Category Archives: natural resource management

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

Center for Biologic Diversity: This is Our Land; Don’t Frack it Up

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http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13925

Contact the Center for Biologic Diversity today to support their efforts to end fracking on American lands. DV

Our landmark national parks are under siege: A dozen areas in the national park system already house oil and gas operations, and 30 areas may be threatened by drilling in the future.

This means our cherished public lands face severe air and water pollution, the animals and plants that depend on these lands will experience devastating habitat loss, and people who spend time on these public lands will see their health threatened and their experience of nature degraded.

Theodore Roosevelt and Grand Teton national parks are just two cherished places threatened by the rapid expansion of oil and natural gas drilling and fracking. Nationwide the Bureau of Land Management estimates that 90 percent of new oil and gas wells on federal land are fracked.

But the Bureau’s new draft fracking rules are even weaker than in the past. Sadly, these regulations seem designed to encourage as much fracking as possible, while doing little to protect the environment or people’s health.

Now’s our chance to ensure the feds take real steps to protect our national treasures. Tell the Bureau of Land Management to ban fracking on our public lands.

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

Environmental Action: Support the Walk for Our Grandchildren against Keystone XL

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https://secure3.convio.net/engage/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=8031

Elders March: click on the site above to sign up to support the 2013 Walk for our Grandchildren as they walk the 100 miles from Camp David to the White House to Say “No on Keystone XL!”

This elder-led, intergenerational march will begin July 21st and culminate in a rally July 27th in DC and is part of the Summer Heat series of climate actions. It will also feature the voices of youth like Nelson Kanuk, a Yup’ik native from Kipnuk, AK.

Add your message to the Walk participants, tell them how and why they are walking for you. Then stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted with their stories from the road.

fracking, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, natural resource management, tar sands

Ecowatch: U.S. State Department Doesn’t Know Exact Keystone XL Route

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http://ecowatch.com/2013/state-department-doesnt-know-keystone-xl-route/

July 9, 2013
Greenpeace

By Connor Gibson

tarsands-300x197
Greenpeace activists from Canada, the U.S. and France placed a giant banner reading “Tar Sands: Climate Crime” blocking the giant tar sands mining operation at the Shell Albian Sands outside of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada onTuesday, September 15, 2009.

The U.S. government doesn’t know exactly where TransCanada wants to lay pipe for the northern section of its Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, according to the results of a 14-month Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. State Department. In its final answer to a FOIA request by Thomas Bachand of the Keystone Mapping Project, the State Department admitted:

Neither Cardno ENTRIX nor TransCanada ever submitted GIS information to the Department of State, nor was either corporation required to do so. The information that you request, if it exists, is therefore neither physically nor constructively under the control of the Department of State and we are therefore unable to comply with your FOIA request.

Yes, you read that right. The U.S. State Department published its draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)—supposedly an official account of the potential hazards of TransCanada’s proposed pipeline on U.S. waterways, wildlife and other major considerations like global climate change—without knowing exactly where TransCanada wants to dig.

Ongoing Conflicts of Interest in State Department Environmental Assessments

The State Department is already facing legitimate criticism for contracting companies with ties to TransCanada and other oil companies for its environmental impact estimates, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has slammed for being “insufficient.” State looked no further than oil industry contractors to run the draft SEIS—companies like Cardno ENTRIX, which calls TransCanada a “major client,” and ERM Resources, a dues paying member of the American Petroleum Institute which is being investigated by the State Department’s Inspector General for trying to hide its prior consulting for fossil fuel giants like ExxonMobil, BP and Shell. In fact, TransCanada chose ERM Resources to do the Keystone XL SEIS review for the State Department, and one of ERM’s people working on the review was formerly employed by TransCanada.

TransCanada has stacked the deck, wagering American waterways and private property against the promise to profit from continued extraction of dirty tar sands petroleum.

Tar Sands Pipelines Spill

The potential is too high for Keystone XL to leak just like TransCanada’s existing Keystone I pipeline has repeatedly done, or rupture like ExxonMobil’s Pegasus tar sands pipeline in Mayflower, AK, earlier this year, or Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The southern leg of Keystone XL is already under construction, and the if the cracks, dents and other faults in the “new” pipe are any indication, pollution from oil spills looks inevitable. Beyond being a disaster waiting to happen, Keystone XL guarantees the continued disaster that is tar sands mining, a process that has already poisoned entire regions—and peoples’ communities—in northern Alberta, Canada.

With President Obama’s recently unveiled Climate Action Plan, it would be a limp gesture to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. You’d think with the State Department having its environmental analysis run by oil industry consultants, they’d listen to the oil industry’s own guarantees that Keystone XL would increase demand for tar sands mining. That’s bad news for our climate—something the State Department cannot ignore if they do a reasonable review of the “unprecedented” amount of public comments on its draft SEIS on Keystone XL.

What remains to be seen is if the State Department will be reasonable in the last leg of its review, or if it will continue letting TransCanada and Big Oil control the process to the bitter end.

Visit EcoWatch’s KEYSTONE XL page for more related news on this topic.

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