Category Archives: national ocean politics

energy policy, fossil fuels, fracking, national ocean politics, natural resource management, ocean pollution, offshore oil, oil pollution

E&E: White House outlines path for power plant rules, other environmental actions including drilling in the Arctic, methane flaring, & blow out preventors

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Jean Chemnick and Jason Plautz, E&E reporters
Published: Monday, July 8, 2013
Arctic drilling among new Interior regs


I’ve edited down this article to the portion relevant to oil. DV

The White House agenda also notes several significant rule making efforts at the Interior Department, including new regulations for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and for the flaring and venting of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas wells on public lands.

Making its first appearance on the regulatory agenda is a proposed rule from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that would codify regulations for drilling in the oil-rich Arctic Ocean, where at least three major energy firms are pursuing exploration.

Former Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes in May said those regulations will mirror the voluntary steps Royal Dutch Shell PLC
agreed to take during its 2012 Arctic exploration season, which included an oil spill containment plan and the ability to drill a
relief well, among other steps.

Hayes at the time said he believed the agency would issue draft rules by the end of the year.

“There will be clarity going forward,” Hayes said, noting that industry would be given flexibility for how it complies with
performance-based standards. It appears Interior has pushed to 2014 the release of a separate set of rules aiming to strengthen the integrity of blowout preventers, the hulking devices used to stanch the flow of oil or gas from an out-of- control well. BP PLC’s blowout preventer failed to prevent the escape of oil and gas from the Macondo well in April 2010, leading to the worst oil spill in the nation’s history. The blowout preventer rule was listed on the White House’s long-term agenda, and the proposed rule is tentatively scheduled for October 2014. The administration deemed it “economically significant,” which means it could be costly to implement.

“The industry has developed new standards for BOP design and testing that contain significant improvements to existing documents,” the White House said in its description of the rule. “By incorporating these new requirements into regulations and other supplemental requirements, the regulatory oversight over this critical equipment will be increased.” The Bureau of Land Management is continuing to evaluate a proposed rule to establish standards to “limit the waste of vented and flared gas and to define the appropriate use of oil and gas for beneficial use.”

The rule appears to address a significant concern environmentalists have about the emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas wells on public lands. Environmentalists claim current affordable technologies could keep more methane in pipelines to be burned for heat and power, but BLM has been hesitant to require that those technologies be used. BLM’s proposed “onshore order 9” is scheduled for release in May 2014, according to a description of the rule.

Environmental groups continue to pressure the agency for tougher regulations in federal court (Greenwire, June 17).

BLM also continues to pursue rules that would provide for the competitive leasing of wind and solar energy on public lands, for the regulation of hydraulic fracturing and to address the royalty rate for oil shale.

BOEM is also pursuing a rule that would set a preliminary term of one year for offshore wind companies that lease federal waters to submit a site assessment or general activities plan to encourage diligent development of renewable energy.

Reporters Phil Taylor and Annie Snider contributed.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, natural resource management, ocean pollution, offshore oil

FuelFix: Commentary: Regulations for the oil & gas industry are a good thing

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http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/07/03/regulations-for-the-oil-gas-industry-are-a-good-thing-2/

Posted on July 3, 2013 at 3:59 pm by David Vaucher

A friend of mine recently shared an article from the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Regulated States of America”. The article is very relevant: a lot of the political discourse today in the United States concerns the role (or non-role) of government, and its reach as it pertains to regulations. The oil & gas industry comes up frequently in this context, and stirs up strong opinions from all sides of the issue. I have my own thoughts to share with you in the hope that it stimulates some discussion, and I suspect what you read will surprise you coming from someone very “pro” oil & gas!

Full disclaimer here: I’m not an American citizen, and as a Green Card holder, I have no voting rights so in the strictest sense, my opinion literally doesn’t count. This means that I’m speaking entirely for myself with the only goal of sharing my views, and nothing I say today is meant as an endorsement of any political belief or party. As much as I’d like the country to recognize the continued supply of energy as a common problem to solve rather than a political line in the sand, the fact is that oil & gas HAS been politicized, so I think it’s important to state my political neutrality up front.

Ok

If you ask anyone what they think the oil & gas industry’s stance on regulation is, I’m sure the answer would be: “they don’t want it”. It just makes sense to give that answer: more rules means more complexity which means possibly more costs and less efficiency. To be fair, I’ll point out that NO industry is asking for more regulations, but the oil & gas business has a very particular public image and impact on society, so in that sense we should consider it separately from other sectors of the economy.

I do get the impression that regarding regulations, the message from the industry goes something like this: “the government doesn’t know the industry as well as we do, so there’s no way it can monitor us effectively or fairly. The bottom line is that regulations just get in the way of us operating efficiently.”

It’s a fair point, but I’ve said many times that the oil & gas industry has a clear public relations problem, and that this is entirely our own doing. When our “knee jerk” reaction to any new regulation is “no” (even if its goals seem good!), we come across as having something to hide. Clearly, this is incompatible with what should be one of the industry’s top priorities: building trust with the public.

I can already anticipate two related objections to my argument. The first is that many operators do in fact strive not only to meet but also exceed local standards of operation. Actually, it’s even been documented that safety records can improve when large operators move into a play, or acquire smaller players. The second objection could be that people will say that overall the bigger companies operate well, and it’s the very small independents operating at a very local level (who may not hold themselves to equally high standards) that are giving the industry as a whole a bad name.

Even if you believe those objections to be true, the problem is that given much of the public’s view of the oil & gas business, ANY incident caused by ANY company will tarnish the whole industry. Furthermore, if I, as someone deeply involved in, passionate about, and fairly knowledgeable about the industry get the impression that we automatically resist any proposed rule changes, how is someone removed from oil & gas supposed to think any differently? Again, how is resisting every proposed change justifiable, even when that change seeks to achieve something objectively positive (more transparency, stricter environmental standards, etcŠ)?

Look, I believe strongly in Capitalism (I wouldn’t be a very good MBA if I didn’t!), and I understand that accepting this system means trusting that resources are allocated most effectively by a free market, and this market should have more freedom than not. However, I think that there is a “spectrum” of Capitalism: you don’t have to have “the Market” deciding everything for this system to be in place, and to the extent that it would be a terrible idea to let companies just do as they please, some intervention is necessary to keep things working smoothly. In oil & gas, we rely way more than other businesses on a “social contract” with the public, and if it takes rules to keep EVERYONE honest, then so be it. This is why I emphatically think that fair, reasonable regulation of the oil & gas industry is a very good thing.

Sports provide a great analogy with which to make that point. In sports, there are rules and referees. The rules are established by a governing body, usually in tandem with players’ representatives. The idea is not to dictate anything outright, but to come to some compromise on a rule (regulation) that brings about hopefully positive change to the game.
Take football (the American kind, for international readers).

I love football, but the game has gotten so violent that I worry every weekend that I’m going to see a player die. There is currently a dialogue going on between the National Football League, players, and to some extent the fans to determine what the best course of action is to make the game safer: stiffer penalties for illegal hits? Mandating new equipment specifications? Altering kickoff procedures?

If changes are implemented, they likely won’t satisfy everyone, but they’ll probably be made taking into account multiple points of view, and if player safety increases, how can anyone label these changes “bad”? Ultimately, the goal of keeping players safe must be given priority over other considerations such as fans’ enjoyment of how the game “should be”.

Now let’s consider the referees.

If you accept that everyone is self-interested, and doesn’t always have incentives to take the honest course of action, there needs to be some enforcement mechanism. Referees are supposed to be neutral third parties whose role is to enforce the rules, NOT deliberately determine the outcomes. Granted, referees’ decisions will always disappoint someone, but the idea is that spectators should be able to trust that referees will use all means available (instant replay, conferences with other referees) and their best judgment to make the best, “in good faith” call.

How is this any different from the fields in which we operate and the role of regulators?
Though I believe in regulation, it’s important to notice that I’m staying away from the questions of “how much regulation should there be?”, “what kinds of regulations should be implemented?”, and “how much involvement should come from the federal vs. state levels?” If I knew the answers to these questions I’d be much better paid than I am now!

In all seriousness, I’m not interested in getting “down in the weeds” of policy debates. Rather, I’m advocating for a fundamental shift in attitude of the oil & gas industry with regards to regulations and the governing bodies that propose them. While we shouldn’t be prepared to accept anything and everything that comes our way, our initial reaction should be “ok, let’s talk about this” rather than “no, this will be bad for business”. Might there be some cost to this shift in attitudes? Maybe, but what if the return on that investment is greater public trust, and more leeway to undertake the projects to which there is currently resistance?

One industry I’ve always been impressed with due to its “healthy” relationship with government is air transportation. It seems that there is a good spirit of collaboration between the public and private groups, and a culture among pilots of reporting any incident no matter how small so that more severe accidents can be avoided later.

Think back to Boeing and the Dreamliner: I’m sure Boeing wanted to avoid grounding its new plane and incurring the associated costs and loss of reputation, but safety took top priority, the government grounded the airplanes, Boeing went along with it, and after a thorough investigation the planes are now flying again. Certainly, air travel is one area I’m grateful for regulation. Can you imagine how things would be if we allowed airlines to operate completely independently and just let “the Market” decide which one to use based on the resulting safety (or lack thereof) records? That would be nuts!

Ultimately, in oil & gas we should aim to have the same relationship the airlines have with the government: collaborative rather than combative, and presenting transparency to the public rather than secrecy. The hard truth is that oil & gas operators don’t have sovereignty over the areas they work in. These companies work in these areas because they are granted permission to do so, both by government and residents. If we attempt to run roughshod over a region in ways that benefit us solely and say “well, we know better, please keep away and let us do our work”, then eventually that social license to operate WILL be revoked and WE will be the ones told to keep away.

Specialthanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Press Round-up: House Moves to Expand Offshore Oil Drilling

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-oil-drilling-santa-barbara-coast-house-20130628,0,3123571.story

Los Angeles Times

Oil drilling off Santa Barbara coast? House Republicans say yes

By Richard Simon
June 28, 2013, 10:23 a.m.
WASHINGTON — In spite of a White House veto threat, the Republican-controlled House on Friday launched a new effort to open up the California and Atlantic coasts to oil drilling.

The measure is a long shot in the face of fierce opposition in the Democratic-led Senate and from the White House. Still, Republicans are eager to stoke the debate over offshore drilling and highlight differences between the parties over energy policy heading into next year’s election battles for control of the House and Senate.

The bill, which passed 235-186, would require lease sales by the end of next year for energy production off the coast of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

It also would direct the Interior Department to develop a new five-year plan for drilling in areas containing the “greatest known oil and natural gas reserves,” including areas off Southern California, Alaska and the Eastern Seaboard.

Virginia and South Carolina, whose governors have expressed support for offshore oil production, would likely be the first Atlantic states where new coastal drilling would be permitted under the proposed Offshore Energy and Jobs Act.

Offshore drilling has long been a hot issue in California, where a 1969 spill off Santa Barbara devastated the coast. A long-standing ban on new drilling off much of the nation’s coast expired in late 2008, but the Obama administration has kept the Pacific Coast off-limits to new coastal drilling.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the water, led the administration to back off plans to open the eastern gulf and portions of the Atlantic to oil and natural gas exploration.

Republicans argued that the new bill would help lower fuel prices, create jobs, generate $1.5 billion over 10 years for the U.S. Treasury and enhance the nation’s energy security.
“I think, by most standards, that would be considered a fairly good bill,” said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah).

But Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) assailed the House GOP majority for giving “lip service to respecting states’ rights” while seeking to “override the will of voters in my district and my state” opposed to new offshore drilling.

“I get it; this is a message bill,” Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) added. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) ridiculed the debate as a “Groundhog Day moment for Congress,” noting that similar House-passed bills “never went anywhere in the Senate, and it will meet the same fate again.”

Underscoring the divisions in the California delegation over energy policy, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Granite Bay) assailed the “ideological extremism” that has put the California coast off-limits to new energy exploration.

Drilling opponents, he said, “have had their way in California for a full generation. I’ve watched their folly take what once could boast of being America’s golden state and turn it into an economic basket case and a national laughingstock.”

The California delegation broke along party lines with Republicans supporting the measure and Democrats opposing it, except for Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno, who voted yes. Reps. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), John Campbell (R-Irvine) and Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) did not vote.

The bill directs that new energy production in federal waters off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties occur only from existing offshore platforms or “onshore-based, extended-reach drilling.”

The measure also would offer states 37.5% of the revenues from energy production off their coasts. That provision drew opposition from taxpayer watchdogs that said it would siphon off money the federal government needs.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130628-708339.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Wall Street Journal

June 28, 2013, 12:12 p.m. ET
U.S. House Votes to Expand Offshore Oil Drilling

By Tennille Tracy and Keith Johnson

WASHINGTON–The U.S. House voted Friday to open up the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to oil and natural gas drilling, passing a bill that has little chance of becoming law but marks the latest effort by Republicans to portray President Barack Obama as an enemy of fossil fuels.

The bill forces the Obama administration to offer drilling leases off the coasts of Virginia, South Carolina and California. The administration has not offered leases in these areas although Congress lifted a formal ban on drilling there in 2008.

The bill also directs the Obama administration to revise its five-year leasing plan, which determines which areas will be offered for new drilling in the next five years. Separately, it allows coastal states to collect a portion of federal energy royalties.

The Republican-led House passed a similar piece of legislation last year.

The White House threatened to veto the measure, saying “the bill would undermine the targeted, science-based, and regionally-tailored offshore development strategy” that is currently in effect.

The bill’s passage, by a 235-186 vote, followed the release earlier this week of Mr. Obama’s new climate change plan. The initiative included new rules to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants.

Republicans said Mr. Obama’s plan represented a “war on coal” since coal-fired power plants are among the largest sources of greenhouse gases in the U.S. The power industries have warned that tough new limits on carbon dioxide could force power plants to install expensive upgrades or shut down facilities altogether.

Mr. Obama often boasts of a big uptick in energy production that has happened on his watch. Industry groups, and quite a few lawmakers, just as often decry regulatory roadblocks and bemoan lost opportunities.

The Obama administration’s energy plan will “impose new energy taxes and federal red-tape that will increase energy prices and cost American jobs,” said Rep. Doc Hastings (R., Wash.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and a main backer of the bill passed Friday.

In broad terms, total crude oil production on lands and waters owned by the U.S. government is higher than it was in the last year of the Bush administration, but it was lower in 2012 than in 2009, 2010 or 2011.

But the decline is confined to offshore oil production, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, where production was lower last year than in any of the first three years of the Obama administration. Onshore, the picture is quite different: oil production on federal lands has risen to levels not seen in a decade, and production on Indian lands has tripled, from a pretty small base, during the Obama years.

Gas production is a different story altogether. Even as the U.S. has become the world’s biggest producer, that has happened mostly on private lands. The reason has less to do with regulatory roadblocks, though, than with the fact that the lucrative shale gas plays don’t lie under federal lands. Gas production on federal lands has fallen during the fracking boom every year during the Obama administration.

The Interior Department says it is not wholly opposed to oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. It is currently reviewing plans to allow seismic companies to try to determine how much oil and natural gas exists in the U.S. waters there–a move that could pave the way for drilling in a few years.

Unlike energy production in the Gulf of Mexico, which tends to have broad political support in surrounding coastal states like Louisiana and Texas, proposals to drill off the East and West Coasts often generate mixed reactions–if not outright opposition.

Write to Tennille Tracy at Tennille.Tracy@dowjones.com and Keith Johnson at Keith.Johnson@wsj.com

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-28/u-s-house-backs-bill-to-expand-coastal-oil-gas-drilling.html

Bloomberg
Businessweek

U.S. House Backs Bill to Expand Coastal Oil, Gas Drilling
By Lynn Garner – Jun 28, 2013 8:24 AM PT

Oil and gas exploration off U.S. coasts would be expanded under legislation the U.S. House of Representatives passed over the threat of a presidential veto.
The vote on the bill, H.R. 2231, was 235-186.

The measure would require the Obama administration to conduct additional sales of oil and gas leases off the coasts of Virginia, South Carolina, southern California and Alaska over the next five years, reports Bloomberg BNA.

In addition, it would order the administration to create a plan that would open up almost all of the nation’s coastline for exploration; a draft would be due July 15, 2014, and a final plan approved by July 15, 2015.

“This bill doesn’t harm the environment,” said Washington state Republican Doc Hastings, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “We want to drill safely and responsibly.”

The Senate isn’t expected to take up the legislation.

The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a June 25 statement of administration policy warning of a potential veto. The measure “would undermine the targeted, science-based and regionally tailored development strategy that the American people and the states have helped development,” according to that statement.

The requirement that the Interior Department open new areas for exploration “would be directed without secretarial discretion to determine whether those areas are appropriate for leasing,” the agency said.

Expanded offshore leasing would benefit the large oil companies, which have the resources to finance the high startup costs, according to Bloomberg Government analyst Jason Arvelo. ConocoPhillips (COP), Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), BHP Billiton Ltd.

(BHP) and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) were among the most active in the federal offshore leasing circuit in 2012 and 2013.

The large companies would be the most likely to take advantage of the expanded territory available for offshore drilling activities, according to Arvelo.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lynn Garner in Washington at lgarner8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katherine Rizzo at krizzo5@bloomberg.net

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http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/06/28/house-moving-to-expand-offshore-drilling/http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/06/28/house-moving-to-expand-offshore-drilling/

Fuelfix

House moves to expand offshore drilling
Posted on June 28, 2013 at 10:10 am by Jennifer A. Dlouhy

BP’s Thunder Horse semi-submersible facility in the Gulf of Mexico, about 150 miles southeast of New Orleans. (Photo courtesy BP)

The House on Friday passed legislation that would expand offshore drilling by forcing the federal government to sell new oil and gas leases along the coasts of California, South Carolina, Virginia and any other states where governors say they want the work.

But the measure, which passed on a mostly party-line vote of 235-186, is not expected to advance in the Democrat-controlled Senate, much less clear the chamber with enough support to overturn a threatened veto by President Barack Obama.

Beyond targeting California, South Carolina and Virginia for offshore oil drilling, the bill would limit environmental reviews of the mandated lease sales, forcing federal regulators to study the implications of oil exploration in all three areas simultaneously, rather than with separate, area-specific studies.

At the same time, it would force the Interior Department to focus all future oil and gas leasing plans to areas with the most potential. Regulators would have to sell leases in areas estimated to contain more than 2.5 billion barrels of oil or more than 7.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – or if the adjacent state governor asks for the auction.

The measure also would slowly phase in a program for coastal states to collect a share of federal revenues tied to offshore oil and gas development. Although far less aggressive than the leading Senate revenue-sharing proposal, the House measure is opposed by offshore drilling foes who say it could lure even skeptical state leaders to support coastal oil exploration as a way to raise money.

By a vote of 238-185, the House adopted an amendment by Rep. Bill Cassidy, D-La., that would give Gulf Coast states a chance to score even more money from nearby drilling, by boosting a $500 million cap on the amount they can collect under a revenue-sharing program set to begin in 2017. Cassidy’s amendment set the annual threshold at $999 million.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who sponsored the underlying bill, said it would put the U.S. “back on the right path,” by creating 1.2 million American jobs, lowering energy prices and generating an estimated $1.5 billion in new revenue to the federal government.

But critics said the legislation would radically and irresponsibly expand offshore drilling, while short-circuiting environmental reviews of the work and before Congress makes some major changes called for in the wake of the 2010 Gulf oil spill.

“The bill . . . would allow Big Oil to put drilling rigs off the Atlantic, Pacific and Alaskan coasts without enacting key drilling safety reforms that we know should be there following the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster,” said Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J.

Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., said the “bill would completely rewrite the administration’s plan for offshore leasing in a reckless and irresponsible manner.”

The Interior Department took steps administratively to boost offshore drilling safety after the Gulf spill, including a sweeping reorganization of the agency that oversaw coastal oil and gas development. Regulators also began requiring companies to prove they can rein in a subsea blowout before getting approval to drill deep-water wells, imposed new well design standards and set new testing requirements for essential emergency equipment.

Hastings’ bill would largely codify the reorganization of agencies that oversee offshore drilling, but it does not include a plan to hike oil spill liability for companies working on the outer continental shelf.

One of the last acts before lawmakers head home for a week-long July 4 recess, passage of the bill gives political ammunition to Republicans as motorists hit the highway – and fuel up at filling stations – for summer vacations.

More domestic oil and gas development means lower fuel prices, Republicans said on the House floor.

Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., stressed wider economic benefits of expanded drilling, well beyond the Gulf Coast.

“The first domino is the jobs that are created on the offshore rigs,” he said. “But if you ride on Highway 90 from Lafayette, La., down toward New Iberia and Houma, La., you’re going to see on both sides of the road, business after business after business that is supporting the offshore industries.”

“This is a true job creator,” he added.

Democrats cast the bill as nothing more than a political messaging measure that faces certain death in the Senate.

Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., called the legislation “a messy conglomeration of retread ideas that wastes this chamber’s time,” since portions of the bill “have been rejected by the Senate, by many of the affected states, and have a zero chance of being signed by the president.”

Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, acknowledged the bill was meant to send a message _ but said that’s exactly why he was backing the legislation, despite some concerns.

“While I do not agree with some of the environmental provisions in this bill, I support it because it is a message bill about the importance of accessing our offshore resources,” Green said. “With the president reneging on certain areas originally contained in his 2012-2017 five-year offshore leasing plan, our future access over the next decade is extremely limited. We need to open new offshore areas up for production instead of producing on the same lands we have for decades.”

The Interior Department’s current five-year plan, which lays out the schedule for offshore lease sales through June 30, 2017, includes a dozen auctions of territory in the Gulf of Mexico and three of tracts near Alaska. But regulators at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management opted not to plan an auction of leases near Virginia, where a sale had previously been scheduled (and canceled after the 2010 Gulf spill). Some Alaskan areas and southern California acreage, near existing development, also were left out of the plan.

Republicans turned back a bid by Democratic Rep. Lois Capps to strip out the bill provisions requiring a sale of offshore oil and gas leases near her home state of California. By a vote of 235-183, the House also rejected an amendment offered by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would have blocked future oil and gas development in Alaska’s Bristol Bay.

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http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/06/offshore-drilling-bills-sponsors-cosponsors-received-big-bucks-from-oil-industry.html

Open Secrets

Offshore Drilling Bills’ Sponsors, Cosponsors Received Big Bucks From Oil Industry
By Monica Vendituoli on June 28, 2013 12:30 PM

Sponsors and cosponsors of two bills to expand offshore drilling taken up by the House this week received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry in the last election cycle.

The first bill passed the House on Thursday by a vote of 256-171. The Outer Continental Shelf Transboundary Hyrdocarbon Agreements Authorizations Act would implement a February 2012 agreement between the U.S. and Mexico to expand drilling along the maritime boundary between the countries in the Gulf of Mexico. Many Democrats opposed the measure in part because it contains language that removes a requirement for companies to disclose payments they make to foreign governments.

The oil and gas industry gave $41,500 to the bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), for his 2012 campaign, making it his top industry donor, according to OpenSecrets.org data.

Oil and gas was also the top industry donor to four of the 17 cosponsors of the bill: Reps. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), and Ted Poe (R-Texas), received a combined $442,000 in 2011-2012: almost $167,000 for Cramer, almost $135,000 for Hastings, more than $64,000 for Lamborn and nearly $76,000 for Poe.

The industry came in second for Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who received more than $68,000; Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who took in nearly $79,000; and Steve Stockman (R-Texas), who was given $20,500 by oil and gas interests.

The remaining co-sponsors — Reps. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), Paul Broun (R-Ga.), Trey Radel (R-Fla.), Mark Amodei (R-N.V.), Tom Graves (R-Ga.), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Mo.), Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.) and Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) — received almost $226,000 combined from the industry.

The second bill, the Offshore Energy and Jobs Act, which passed in the House with a vote of 235-188 today, would amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to boost energy exploration and development on the outer continental shelf.

Many of the same players are involved. It’s sponsored by industry favorite Hastings, and Cramer, Lamborn and Duncan are all among the bill’s 11 cosponsors, as is Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas). Oil and gas was the top industry donor for all five of them, contributing more than $608,000 in all to their 2012 campaigns.

It was the second-ranking industry for three cosponsors, Reps. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) ($42,000) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) (more than $108,000) as well as Mullin (almost $79,000).

And it came in third in 2012 for Reps. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), who received more than $92,000 and more than $35,000, respectively.

The other cosponsors were Reps. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), who took in $21,000 from oil and gas in 2012 and Robert Wittman (R-Va.), who has received more than $47,000 from oil and gas throughout his career.
However successfully the industry has invested in the House, the Senate hasn’t acted on similar bills, and the White House strongly opposes both.

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video at:
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/06/20/video-louisianan-makes-pitch-for-offshore-drilling-dollars/

FuelFix

June 20, 2013 (note earlier date)

Senator: Coastal states getting raw deal with federal drilling dollars (video)
Posted on June 20, 2013 at 12:39 pm by Jennifer A. Dlouhy

Sen. Mary Landrieu isn’t picking a fight with Wyoming, and she says she has nothing against the Great Plains state.

But the Democratic senator from Louisiana insists Wyoming is exhibit A for her argument that coastal states are getting a raw deal when it comes to collecting federal dollars tied to energy development.

After all, she notes in a new web video that highlights the disparity, in 2011, Wyoming was able to keep nearly $1 billion of the $2.1 billion that energy companies paid the federal government for oil and gas production in the state. At the same time, Louisiana held on to just $26.7 million, out of $5.7 billion that was paid to the federal government for oil and gas harvested in Gulf of Mexico waters near its shores.

The video, released Wednesday, insists this is “an unfair situation,” and touts Landrieu’s preferred solution: legislation she sponsored with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, that would put coastal and inland states on more even footing.

The measure would expand an existing offshore energy revenue sharing program that is set to begin in 2017 and is limited to four Gulf Coast states (including Texas) so that every state with ocean views can participate and collect up to 37.5 percent of the money. Known as the FAIR Act, the bill also would allow the program to start right away, gradually phase out a $500 million cap on the amount of offshore energy revenues that can be shared with coastal states.

According to one catchy line in Landrieu’s new video, the bill also would treat all forms of energy equally, allowing dollars to be divided up among states whether they come from “oil or gas, wind or wave, onshore or offshore.”

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the Landrieu-Murkowski bill in early July. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the panel chairman, has signaled his support – no doubt partly because the latest version of the legislation would allow states to capitalize on renewable energy developments near their shores.

But the proposal is controversial, particularly among offshore drilling foes, who believe the lure of revenue could encourage cash-strapped states to support oil and gas development in nearby waters.

In a March letter to Wyden and Murkowski, eight senators insisted they would “vigorously oppose any effort that expands or provides further incentive for offshore oil and gas drilling in areas where drilling is currently prohibited.”

The critics stress that offshore oil spills don’t linger in one space; instead, they threaten beaches, tourism and coastal economies far from the original site. “Revenue sharing is inherently inequitable because it compensates a single state while other nearby states bear the risk, without receiving any resources to mitigate that risk,” the group said.

Landrieu actually uses a similar argument to push for her bill. She says the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster underscored the potential danger for coastal communities that sustain oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico – and illustrates the need for them to cash in on more of the development: “The Gulf contributes to the U.S.’ energy security and economic vitality. One-third of domestic seafood is produced in the Gulf. It drains 40 percent of the North American continent. And the oil and gas produced off its shores fuels cars, heats homes, keeps the lights on and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. To keep doing all of these critical things, coastal communities deserve a fairer partnership with the federal government to make their communities more resilient,” the narrator in her web video says. “The revenues kept in Louisiana under the FAIR Act will allow it to rebuild its eroding coast, protect its coastal communities from storms, create jobs and preserve a unique and treasured culture.”

Broader offshore energy legislation pending in the House of Representatives contains a similar revenue sharing proposal. But that bill is controversial because it would also force the Obama administration to sell oil and gas leases off the coasts of California, South Carolina and Virginia.

The issue could end up being a thorny one for Senate Democratic leaders. Despite the strong opposition from some Democrats – including Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. – revenue sharing could be important to the political futures of some in the party.

Landrieu and Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, (who has his own revenue-sharing proposal) both face tough reelection contests next year. For those senators, passing an offshore revenue-sharing plan could be a hit with some key voters back home. The same may also be true for some inland senators representing oil patch states, such as Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

climate change, energy policy, national ocean politics, natural resource management

Think Progress: Scientist: “Miami, As We Know It Today, Is Doomed. It’s Not a Question If. It’s a Question of When.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/?mobile=nc

This is my favorite new site with great coverage of all things climate change. DV

Scientist: ‘Miami, As We Know It Today, Is Doomed. It’s Not A Question Of If. It’s A Question Of When.’

By Joe Romm on Jun 23, 2013 at 12:40 pm

miami

Jeff Goodell has a must-read piece in Rolling Stone, “Goodbye, Miami: By century’s end, rising sea levels will turn the nation’s urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin.”

Goodell has talked to many of the leading experts on Miami including Harold Wanless, chair of University of Miami’s geological sciences, department, source of the headline quote. The reason climate change dooms Miami is a combination of sea level rise, the inevitability of ever more severe storms and storm surges — and its fateful, fatal geology and topology, which puts “more than $416 billion in assets at risk to storm-related flooding and sea-level rise”:

South Florida has two big problems. The first is its remarkably flat topography. Half the area that surrounds Miami is less than five feet above sea level. Its highest natural elevation, a limestone ridge that runs from Palm Beach to just south of the city, averages a scant 12 feet. With just three feet of sea-level rise, more than a third of southern Florida will vanish; at six feet, more than half will be gone; if the seas rise 12 feet, South Florida will be little more than an isolated archipelago surrounded by abandoned buildings and crumbling overpasses. And the waters won’t just come in from the east – because the region is so flat, rising seas will come in nearly as fast from the west too, through the Everglades.

Even worse, South Florida sits above a vast and porous limestone plateau. “Imagine Swiss cheese, and you’ll have a pretty good idea what the rock under southern Florida looks like,” says Glenn Landers, a senior engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This means water moves around easily – it seeps into yards at high tide, bubbles up on golf courses, flows through underground caverns, corrodes building foundations from below. “Conventional sea walls and barriers are not effective here,” says Robert Daoust, an ecologist at ARCADIS, a Dutch firm that specializes in engineering solutions to rising seas.

The latest research “suggests that sea level could rise more than six feet by the end of the century,” as Goodell notes, and “Wanless believes that it could continue rising a foot each decade after that.”

Prudence dictates we plan for the plausible worst case. Coastal studies experts told the NY Times back in 2010, “For coastal management purposes, a [sea level] rise of 7 feet (2 meters) should be utilized for planning major infrastructure.”

Unfortunately, sea level rise is already 60% faster than projected. Goodell reports:

“With six feet of sea-level rise, South Florida is toast,” says Tom Gustafson, a former Florida speaker of the House and a climate-change-policy advocate. Even if we cut carbon pollution overnight, it won’t save us. Ohio State glaciologist Jason Box has said he believes we already have 70 feet of sea-level rise baked into the system.

Certainly without sharp cuts in CO2 starting ASAP, Jason Box is correct (see “Manmade Carbon Pollution Has Already Put Us On Track For 69 Feet Of Sea Level Rise”).

So we need a combination of aggressive mitigation combined with massive spending to develop completely new adaptation solutions for Miami to have any serious chance of surviving this century intact.

Sadly, Florida is one of the last places in the country where such action and planning can be expected:
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Those solutions are not likely to be forthcoming from the political realm. The statehouse in Tallahassee is a monument to climate-change denial. “You can’t even say the words ‘climate change’ on the House floor without being run out of the building,” says Gustafson. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, positioning himself for a run at the presidency in 2016, is another denier, still trotting out the tired old argument that “no matter how many job-killing­ laws we pass, our government can’t control the weather.” Gov. Rick Scott, a Tea Party Republican, says he’s “not convinced” that global warming is caused by human beings. Since taking office in 2011, Scott has targeted environmental protections of every sort and slashed the budget of the South Florida Water Management District, the agency in charge of managing water supply in the region, as well as restoration of the Everglades. “There is no serious thinking, no serious planning, about any of this going on at the state level,” says Chuck Watson, a disaster-­impact analyst with longtime experience in Florida. “The view is, ‘Well, if it gets real bad, the federal government will bail us out.’ It is beyond denial; it is flat-out delusional.”

Goodell’s whole article is worth reading, not just for the sober view of what South Florida faces but also for the beautiful writing:

When it rains in Miami, it’s spooky. Blue sky vanishes and suddenly water is everywhere, pooling in streets, flooding parking lots, turning intersections into submarine crossings. Even for a nonbeliever like me, it feels biblical, as if God were punishing the good citizens of Miami Beach for spending too much time on the dance floor. At Alton Road and 10th Street, we watched a woman in a Toyota stall at a traffic light as water rose up to the doors. A man waded out to help her, water up to his knees. This flooding has gotten worse with each passing year, happening not only after torrential rainstorms but during high tides, too, when rising sea water backs up through the city’s antiquated drainage system. Wanless, 71, who drives an SUV that is littered with research equipment, notebooks and mud, shook his head with pity. “This is what global warming looks like,” he explained. “If you live in South Florida and you’re not building a boat, you’re not facing reality.”

clean energy, climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, natural resource management, offshore oil, renewable energy

Common Dreams: Critics: Obama’s Plan Fails Urgency Climate Crisis Demands

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/25-7
Published on Tuesday, June 25, 2013 by Common Dreams

President should renounce “all of the above” energy strategy and nation’s reliance on dirty fossil fuels, say environmentalists
– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

At a Tuesday George Washington University speech on climate change, President Obama is feeling the heat (Photo: Charles Dharapak/The Associated Press)Environmentalists warn that President Obama’s ‘climate plan’—announced Tuesday in a speech at Georgetown University—does not contain the urgency required by the fast-spiraling crisis of global warming and climate change and that though some aspects were welcome, the overall approach falls well short of what’s needed.

The plan hinges on Obama’s claim that he plans to use his presidential powers to override a Congress under ‘partisan deadlock’ and order the Environmental Protection Agency to impose carbon emissions limits on current and new power plants.

Though many of the large green groups in the US praised the push for tighter regulation on coal plants by the EPA, critics say Obama’s plan is unclear about exactly how strict these regulations will be. As an example, the president’s plan says that the EPA must be “flexible” to states’ needs, a vague directive that critics charge provides rhetorical cover for further inaction.

Furthermore, critics charge that “new” power plant regulations are hardly groundbreaking or far-reaching enough to meet the demands of the crisis. The 2007 Clean Air Act already empowered the EPA to regulate emissions for new facilities, and yet this has done little to reign in power plant emissions, which account for approximately 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions.

The president’s only new step on this front is to propose regulations for existing plants, but critics worry that an administration that has dragged its feet so far will not make the necessary headway.

“He promised today to do something, but there is zero guarantee that he will follow through,” declared Bill Snape, senior counsel to the Center for Biological Diversity. “In reality there are so many industrial sources that need to be regulated, and the administration has been moving very slowly on all of them. It is wise to not fall prey to the flowery rhetoric. You have to really specifically look at concrete action.”

Friends of the Earth welcomed aspects of the Obama approach but said it was not the “broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather,” but rather a more tepid “series of actions” joined by flowery rhetoric.

“A sensible climate plan,” said Damon Moglen, climate and energy program director of Friends of the Earth, “would include a renunciation of the president’s “all of the above” energy strategy, which promotes biofuels, so-called clean coal, natural gas and dirty and dangerous nuclear power.”

“In order to address climate change,” he continued, “the president needs to focus on the ambitious development of renewable energy, energy storage and efficiency technologies while setting us on a path which clearly leaves behind the fossil fuel-based energy economy of the 20th century.”

And Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen agreed, saying that though Obama’s speech contained laudable elements there was too much that in the plan that would be “counterproductive.”

The important critique, Weissman said, was this:

Catastrophic climate change poses a near-existential threat to humanity. We need a national mobilization – and indeed a worldwide mobilization – to transform rapidly from our fossil fuel-reliant past and present to a clean energy future. We need a sense of urgency – indeed, emergency – massive investments, tough and specific standards and binding rules. Those elements, sadly, are missing from the president’s plan.

A sensible climate plan would include a renunciation of the president’s “all of the above” energy strategy, which promotes biofuels, so-called clean coal, natural gas and dirty and dangerous nuclear power. In order to address climate change, the president needs to focus on the ambitious development of renewable energy, energy storage and efficiency technologies while setting us on a path which clearly leaves behind the fossil fuel-based energy economy of the 20th century. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf

On the issue of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Obame remained nearly silent. He declared that the Administration would only move forward if it determines the pipeline is ‘in our national interest’ but did not respond to widespread demands that the project immediately halt.

The president plans to vigorously pursue nuclear energy, he states in his official climate plan. Greenpeace activists have previously slammed an approach that they say embraces unsafe energy while escalating global nuclear buildup. Greenpeace USA’s Executive Director Phil Radford declared at a previous presidential speech:

President Obama’s energy policy has already been riddled with disasters, so it’s astounding that he would encourage even greater dependence on dangerous energy sources like oil drilling and nuclear power at a time when the risks have been made all too clear. For the millions of Americans put at risk by the inherent dangers of nuclear power, or those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the Gulf oil disaster, more of the same is hardly the path toward ‘Energy Security.’ True leadership in the face of these disasters would mean setting out an energy plan that would move us away from our dependence on fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power and instead harnessing abundant, safe and clean renewable energy.

President Obama declared that the United States must be a ‘global leader’ and work with the private industry to curb the carbon emissions of ‘developing’ nations. This is despite the fact that the Global North, with only 15 percent of the world’s population, accounts for 70 percent of greenhouse gases, and the U.S. is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gases in the world.

The president announced that he will stop providing federal dollars to build foreign coal-powered plants, unless they are ‘clean’ coal plants, or unless that country has no other viable energy option. Yet, critics charge that the concept of ‘clean’ coal is a myth.

Furthermore, he stated his intentions to expand natural gas use, including the controversial and highly polluting drilling practice known as fracking. Public Citizen’s Energy Program Director Tyson Slocum slammed this move:

His focus on fossil fuel exports – including the explicit promotion of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and his failure to curtail coal exports – threatens to undo the positive elements of the plan. By promoting LNG, the administration is moving full-speed-ahead on fracking, with no mention of how to control fugitive emissions, water contamination and other environmental problems posed by the controversial process.

The president appeared to embrace the role of private industry in curbing environmental disaster, praising large multinationals including WalMart and General Motors for ‘voluntarily’ decreasing their carbon emissions.

While many environmental groups expressed skepticism that the president’s plan will bring about real change, they praised broad, global social movements for pushing the debate even this far.

“We’re happy to see the president finally addressing climate change but the plain truth is that what he’s proposing isn’t big enough, and doesn’t move fast enough, to match the terrifying magnitude of the climate crisis,” said Snape.

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