Category: Uncategorized

Obama takes parting shot to oil, gas owners

The Environmental Protection Agency delivered a Christmas present to some 15,000 owners of oil and gas wells across the nation last week in the form of certified letters demanding that the companies send EPA detailed information regarding wells they own.

The Information Collection Request, also called the ICR, isn’t really a request, because EPA warns owners that if the information isn’t received within 60 days they could be fined up to $90,000 per day.

The survey comes in two parts.  Part 1 requires “comprehensive information from onshore petroleum and natural gas production facilities to better understand the number and types of equipment at production facilities.” Part 2, the “facility survey,” seeks information on production, gathering and boosting, processing, compression/transmission, pipeline, natural gas storage, as well as LNG storage and import/export facilities. There is a 180-day deadline for Part 2.

The ICR is part of EPA’s new methane regulation, which was adopted this summer. Many observers thought that EPA would not send out the ICRs, and wait to determine if anything should be done after the new administration comes into office.

President-elect Donald Trump will take office on Jan. 20, just about 30 days from the ICR filing deadline. Trump has vowed to reduce regulations on industry, and there was speculation that the massive information exchange would not happen.

Additionally, oil and gas well owners are puzzled and upset because there has been a lawsuit filed against the methane rule by many states, including Texas, and several oil and gas industry organizations.

Industry had requested that EPA exempt marginal wells, but environmental groups demanded that all wells be required to submit information to EPA.

The Obama administration hurriedly put the survey together and got the certified letters in the mail just before Christmas.

Alex Mills is President of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. Opinions expressed are solely of the author.

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How Congress Wants Trump To Fix The Energy Department

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Congressional lawmakers want incoming President-elect Donald Trump to reform the Department of Energy (DOE) to make it more responsive and efficient.

North Dakota Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter to Trump’s transition team outlining how the DOE could be reformed and modernized.

Cramer’s proposals include funding DOE research programs by results instead of technology type, diverting money from wind and solar subsidies into basic research, focus on exporting energy and reorganizing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the DOE.

Congressional lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are outraged by recent behavior by DOE officials — who withheld information from Congress to advance President Barack Obama’s global warming plans, an investigation concluded. The investigation found that agency officials fired an employee for honestly answering Congressional staff’s questions. This has led to a debate over how to reform the agency and what its mission should be.

“The mission of the Department is to provide science and technology solutions for energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges, but only 37% of the DOE’s roughly $30 billion budget is designated for science and energy programs,” states the letter. “Consequently, advocates for reform argue the DOE should focus on its core mission: energy innovation. For example, carbon capture and utilization technology solutions are critical to revitalizing coal and other fossil fuel related jobs.”

Cramer thinks the DOE should spend research budgets by outcomes, which would give the agency greater flexibility to set big goals as well as allowing it to redirect funding to where it makes the most sense. The Department of Energy plans to spend $8.5 billion next year on global warming-related research next year, which is roughly comparable to the amount it spends on energy innovation.

Cramer also wants Trump to reorganize the EPA under the DOE, as that agency has also attempted to dodge congressional oversight. The agency would be rolled into the DOE, potentially saving billions of dollars and improving governmental efficiency.

“Moving the EPA to DOE makes sense from a policy perspective since the combined agency would host both relevant regulatory and technology functions,” states the report. “Merged with strategic energy policy and technology considerations, U.S. environmental policy making would become more rational and less influenced by environmental special interests like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Sierra Club.”

Finally, the DOE should  lift restrictions on energy exports, according to Cramer’s letter, as industry groups are already moving in this direction.

Across the U.S., five new liquid natural gas export terminals, capable of exporting 10 billion feet per day, are under construction. When finished, these terminals will make the U.S. one of the world’s largest exporters of natural gas. Selling gas to Europe would have minimal costs and huge economic benefits, according to a DOE study, but environmentalists have repeatedly blocked permits for terminals.

Exporting natural gas is likely to be a growth industry, as global demand for natural gas is expected to be 50 percent higher by 2035 than it is now, according to the International Energy Agency.

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Four Unexpected Ways Climate Change Hits Our Pocketbooks

An unseasonably hot day that scientists attribute to climate change can be either a drag or a benefit depending upon where you live and the time of year. The same goes for an extraordinary dump of snow that creates snow days out of work schedules and keeps kids at home when you’re not prepared. But climate change has delivered other headaches over the past year that ultimately translate to extra costs for households and will likely impact our wallets in future years, as well.

Food and services

The most talked about cost of climate change is often food and services. The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged in October that “climate change could make it more difficult to grow crops, raise animals, and catch fish in the same ways and same places as we’ve done in the past.” To the consumer, that can mean higher costs for food and scarcity of products that we have come to depend on because of unpredictable weather or increased costs for agricultural irrigation (the almond industry has been battling this issue in California for years).

And of course, if it’s more expensive for the consumer to buy those almonds, ground coffee, chicken or beef products, we’ll notice it when we pay the restaurant bill or buy a cup of joe at the local convenience store as well. According to the Climate Institute, climate change is a real threat to that morning cuppa. The good news, is the coffee industry is already looking at new technology and mitigation methods to combat some of those stifling effects of climate change.

The domino effect: Tourism and the services we depend upon

Twentieth century history is filled with stories of towns that managed to remake themselves on the strength of an innovative tourist trade. Small pioneer and agricultural towns up and down the West Coast have discovered in recent decades that they could reboost their economies by promoting tourism. Old railway and farming towns like Leavenworth, WA (now a alpine vacation getaway) and Astoria, OR (an old fishing town that relies on tourism to boost its revenue) have in recent years thrived by finding ways to bring tourism into their towns. In so doing, they’ve proven that tourism isn’t just a secondary industry, but a very valuable means for cities to pay their operating expenses, provide jobs, build schools and ensure resiliency.

For some cities that industry is already facing threat from global warming in the form of rising tides and potential droughts. Areas around Astoria have already begun looking at mitigation to save the beaches that draw in travelers during the summer months. Island Press points out that about two-thirds of the forests in the Northwest serve as destinations for tourists year-round and can be at risk from global warming, flooding and other environmental problems. As small Northwest lumber towns learned early on in their development, what happens in the forest often impacts the cost of living and jobs in the towns that rely upon them.

Energy costs

The EPA points out that changing environmental conditions will have a direct impact on our ability to generate energy and the options we have available in coming years. Energy production must be smarter not only in costs but in the resources it uses for cooling and generation. Our own costs at home are governed in part by that resource-savvy technology and how cities and states build and maintain their grids.

But that challenge also means that there’s increasing opportunities for innovation. In the UK and some parts of the U.S. and Canada, tidal energy is making use of the changing climate to improve energy production for nearby communities. In some areas, that innovation may mean more costs in taxes, but it also means more opportunities for better energy production for future generations.

Mitigation: Wresting control from climate change

If there is anything that Florida’s flooded coastlines have driven home recently it’s that smart environmental planning in coastal areas is vital not only to disaster mitigation but to the changes we can’t see. While some experts suggest that parts of South Florida’s coastlines will be lost to global warming, there are other states that are taking action now and consider it a smart investment to a sustainable community.

Mitigation usually means higher taxes and cost of living for homeowners who ultimately bear part of the price tag of the upgrades. And those costs may mean a reduction or change in other services in their area that are sacrificed to cover the cost of mitigation.

More cost, but better quality of living?

Authors in the Journal of Climate and Ocean Economics offer a bright side: With mitigation and technological innovation comes better quality of life and safer living environments. Tourism has an opportunity to improve. Coastlines are better managed. The environmental costs that go along with our food production are better understood.

Climate change will offer numerous challenges for communities over the coming decades. But it also offers the impetus to innovate and to work in hand with the environment for a more sustainable planet.

Flickr/Brian Birke