fracking, natural resource management, oil pollution, tar sands

Common Dreams: Historic Rally Challenges Fracking Export Industry in Maryland; Protesters march against LNG export terminal and ‘planet-wrecking vision of new fracking wells, pipelines, and compressors’

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Published on Friday, February 21, 2014
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

(Photo: Chesapeake Climate Action Network) A natural gas export terminal being proposed near a small coastal town in Maryland would increase toxic gas fracking operations around the region, hurt the environment, speed up climate change, and do little for “energy independence” in the United States, campaigners warned at the “the largest environmental protest in Baltimore history” on Thursday.

At issue is the proposal to convert the Dominion Cove Point Liquid Natural Gas import terminal into an export terminal, a plan which is up for approval with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, Maryland’s Public Service Commission in Baltimore has the power to veto the proposed 130-megawatt power plant that energy company Dominion needs to build for the export operation, the Baltimore Sun reports.

On Thursday, the commission held a hearing on Dominion’s proposal, which drew over 700 protesters from around Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region to its doorstep.

“The controversial $3.8 billion Cove Point project, proposed by Virginia-based Dominion Resources, would take gas from fracking wells across the Appalachian region, liquefy it along the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland, and export it to Asia,” writes the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, who has helped lead the charge against the project.

Among a long list of grievances with the proposed facility, campaigners a CCAN argue it would:

“Trigger more greenhouse gas emissions than any other single source of climate pollution in Maryland.”
Initiate a “web of new pipelines and processing plants across Maryland and Virginia in order to export fracked natural gas to overseas markets,”
And “Drive demand for a surge of new hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for gas in our region and require an expanding network of new fossil fuel infrastructure.”

“While the gas industry would profit, we would pay the price of scarred landscapes, polluted air and waterways, livelihoods at risk, and worsened climate change,” they write.

On Thursday protesters carried a 100-foot-long faux gas pipeline reading the words “Stop Cove Point” through Baltimore, stopping at the large rally held outside of the hearing.

“We know it will take a movement to go up against the deep pockets of Dominion, and that movement is here today, representing people from across Maryland and the region who know the major impacts of this project in their local communities,” said Josh Tulkin, director of Maryland Sierra Club, at the rally. “From the streets to the courts, we’ll continue challenging Dominion every step of the way. The stakes for our bay, our communities, and our climate are simply too high to do anything less.”

Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr., CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus stated:

The climate crisis is our lunch-counter moment of the 21st century. If we don’t win this one, we all lose. Yet now Dominion is standing at Maryland’s door, trying to block its path to a fossil-free future. Today, we send this message to Dominion: We will organize, we will mobilize, we will fight in every peaceful way possible to ensure clean solar panels and wind turbines crisscross our region – not your planet-wrecking vision of new fracking wells, pipelines, and compressors.”

Inside the hearing Sierra Club attorney Joshua Berman, argued that Dominion’s reasons for building the site were misleading and, infact, the export terminal would cause an increase in domestic natural gas prices and, in turn, increase the domestic use of coal.

U.S. Department of Energy has already given Dominion its approval to go ahead with the terminal. It was unclear after Thursday’s hearing whether or not it will be approved by the Baltimore Commission.

fossil fuels, offshore oil

Oceana: 100+ Scientists Urge Obama to Wait on New Science before Permitting the Use of Seismic Airguns in the Atlantic Ocean New Science is Essential to Protecting Marine Life from Seismic Testing for Oil and Gas

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http://bit.ly/1mwFDIu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 21, 2014
12:12 PM

CONTACT: Oceana

Dustin Cranor, 202.341.2267 or dcranor@oceana.org

WASHINGTON – February 21 – Today, more than 100 marine scientists and conservation biologists sent a letter to President Obama and his administration urging them to “use the best available science before permitting seismic surveys for offshore oil and gas in the mid- and south Atlantic.”

The letter, which comes days before the Department of the Interior is expected to release its final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) on seismic airgun testing off the East Coast, calls on the Obama administration to wait on new acoustic guidelines for marine mammals, which are currently in development by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Excerpt from the letter:

“It is essential to incorporate these guidelines into this PEIS in order to accurately estimate auditory injuries and disturbances to marine mammals from proposed seismic surveys, so that this important information can guide the most appropriate mitigation measures.

If the PEIS moves forward without the newly established acoustic guidelines it will be scientifically deficient and quickly outdated. It will fail to accurately assess the true scope of marine mammal impacts from proposed seismic surveys, which is a primary purpose of the PEIS. The mid- and south Atlantic is home to a diversity and abundance of marine mammals, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale which could be impacted by proposed seismic survey activity. We implore you to take this opportunity to integrate NMFS’ new Marine Mammal Acoustic Guidelines into the PEIS for proposed seismic survey activity in the mid- and south Atlantic.”

Background:

The use of seismic airguns is currently being considered to look for oil and gas deposits deep below the ocean floor in an area twice the size of California, stretching all the way from Delaware to Florida.

Seismic airguns are towed behind ships and shoot extremely loud and repeated blasts of sound to search for buried oil and gas in the Earth’s crust. The dynamite-like blasts occur every ten seconds, for days to weeks at a time. The government itself expects this testing to possibly injure 138,500 marine mammals like dolphins and whales along the East Coast. Estimates include injury to nine critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, of which there are only approximately 500 left worldwide. New acoustic data from Cornell University’s Bioacoustics Research Program recently found that right whales off the Virginia coast are in the path of proposed seismic airgun use.

In September, Oceana delivered more than 100,000 petitions opposing seismic airguns to the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, as well as approximately 50 members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, also called on President Obama to stop the use of seismic airguns last year.

For more information about Oceana’s efforts to stop seismic airguns, including an infographic and animation about how they work, please visit www.oceana.org/seismic.

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fracking, natural resource management, oil pollution, tar sands

Business Insider–REUTERS: California’s fracking opponents introduce new moratorium bill

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http://www.businessinsider.com/r-californias-fracking-opponents-introduce-new-moratorium-bill-2014-21

RORY CARROLL, REUTERS
FEB. 21, 2014, 6:01 PM 8

By Rory Carroll
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California lawmakers have unveiled a new bill that would halt fracking and other controversial oil extraction practices in the state until a comprehensive review of their impact is complete, reigniting a legislative debate that fracking opponents lost last year.

The bill, introduced Thursday by state senators Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles and Mark Leno of San Francisco, would put the brakes on fracking until the completion of a multi-agency review of the economic, environmental and public health impacts.
The bill, whose submission was first reported by Reuters last week, would also halt the use of acids to dissolve shale rock to increase the flow of oil into wells until the report is finished.

It would also broaden the scope of a study called for as part of a bill introduced separately last year, since passed into law, that required oil companies to disclose more data about their activities.

The proposed, expanded study would include health risks posed by fracking to low-income residents like those living near Los Angeles’ Inglewood Oil Field, the nation’s largest urban oil field where both fracking and acid is being used, according to Mitchell, who represents the predominately minority community.

Last year’s bill did not seek to place a moratorium on fracking while a study was conducted, an outcome that infuriated many environmentalists in the state who see fracking as a threat to drinking water supplies and a potentially large source of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Fracking, where large amounts of water and some chemicals are pumped underground at high pressure to break apart shale rock and release oil, is considered a key tool in cracking California’s Monterey Shale, a massive deposit that is estimated to hold up to 15 billion barrels of hard-to-reach oil.

The bill faces long odds in the California state legislature, where a similar bill that called for a moratorium failed by a wide margin last year.

California Governor Jerry Brown, who has the power to put a halt to the practice via an executive order, has said he does not support a moratorium. It is better for California to produce its own crude oil than to import it from other states and countries, he has said in the past.

Lawmakers and environmentalists hope that the state’s severe drought might help change minds in Sacramento about the need to continue with the water-intensive practice. Fracking in the state used about 300 acre-feet of water last year, or as much as 300 households, according to state records.

“A moratorium on fracking is especially critical as California faces a severe drought with water resources at an all-time low,” said Leno.

“We are currently allowing fracking operations to expand despite the potential consequences on our water supply, including availability and price of water, the potential for drinking water contamination and the generation of billions of barrels of polluted water.”

(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
This post originally appeared at Reuters. Copyright 2014. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, national ocean politics, offshore oil

E&E: Interior proposes near-doubling of spill liability cap

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Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Published: Friday, February 21, 2014

The Interior Department today announced plans to nearly double the current $75 million oil spill liability cap for offshore oil and gas development to keep pace with inflation, marking the cap’s first increase since passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

The proposed rule, which environmentalists called long overdue, would also spell out how Interior implements future increases to the cap.

“This proposed change is the first administrative increase to the liability cap since the Oil Pollution Act came into effect 24 years ago and is necessary to keep pace with the 78 percent increase in inflation since 1990,” said Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Tommy Beaudreau. “This adjustment helps to preserve the deterrent effect and the ‘polluter pays’ principle embodied in the law.”

Companies involved in a spill are legally responsible for the full cost of containing and cleaning up a spill. But Congress has capped companies’ liability for economic damages — people put out of work by the spill, fishermen who cannot fish, empty hotel rooms on the beach at high season — at $75 million. The BOEM proposal would raise the cap to $134 million, the largest increase allowed without legislation.

The proposal comes more than three years after a presidential BP PLC spill commission recommended that Congress “significantly” raise the liability cap, a proposal that has sputtered on Capitol Hill and has not seen serious consideration in years.

House Democrats in 2010 passed a bill to eliminate the cap, but oil state Democrats particularly in the Senate expressed concerns that such proposals could harm smaller operators. Sens. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) worked hard on a compromise, but the issue seems to have dropped off Congress’ radar.

“Increasing the liability is long overdue,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s lands protection campaign. “The $75 million cap was too low, especially when you consider catastrophic spills such as the Deepwater Horizon spill.”

The American Petroleum Institute and National Ocean Industries Association didn’t comment on the proposal this morning.

The liability issue is complex and harks back to the legislation passed in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The president’s seven-member BP spill panel did not specify how high the liability cap should be lifted, but it noted that the “relatively modest” cap “provide[s] little incentive for oil companies to improve safety practices.”

Although the panel has since disbanded, members issued a report last year finding there is still an “obvious need” for companies to face more responsibility for damage to coastal communities.

“The Gulf states and the country at large were fortunate that BP, the well’s owner, ignored the cap and had both the resources and the willingness to bear the full costs of responding to the spill,” the members said in the report. “The commission recommended that the liability cap be significantly increased, which requires congressional legislation. But Congress took no action to even consider such an amendment during the past year.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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

Politifact The Truth-O-Meter Says: On oil drilling off Florida’s coast: Charlie Crist mostly opposed oil drilling except in 2008 he called for a study of it

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http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/feb/20/charlie-crist/charlie-crist-mostly-opposed-oil-drilling-except-2/

Tampa Bay Times, Miami Herald

Charlie Crist on Wednesday, February 12th, 2014 in newspaper articles

In April 2010, Deepwater Horizon exploded, resulting in a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill raised questions about policy positions on oil drilling for several politicians, including then Gov. Charlie Crist.

At the time of the spill, Crist was struggling in a Republican U.S. Senate primary against soon-to-be Sen. Marco Rubio; he ended up switching to “no party affiliation.” In 2013, Crist announced that he was running for governor again — this time as a Democrat.

We decided to look back at Crist’s statements on oil drilling through his tenure and place them on our Flip-O-Meter, which evaluates whether a politician actually changed position. We leave it to voters to decide the significance of our findings.

1998-2008
Overall, Crist expressed opposition to drilling throughout much of his career, from state senator to education commissioner to U.S. Senate candidate to attorney general. A sampling:
* June 20, 1998, in a Florida Times-Union interview during his first U.S. Senate campaign against Bob Graham: “Having grown up here, it’s hard not to feel strongly about the beauty that is Florida. I would and already have fought offshore drilling in Florida, and would continue that fight in Florida.”
* An Oct. 10, 2006, interview with the Tampa Bay Times editorial board: “Offshore oil drilling, I’m adamantly opposed to it. I think a lot of that has to do with growing up here. I’m a Gulf Coast guy. … I remember when I was in elementary school, we had an oil spill in Tampa Bay. You may recall that. I literally remember cleaning birds off when that happened.”
* Oct. 20, 2006, at a press conference, on the qualities Floridians want in a president: “Making sure that we don’t drill for oil off our beautiful shore, and, of course, the other traditional things that go along with it.”
In his inaugural address as governor in January 2007, Crist called for “clean rivers, beautiful beaches and coastlines free of oil drilling. This is a vision we can make a reality.”

Crist as vice presidential contender in 2008
In 2008, with gasoline prices hovering near $4 a gallon and Crist being mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate (on a ticket that would popularize the phrase “drill, baby, drill!”), Crist backed off his previous unflinching opposition.

After Republican presidential contender John McCain gave a June 17 speech in Houston calling for opening up more waters to drilling, Crist said:
“We have to be sympathetic to the pocketbooks of Floridians and what they’re paying at the pump for gas and balance that with any way that our state might be able to contribute in terms of resources to have a greater supply and therefore lower prices,” Crist said. “I think an open-minded person understands that we ought to at least study (offshore drilling).”

Crist offered some caveats at the time: “It would all depend on the parameters,” he said. “How far off the coast, how safe it would be, how much it would protect our beaches.”

To environmentalists and Democratic leaders, Crist’s statement was a major reversal.

“It seemed that he would be the last person to change course on this,” said Eric Draper, policy director for Audubon of Florida, at the time.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, called Crist’s position “a 180-degree flip-flop.”

“I don’t understand Gov. Crist’s Flip-Flop on this,” she said. “The risk to our environment and to our economy — I mean the governor, of all people, should know better.”

The next week Crist delivered a speech at a global climate change summit in Miami. “We must have an open discussion – without compromising Florida’s sensitive ecosystems and natural beauty,” Crist said of offshore drilling. “As I stated last week, only when we are able to do so far enough from Florida’s coast, safe enough for our people and clean enough for our beaches, should we consider increasing our oil supply by drilling off Florida’s shores. Let me repeat that – far enough, safe enough and clean enough.”

Crist witnesses 2010 spill
But in 2010, after flying over the gulf and seeing the Deepwater Horizon spill firsthand, Crist withdrew his support for any form of drilling off Florida’s coasts.

“It could be devastating to Florida if something like that were to occur,” Crist said. “It’s the last thing in the world I would want to see happen in our beautiful state.”

Crist also repeated the criteria laid out in his 2008 climate change address, saying the gulf spill proved drilling isn’t yet far enough away, clean enough, or safe enough.

“Clearly that one isn’t far enough, and that’s about 50 to 60 miles out, it’s clearly not clean enough after we saw what we saw today – that’s horrific – and it certainly isn’t safe enough. It’s the opposite of safe,” Crist said.

Crist summoned legislators to a special session in July with hopes that they would put an oil drilling ban on the November 2010 ballot. But the Republican-dominated Legislature delivered him a defeat within hours of convening.

Post 2010
Crist lost his U.S. Senate race in 2010 and Republican Rick Scott became the governor. In February 2011, Crist returned to Tallahassee to stand with Democrat Alex Sink and environmentalists to announce his support for a state constitutional amendment to ban oil drilling.

“This puts it in the hands of the people and that’s exactly where it should be,” Crist said.

At an October 2012 gathering with several former governors, Crist said Florida shouldn’t consider oil drilling.

He declared the BP oil spill to be “the greatest wake-up call of all time.”
“There are just too many other ways to produce energy – solar, wind, things that the Sunshine State of all places should be leading in,” he said, according to the Gainesville Sun.

Crist announced in November 2013 that he would run for governor again.
In an interview with Watermark, a central Florida publication that covers the gay community, a reporter asked Crist if elected if he would continue to support the ban on offshore drilling.

“Yes,” Crist replied in the interview published in December. “How could you be governor during the BP oil spill and not get that right. That was a wake-up call.”

We sent a summary of our findings to Crist’s campaign and received a response from former sen. Steve Geller, a Democrat advising Crist. Geller said the BP oil spill convinced Crist that nothing near Florida would be “safe enough, far enough, and clean enough.”

Did Crist flip?
For most of his career Crist has opposed offshore oil drilling in Florida. He spoke against drilling repeatedly between 1998 and 2006. But in 2008, he was a potential Republican vice presidential contender amid high gas prices. At that time, Crist said Florida should study drilling and have an “open discussion” about it — though in a speech he offered caveats that it would have to be “far enough, safe enough and clean enough.”

Even that suggestion was enough to anger environmentalists, but in the end that’s all it amounted to — a suggestion to study it.

The 2010 explosion put the lid on that discussion for Crist, and he again returned to his adamant stance against drilling — a position he has reiterated as recently as late 2013.

Crist did wobble in 2008, but ultimately he went back to his original position so we rate him No Flip.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi