http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/keystone-pipeline-advances-as-house-passes-oil-drilling-bill-1-.html

Bloomberg

Keystone Pipeline Advances as House Passes Oil-Drilling Bill
By Katarzyna Klimasinska – Feb 16, 2012 4:01 PM PT Fri Feb 17 00:01:41 GMT 2012

Enlarge image
TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline is opposed by groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, that say the crude to be carried is corrosive and air pollution will increase during production and refining. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The U.S. House passed legislation that would force U.S. approval of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL pipeline and open Atlantic waters to offshore drilling over objections from the Obama administration.

The bill, approved 237-187 today, would strip President Barack Obama’s authority to decide on TransCanada’s $7 billion project and give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 30 days to approve the pipeline after it’s deemed safe.

Obama rejected Keystone last month and asked the Calgary- based company to find a route that wouldn’t endanger a Nebraska aquifer.

“This legislation would create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs for American workers,” Representative Doc Hastings, a Washington Republican and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said during a floor debate. “It’s time to secure our own future with American-made energy.”

The measure is part of the House Republicans’ three-bill plan to add jobs, lower energy imports and finance highways and mass-transit programs. A portion of the revenue would come from giving oil producers access to federal waters off the coasts of California, Florida and Virginia. The House plans to complete action on the measures after taking a recess next week.

The House and Senate are examining proposals for funding projects from non-transportation sources. Lawmakers plan to next consider forcing federal employees to pay more toward their pensions. The Senate began debating a separate measure last week, which doesn’t include a Keystone provision.

Wildlife Refuge

The House bill passed today would permit energy production in a part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area the Obama administration wants to keep off-limits. The measure also allows production from oil-shale deposits in Colorado.

“We all know these places are not going to be developed in the near-term at all,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said during a hearing at the House’s natural resources panel this week. “They will not fund the transportation needs of the United States of America.”

The bill would raise $4.28 billion by 2022, less than 10 percent of the revenue needed to pay for transportation projects, Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, senior Democrat on the committee, said on Feb. 15.

Democrats and environmental groups said the beaches of California and Florida are too pristine to risk being spoiled by an oil spill, while oil-shale production may taint Colorado’s drinking-water sources.

NRDC Opposition

Keystone XL is opposed by groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, that say the crude to be carried is corrosive and air pollution will increase during production and refining.

The number of people needed to operate and maintain the 1,661-mile (2,673-kilometer) pipeline may be as few as 20, according to the U.S. State Department, or as many as a few hundred, according to TransCanada.

Senate Republicans on Feb. 15 introduced legislation that would bar the Obama administration from using the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve unless Keystone XL pipeline is approved.

The bill is H.R. 3408. The other measures are H.R. 3813 and H.R. 7.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/02/16/house_passes_drilling_friendly_energy_package/

Boston.com

House passes drilling-friendly energy package
By Dina Cappiello
Associated Press / February 16, 2012

WASHINGTON-The Republican-controlled House endorsed a plan Thursday to vastly expand oil and gas drilling off the nation’s coasts to help pay for a $260 billion transportation bill.

The legislation has no chance of passing the Senate and faces a White House veto. But for Republicans, the 237-187 vote showed they’re willing to go further to boost U.S. energy production than President Barack Obama. Obama lately has embraced increased oil and gas production on the campaign trail, and has touted how the U.S. in recent years has produced record amounts of oil and natural gas.

“The bill we are considering … is an action plan that clearly contrasts President Obama’s anti-energy policies with the pro-energy, pro-American jobs policies of Republicans,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

The legislation, which 21 Republicans voted against and 21 Democrats voted for, would open the eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida and areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to drilling, lift a ban on drilling in a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and order leases to be offered for Western oil shale.

Obama has said he would not pursue drilling off the Pacific and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has pushed back offering leases in the Atlantic until at least 2017.

The measure also would force the approval of the Keystone oil pipeline within a month, which Obama recently rejected, saying there wasn’t enough time for an adequate environmental review.

Democrats argued that the bill amounted to a gift for an oil industry that was headed nowhere and would pay only a fraction of the cost of the transportation bill. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the offshore drilling portions alone would bring in $4.3 billion between 2013-2022, a number Republicans say is underestimated.

It was also unclear whether the energy provisions, which were added as a sweetener to get tea partiers behind the expensive transportation bill, will help save the measure.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, put off action on the legislation until after next week’s congressional recess when it became clear even his own party wasn’t enthusiastic about it.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, echoing the sentiments of other Democrats, said this week that the additional drilling provided “phantom revenue.”

“We know that these places are not going to be developed in the near-term at all,” Salazar said at a congressional hearing Wednesday on his agency’s budget. “It will not fund the transportation needs of the United States of America.”
——
Follow Dina Cappiello’s environment coverage on Twitter: (at)dinacappiello

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpps/news/bill-aims-to-open-up-oil-exploration-in-florida-dpgapx-20110215-to_17966787

Updated: Wednesday, 15 Feb 2012, 1:15 PM MST
Published : Wednesday, 15 Feb 2012, 1:15 PM MST

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – A bill that would encourage public-private partnerships in exploring for oil and gas in Florida now has been restricted to the state’s Panhandle.
The amended bill (HB 695) cleared the House Appropriations Committee along party lines Wednesday.

Bill sponsor Clay Ford said he changed the bill after hearing concerns over possible drilling in the Everglades and other environmentally-sensitive areas. The Pensacola Republican wants to encourage revenue for the state while protecting its natural resources.
Environmental advocates oppose the bill. They have concerns over exploration in Panhandle conservation lands. The bill would not allow offshore drilling.

The measure allows oil companies to approach the state first instead of having to wait for land-leases on the open market. Business lobbies and the Florida Petroleum Council support the bill.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/455/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9501

February 14, 2012

24 hours to prevent senators from reviving Keystone XLUpdate: We have blown past 600,000 signatures. But we still need yours! Add your name to the petition and stand with us when we deliver our message to the Senate this afternoon.

We have 24 hours to keep the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline dead.

The Senate could vote as early as Tuesday on a deal that would greenlight construction of the pipeline — overturning President Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL last month. Help us blow past our goal of delivering 500,000 messages demanding that senators reject the Keystone XL pipeline before the vote. The clock is ticking! Add your name to this petition to senators using the form below.

Senators: Block any efforts to revive the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline. We need a safe climate, not dirty tar sands oil.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/13/146635957/u-s-watches-closely-as-oil-drilling-begins-off-cuba

by GREG ALLEN

Listen to the Story
All Things Considered
[4 min 35 sec]

*February 13, 2012

There are big plans for oil exploration in the Caribbean, not far off the coast of Florida. A Spanish company recently began drilling in Cuban waters – just 55 miles from Key West.
The well is the first of several exploratory wells planned in Cuba and the Bahamas. The drilling has officials and researchers in Florida scrambling to make plans for how they’ll respond in case of a spill.

The U.S. currently doesn’t allow any drilling for oil off its Atlantic coast or in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. One reason is what’s at stake. Florida’s tourism-based economy depends on its beaches, fishing and clear Caribbean water.

Environmental Concerns

The U.S. ban on drilling off of Florida, however, doesn’t affect America’s Caribbean neighbors. The exploratory well being drilled off of Cuba has many here concerned, including people like Richard Dodge. Dodge is the dean of Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, near Fort Lauderdale, and what he’s really concerned about is coral.

At the school, Dodge and his graduate students raise staghorn coral in outdoor saltwater tanks. Live coral grow in the crystal-clear water, some just finger length.

“These are relatively new ones that we’re starting out,” Dodge says. “But over here, these are ones we’ll be transplanting to the wild.”

In another tank, large branches of coral will soon be used to help restore damaged reefs.
Florida is home to more than three-quarters of the nation’s coral reefs – and they haven’t been doing so well. Development and warming oceans have already weakened many.

On a map, Dodge points out the location of what he believes is an even bigger potential threat – the spot where Cuba has approved offshore oil drilling. “The site that will be drilled,” he says, “is only about 50 miles from Key West.”

The rig drilling off Cuba’s northern coast is operating in water that is more than a mile deep. But it’s not the depth that concerns Dodge. In the case of a blowout, it’s the operation’s proximity to the Gulf Stream.

“We’re worried that it could get into that stream fast and therefore, within days, impact our coastal ecosystem and coastline,” Dodge says. A spill could potentially affect hundreds of miles of beaches, mangroves and estuaries from the Keys to Palm Beach.

At the organization Clean Caribbean and Americas, 30,000 feet of floating boom is ready for immediate shipping in the case of an oil spill.

Dodge and other marine scientists in Florida are asking the federal government to fund research that would help identify the resources most at risk, and develop guidelines to protect them.

Embargo Could Complicate Cleanup

Complicating matters is the fact that this new well is being drilled in the waters of a country that’s under a strict U.S. embargo. Unless they apply for and receive special permission from the government, U.S. companies are banned from doing any work on the well – even if there’s a spill.

Jorge Pinon, a former oil company executive and now a research fellow at the University of Texas, says if there’s a blowout, the U.S. president is sure to immediately lift the embargo for companies that respond.

Pinon also says the Spanish company doing the drilling, Repsol, has a lot of experience with deep-water drilling in the Gulf. And, he says, the company has upgraded its procedures to incorporate lessons learned in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

But Pinon sees another problem. Because of the 50-year-old embargo, the U.S. and Cuban governments have almost no contact. “There is no agreement of cooperation of who’s going to do what during an incident like this,” he says.

After the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Pinon notes Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen was put in charge of the cleanup – coordinating industry and government efforts.

“That’s not going to be the case here,” Pinon says. “And here particularly, it’s between two countries that have not spoken to each other in 50 years.”

Cooperation Progressing – So Far

But there are people working on developing contingency plans.

At the Clean Caribbean and Americas cooperative in Fort Lauderdale, a warehouse is full of oil skimmers, floating boom and tanks of chemical dispersant. The organization is funded by oil companies with one mission: to respond to big oil spills. Company personnel are now working with Cuban officials on the international response to a spill in Cuban waters.

Clean Caribbean and Americas technical adviser Mike Gass says that in a meeting recently in Havana, Cuban authorities agreed to cooperate on customs, immigration and air space control. And Cuba has already approved some cleanup procedures, such as burning large patches of oil.

Gass says Cuba has also agreed, if there’s a spill, to use chemical dispersant. “They have their own agriculture spray aircraft that would be their first line of defense to apply these things,” he says.

Gass says Cuban officials are offering good cooperation so far. “People are talking,” he says, “people are listening, people are motivated.”

There is a chance that after drilling, energy companies may not find enough oil off of Cuba to merit further exploration. Pinon, the former oil company executive, says the rig off of Cuba is scheduled to drill three wells – at a cost of $100 million each.

The fact that international oil companies are investing $300 million shows the industry’s confidence that its next big oil field may be just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/

Posted: Monday, February 13, 2012 4:00 am

The crowd was modest, but the topic was vital. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, what should be done to restore what the public lost in environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico?

The Department of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several state agencies were at Texas A&M University at Galveston recently to hear public comments on the Phase I Early Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment.

All the initial projects are in the other four coastal states, which felt the immediate effects of the spill. Texas will be in line for funding for some of the projects later.
Texans ought to be slow, however, in trying to get pet projects funded. There are bigger issues here.

Scientists are still trying to assess the damage — not just to specific beaches and marshes and wildlife in specific areas, but to the overall Gulf.

It would be good if all five Gulf Coast states could put aside state boundaries for a bit and think of the Gulf of Mexico as a single, common resource. It would be good, in other words, if we stopped thinking about how to get new boat ramps with this pot of money and started thinking about such basic things as water quality in the Gulf.

Perhaps the best suggestion at the meeting in Galveston, given the uncertainty of the damage and the uncertainty of what it would take to address it, came from the Ocean Conservancy: Set high standards for scientific monitoring the damage and restoration efforts. Fund those monitoring efforts adequately.

That is an excellent place to start.

— The Daily News of Galveston County

Special thanks to Richard Charter