce. Inaction will cost hundreds of millions of lives – and the death toll will only continue to rise.

Since we first wrote you, in September of 2011, the risks of tar sands oil and the threats of dangerous climate change have only become clearer. Tragic extreme weather events, including hurricanes, drought and forest fires in your own country, have devastated hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Recent tar sands oil spills in Kalamazoo, MI and Mayflower, AR, have served as a harsh reminder that shipping the world’s dirtiest oil will never likely be safe enough for human health and the environment.

Alberta’s oil sands are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution and emissions are projected to double over the next seven years. The International Energy Agency, among many other respected bodies, has found that in order to prevent catastrophic global warming of over two degrees centigrade we must leave two thirds of fossil fuels in the ground. In contrast, the expansion of the Alberta oil sands, as projected, is consistent with the pathway to global warming of six degrees centigrade. The Keystone XL pipeline is critical to this rate of tar sands growth, as without it the industry is unlikely to be able to fulfill its plans of tripling oil sands production.

We recognize the extreme pressure being put on you by industry and the governments of Canada and Alberta, and note this pressure represents the interest of the largest, wealthiest corporation—and not the average Canadian. We applaud the Government of British Columbia for standing up to this pressure and calling for the rejection of another tar sands pipeline, the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. On the other hand, acting against broad public opinion, the Canadian Government has abandoned its commitments both under the United Nations Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The Canadian Government has also taken extreme measures domestically to gut environmental legislation and muzzle scientists in order to fast track tar sands pipeline development.

We also recognize the pressure from forces in your own country. The Keystone XL pipeline will not benefit or improve the lives of Americans, but nevertheless we understand that the politics of action on climate are not easy. We believe you are the kind of leaders who can stand up to those interests when necessary, to do what is right for the world and for future generations.

You have both been clear that it is time for the United States to step up and do its fair share to fight the climate crises. We acknowledge the work and investment that is happening in North America to increase energy efficiency and clean energy, but unless we dramatically accelerate such efforts and move more quickly away from the use of fossil fuels – our other efforts will be rendered practically irrelevant.

Our shared climate cannot afford the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

As leaders who have spoken out strongly on these issues, we urge you, once again, to be on the right side of history and send a clear message that you are serious about moving beyond dirty oil.

Yours sincerely,

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) — Ireland

Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) — Ireland

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate (1984) — South Africa

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate (1980) — Argentina

Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Nobel Peace Laureate (1992) — Guatemala

José Ramos Horta, Nobel Peace Laureate (1996) — East Timor

Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate (1997) — USA

Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate (2003) — Iran

Tawakkol Karman, Nobel Peace Laureate (2011) — Yemen

Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Laureate (2011) — Liberia
– See more at: http://nobelwomensinitiative.org/2013/06/nobel-laureates-call-on-preside…

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