Finally–someone is casting a critical eye on the presumed reliance on the use of large volumes of dispersants in the water column to clean up oil spills. This after the grand BP experiment in the Gulf wreaked havoc on the water quality and benthos in areas where dispersants were used. I think it is patently unsafe to do so—the dispersants settle on the bottom and smother all life. They don’t dissipate as on the surface; it’s a whole new cycle of death to marinelife. It’s high time this came to light in Congress. Yay Markey and Miller!!!!! You are my heroes of the day! DV

Jeremy P. Jacobs, E&E reporter
Published: Friday, June 29, 2012

Little is known about how chemical dispersants used following an oil spill behave when applied below the water surface or in extremely cold environments, the Government Accountability Office said today. There’s a general understanding of how dispersants behave on the surface of water, GAO said, but questions remain about how quickly or slowly the dispersants biodegrade.

“[A]ll the experts GAO spoke with said that little is known about the application and effects of dispersants applied subsurface, noting that specific environmental conditions, such as higher pressures, may influence dispersants’ effectiveness,” GAO said. “Knowledge about the use and effectiveness of dispersants in the Arctic is also limited.”

GAO’s report, requested by Democratic Reps. Brad Miller of North Carolina and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, found that the government has spent $15.5 million on dispersant research, with the majority of that money coming after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill. However, “relatively few projects” focused on applying the dispersants below the surface of the water and hardly any focused on cold-water environments.

Miller and Markey said they requested the study because of how little is known about how dispersants interact with the environment and whether they pose a risk to ecosystems or human health.

“It’s stunning how little we know about the effect of dispersants just two years after using millions of gallons in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Miller, a senior member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “And whatever lessons we learned from the Gulf of Mexico are probably useless in the Arctic.” They also noted that the report comes just days after Shell announced plans to send two drilling rigs to the Arctic.

The report also says that there are several challenges for dispersant research, most notably that demand and, consequently, funding only pick up following an environmental disaster. “It is difficult for federal agencies to fund longer term studies,
such as those needed to understand chronic toxicological effects of dispersants,” GAO said.

Miller and Markey also sent a letter to EPA today asking the agency what steps it has taken to make sure the dispersants are safe before they are used again. “In light of the expansion of offshore drilling in both the Gulf and Arctic regions, it is necessary that the EPA ensure that future spill mitigation agents, such as dispersants, have undergone appropriate testing for real response situations prior to their deployment in our waterways,” the lawmakers wrote.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Margaret Kriz Hobson, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, June 28, 2012

In the coming weeks, as the thick winter ice melts in the Arctic Ocean, U.S. researchers will sail into the frigid waters north of Alaska to collect seafloor data that could help pave the way for the largest national expansion since the Louisiana Purchase.

The United States is mapping the floor of the Arctic Ocean and the territory off its other coasts to determine whether the nation can lay claim to lands beyond its 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In total, the United States might be in line to take control of outer continental shelf lands that are the equivalent of two Californias, according to David Balton, deputy assistant secretary of State for oceans and fisheries.

To assert a claim to the areas beyond the EEZ, the government would have to show “that the seafloor beyond 200 miles is a natural prolongation of your continent,” Balton said. “But that term ‘natural prolongation’ is defined in a number of different ways, and we’re exploring just how far out we can make such a claim in the Arctic and elsewhere.”

At least 50 countries have submitted data to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a United Nations panel, in support of claims to lands beyond their EEZs. Territorial requests are pending in the Arctic from Canada, Norway, Russia and Denmark on behalf of Greenland.

The United States is still studying the seabed terrain along its coasts. Eventually, the government expects to assert a claim over
territory in the Arctic, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as off the Pacific Northwest coast and in the Bering Sea. Other offshore lands may also be claimed, including areas off the Aleutian Islands and along some U.S. Pacific islands.

“We’re likely to have one of the largest areas of the continental shelf of any country in the world,” Balton said. “The biggest piece will almost certainly be in the Arctic.”

But even if the United States can prove that Alaska extends far into the Arctic, the government can’t guarantee ownership because the nation is not a part of the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Convention. “Once we’re ready to set the outer limits of our continental shelf, the obvious, best way of doing so is as a party to this treaty,” he said. “If we are still a nonparty at that point, I really don’t know what will happen. And I doubt that we would have the same ability to establish the outer limits.”

With the other Arctic countries eager to tap the region’s plentiful oil and gas resources, President Obama is pulling out the stops to persuade the Senate to approve the pact.

The 1982 Law of the Sea treaty sets rules for freedom of navigation, fishing, oil and gas development, deep seabed mining, and
environmental protection. Ratification of the treaty, approved by 160 other nations, continues to fall short in the United States because conservative Republicans argue that it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.

Balton said the oil industry would be reluctant to explore beyond the 200-mile EEZ unless the United States can finalize the seafloor territory boundaries. “They would not get the financing or the insurance necessary to actually begin exploring for oil and gas and other resources out there unless there were no cloud on the title of that land,” he said. “Unless we joined the Law of the Sea convention, there will always be a cloud on the title of those pieces of seafloor.”

Treaty talk in the Senate

Today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a hearing featuring business leaders who favor the treaty. Obama administration Cabinet secretaries and military chiefs argued for ratification at earlier hearings.

In testimony set to be delivered this morning, American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard backs the treaty. “The Law of the Sea Convention provides the certainty that companies need to invest billions required and offers the potential of greatly and definitely broadening the offshore areas from which we can access new resources to meet our nation’s growing energy needs,” his testimony says.

“In addition, it will give the United States a seat at the table as the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf continues the process of dividing up millions of square miles of offshore territory and assigning management rights to all of the world’s marine resources– a process that has been described as probably the last big shift in ownership of territory in the history of the Earth.”

Treaty opponents, including former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, warn that the pact would send a small portion of royalties from oil drilling on the extended continental shelf to be distributed by a U.N. body (E&E Daily, June 15).

Under the terms of the Law of the Sea convention, countries can develop resources beyond their 200-mile zone for five years without having to pay royalties into an international fund managed by the United Nations. On the sixth year, the country would be required to contribute 1 percent of the value of the resources extracted. The royalty would increase by 1 percentage point for six years and plateau at 7 percent.

Balton said the royalty formula was developed with the help of the oil industry. “They still support it today, in part because they believe that at almost all sites on the continental shelf, they would be able to extract the large majority of whatever resource might be there within the first five years,” he said.

At a June Senate hearing, Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation questioned the administration’s hand-wringing over the treaty, saying that “no legal barriers prevent U.S. access, exploration and exploitation of the resources of the deep seabed. The United States has long held that U.S. corporations and citizens have the right to develop the resources of the deep seabed and may do so whether or not” the Senate approves the treaty.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Obama administration today finalized a new five-year oil and gas leasing plan for the outer continental shelf that would allow limited new development in the Arctic but would forgo sales in the Atlantic or Pacific oceans. As expected, the blueprint was panned by industry and Republicans, who argued it backslides from an earlier Obama plan to lease offshore Virginia and could unduly restrict future exploration in the Arctic.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, said the plan promotes risky new drilling in ice-prone Arctic waters in addition to expanding high- risk, ultra-deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

But Interior Department officials today said the plan — which includes three potential sales off Alaska and a dozen sales in the western, central and eastern Gulf — is a “cautious but forward- looking” solution that allows access to the nation’s most prospective energy resources. “This is a good plan,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters during a news conference. “It’s a smart plan, it’s an aggressive one.”

As announced earlier this week, Salazar said future lease sales in Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort seas — tentatively scheduled for 2016 and 2017, respectively — would be subject to further scientific studies and consultations with Native Alaskan communities to determine their location and size. The agency will maintain a 25-mile buffer along the Chukchi coast put in place under the George W. Bush administration to protect subsistence communities. The new plan would also protect two subsistence whaling areas in the Beaufort near Barrow and Kaktovik that have attracted minimal industry interest but have high subsistence value.

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Tommy Beaudreau said the Hanna Shoal, a Chukchi region known for its high density of marine life, will also undergo further study to determine whether it is appropriate for leasing. He also noted the agency has received “significant interest” from industry in leasing the Cook Inlet off south-central Alaska, which has historically lacked demand. BOEM will conduct an environmental impact statement for leasing the area to consider resources such as beluga whales, he said.

“We are taking a cautious approach to leasing in the Arctic that accounts for the Arctic’s unique environmental resources and the social, cultural and subsistence needs of Native Alaskan communities, and draws from the best available science as well as any new information that we may learn from activity on current leases,” Salazar said.

While the plan was significantly delayed by the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, agency officials said the next lease sale in the Gulf will proceed as planned by the end of the year.

Virginia and politics

The leasing plan, which is required under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, is one of the executive branch’s biggest energy policy decisions. With today’s plan — which is subject to two months of congressional review but needs no approval — President Obama has broken sharply from a George W. Bush administration plan in 2008 that opened virtually all of the nation’s coastline.

As such, the plan could play a prominent role in the presidential campaign as Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney seeks to highlight policy wedges between himself and Obama, particularly in the battleground state of Virginia (Greenwire, May 3).

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), an opponent of Atlantic leasing, today said that Obama made the right decision to forgo a Virginia lease sale but that he’s unsure whether it will benefit him politically. “I’ve made it clear the jobs in the Tidewater areas devoted to naval operation are far more important to us than any illusory revenue that might be gained by offshore drilling,” he told E&ENews PM. “I think what plays favorably to the president’s election bid is he’s willing to be a responsible chief executive and make the right decisions irregardless of the political consequences,” he added. “And I think this is one of those right decisions regardless of the political consequences.”

One former Bush administration official said he, too, believes the absence of leasing off the Virginian coast could factor in the 2012 election. “Without legislation, these are the rules and the only place people can look for the next five years,” the official said. “The fact that this plan doesn’t have Virginia probably creates some openings.”

Salazar today said Atlantic development was excluded because of a lack of resource data and infrastructure to respond to spills, as well as the concerns of neighboring states. “Virginia is not a stand-alone state on the Atlantic,” he said, adding that conversations continue with the Defense Department to eliminate remaining conflicts with training exercises. “There are other states that share the Atlantic, and their views need to be taken into account.”

Arctic leasing

The decisions in the Arctic also drew a range of reactions from environmentalists and Alaska’s delegation. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she was concerned by the agency’s decision not to hold annual lease sales. “I’m also concerned by the administration’s plans to place undisclosed amounts of acreage off limits and impose additional layers of regulation on the Arctic — above and beyond rules already in place,” she said.

Andrew Hartsig, the Ocean Conservancy’s Arctic program director, said that he was disappointed the Arctic was included in the leasing plan but that he appreciated the decision to exclude certain areas from the leasing program, in addition to emphasizing science-based planning.

“Interior must use that time to develop and implement a comprehensive science and monitoring program, identify and protect additional important ecological and subsistence areas, and implement Arctic- specific standards that ensure effective oil spill response in icy waters,” he said.

But Erik Milito, the American Petroleum Institute’s group director of upstream and industry operations, said the plan “will not allow us to realize the full benefits from safe and responsible development of America’s oil and natural gas resources, continuing a pattern of delay and unnecessary restraint. While vitally important, the western and central Gulf of Mexico areas included in this proposed offshore program are not ‘new’ areas,” he added. “We look to the administration and Congress to begin working on a new plan that opens areas in the eastern Gulf, the Pacific and the Atlantic, such as offshore Virginia and South Carolina, where we continue to see bipartisan support for new offshore leasing.”
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Special thanks to Richard Charter

Allison Winter, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, June 28, 2012

Environmental advocates are focusing on the bottom line to promote marine protections on Capitol Hill. The Center for American Progress announced the “Blue Economy Initiative” yesterday in an effort to gather more data on the economic benefits of sustainable fisheries, renewable energy, coastal restoration, and tourism and recreation. “We Americans have a deep-seated love for the oceans, but we often lack the data to value them,” said Michael Conathan, director of the liberal center’s ocean program.

At a Washington, D.C., event kicking off the effort, Conathan said the program should help spread the word about the costs and benefits of marine protection. “It is easy for the American public to wrap their minds around employment activities from extractive industries, but it is harder to understand what is the value of a surfer or a kayaker or someone who enjoys a stroll on the beach,” he said. “These are free activities, but they don’t come without an economic benefit to their local
communities. That is what we’re really going to try to get at with this project.”

The center plans to produce a series of reports over the next year that will include analyses of fish stock assessments, Gulf Coast recovery efforts and investment opportunities for offshore wind.

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, attended the launch and praised the project. She said the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico showed the economy’s dependence on the coast. “One of the things that became strikingly obvious during Deepwater Horizon was just how dependent the economies of the Gulf were on the
health of the Gulf itself, which was at risk,” Lubchenco said. “I think that is one of the lessons. We can talk about numbers until we are blue in the face, but here is a striking example of how interconnected the coasts are and how the economy is connected to a healthy ocean and coastal area.”

NOAA estimates that the U.S. ocean economy contributed $153.1 billion to the gross domestic product in 2009. The effort comes as the Obama administration tries to get support for its National Ocean Policy and regional marine plans that would help designate areas for the development of renewable energy, shipping and fishing.

“We have made the mistake in the past of thinking about things sector by sector. … One of the major new innovations of this administration has been to acknowledge that we need more integration across those sectors and we need to be paying attention to healthy oceans and, to use a military term, ‘de-conflict,'” Lubchenco said.

Introduced in the summer of 2010, the National Ocean Policy would create a National Ocean Council and would support efforts at regional marine planning. The effort won broad support from conservation groups but has received push-back from congressional Republicans who see it creating a new federal bureaucracy. “It has been embraced by some places and is completely freaking out
others,” Lubchenco said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.thebristolbaytimes.com/article/1226support_for_oil_spill_research_warranted_as

June 29th 7:13 pm | Carey Restino

There’s a lot of news about oil and gas developments in the Arctic this week. Shell tested its capping system, and is waiting for the final permits to launch its 2012 exploratory drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Meanwhile, the federal government announced plans to open up two new Arctic lease areas in the next five years.

Included in both of these announcements was a lot of verbiage about protecting the environment and the rights of Native subsistence use, not to mention lots of quotes about listening to Native knowledge and incorporating it into the plans. It’s hard to tell when those sorts of statements are made, whether they represent a true intent or if they are statements incorporated because they know it will all sound better that way. Call me a skeptic, but I’d rather see some concrete plans to protect the Arctic as much as is possible woven into this approach.

One such plan was suggested last week by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. The Oil Spill Research and Technology Act of 2012, which was introduced June 14, aims to bring oil spill technology up to speed with modern-day research by, essentially, throwing money at it. The plan is to institute a competitive grant program to universities and other institutions to research new methods and technologies to clean up oil spills, with special attention into methods to clean up oil spills in icy conditions.

It comes with a not-so-weighty $2 million per year price tag – and I’m not sure how much research that would buy, really, but it’s a start.

“We must do everything we can to prevent a spill, but if one happens, we need to have the best technology on hand to minimize damage,” Cantwell said in a release. “It’s time to bring the technology we use to clean up oil spills into the 21st century. This bill will help protect our growing coastal economy from the threat of oil spills.”

Alaskans know more than most what an impact a single spill can have to a fragile ecosystem. The Arctic is already under enough pressure as it is, with changing environmental conditions allowing for all sorts of unexpected situations, from storms to algae blooms. An oil spill, especially in an area where clean-up conditions are challenging, would be, almost certainly devastating.

When the Renda made its epic voyage to Nome last winter bringing fuel to the ice-locked community, lawmakers seized the opportunity to tout how much we need more ice breakers and U.S. Coast Guard presence in the Arctic. The propaganda machine really went into full swing, with the story spreading throughout the world.

And it’s true – more Coast Guard infrastructure is very important, it would seem, to helping guide the Arctic’s explosive expansion as an area of resource development and interest. But all the protection and manpower the Coast Guard has to offer won’t do a thing if the methods we have to isolate an oil spill don’t work in the icy Arctic waters.

Cantwell’s bill requires the Coast Guard to establish a program to evaluate and implement “best available technology” to respond and clean up oil spills. It also gives the Coast Guard the authority to review regional oil spill response plans every five years to ensure the best technology is in place.

There is so much we don’t know, and as Cantwell points out, the oil and gas industry currently lacks incentives and requirements to research, develop and adopt new cleanup technologies. Even in the best-case scenarios, oil response technologies currently used capture as little as 40 percent of spilled oil in the first 48 hours of a 50,000 barrel oil spill, Cantwell noted from a 2009 study in Washington State – a far cry from Alaska’s conditions. In fact, the senator noted, spill response technologies have changed little between 1989 and now.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is another example of how impacted Alaska could be by a spill. It’s hard to know what to believe when it comes to oil and gas development. Environmental groups say there is no such thing as safe drilling in the Arctic.

That’s probably true, when it comes right down to it. Oil companies say they are dumping millions into equipment and technology to make drilling safer than ever before, and the federal government is justifying its approval of such action by saying it is requiring more of the oil companies than ever before. It all sounds good, considering we don’t seem to be slowing down our consumption of oil much. But it would be inspiring to see as much energy as was put toward the promotion of a greater Coast Guard presence be put toward the endorsement of Cantwell’s bill, and increased scientific study of oil spill response technology. Because if we’ve learned anything from past spills, it’s that what we have to offer technology-wise is inadequate. And in the Arctic, that inadequacy will be surely magnified exponentially.

Special thanks to Richard Charter