(07/28/2011)

Gabriel Nelson, E&E reporter
A package of air quality standards proposed today by U.S. EPA would require the oil and gas industry to cut its emissions to protect people from smog, cancer-causing chemicals and climate change — and would also save drillers millions of dollars per year, the agency said.

The four rules, which would need to be finalized by the end of February 2012 under a settlement with environmentalists, include new limits on both volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic emissions. EPA says the standards would cut smog-forming VOCs across the industry by 25 percent and toxics by about 30 percent, and as a side benefit, would cut methane — a potent greenhouse gas — by about 26 percent.

At a time when the Obama administration is taking fire from business groups that claim its environmental rules are too costly, the new standards were touted as saving money for the oil industry by forcing companies to do more to keep natural gas from escaping into the air.

The rules would cost businesses an estimated $754 million in 2015, but the natural gas and condensate that would be captured by new pollution controls could be sold for $783 million, the agency’s analysis shows.

Money spent on upgrades would be recovered within at most a year, EPA says, and because methane is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet, the new equipment would also provide climate change benefits worth an estimated $1.6 billion per year.

“This administration has been clear that natural gas is a key component of our clean energy future, and the steps announced today will help ensure responsible production of this domestic energy source,” EPA air chief Gina McCarthy said in a statement today. “Reducing these emissions will help cut toxic pollution that can increase cancer risks and smog that can cause asthma attacks and premature death — all while giving these operators additional product to bring to market.”

The rules would apply to about 1.1 million wells that are already producing oil and gas, as well as 500,000 existing gas wells and the 11,400 new gas wells being drilled each year. They also apply to 600 natural gas processing plants, 3,000 compressor stations and 1.5 million miles of pipelines.

A representative of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group for the oil and gas industry, said today that EPA should extend the comment period on the rules by at least six months to give companies time to digest them.

“API will review these proposed rules to ensure that they don’t inadvertently create unsafe operating conditions, are cost effective and truly provide additional public health benefits, and don’t stifle the development of our abundant natural resources,” Howard Feldman, the group’s director of scientific and regulatory policy, said in a statement.

Today’s proposal would include the first air quality rules for natural gas wells that use hydraulic fracturing, a practice that has recently unlocked vast reserves of gas in underground shale formations but has become highly controversial based on fears it could be causing water contamination. In places where shale gas wells are popping up by the thousands, neighbors have also raised concerns that they are being exposed to toxic emissions such as benzene.

And in some remote parts of the country, such as northeastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming, locals blame the boom in gas development for spikes in levels of ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, that rival big cities in the summertime.

EPA has already set emissions standards for large gasoline- and diesel-powered engines that are used by oil and gas companies. But some of the smaller engines that are used to drill wells and power other operations are not included in either set of rules.

Today’s rule won’t reach their emissions of nitrogen oxides, which react with VOCs to form ozone. “That’s where there’s been relatively little progress made at the national level for several decades now,” said Ramon Alvarez, a Texas-based scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund. But environmental and public health groups were largely pleased today, especially by the plan to cut down on methane.

They say the techniques that EPA is proposing are already being used in the field. States such as Wyoming and Colorado have set stricter air pollution rules for natural gas wells, and some companies, hoping to plug natural gas leaks and save money, have started using the new techniques under a voluntary EPA program called Natural Gas STAR.

Special thanks to Richard Charter, as always.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/07/battle_lines_on_offshore_reven.html

Times-Picayune

Published: Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 2:25 PM Updated: Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 2:26 PM
By Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune

WASHINGTON — The battle lines over offshore revenue sharing with states sharpened Wednesday, with the Republican chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee announcing plans to craft legislation to expand it, and the top Democrats on the panel filing legislation to repeal what they called “oil-well welfare” for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

“This program amounts to an oil-funded entitlement program for only a few states, a kind of oil well welfare that drains our U.S. Treasury and chooses the interests of a few over those of all Americans,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Markey was joined by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., the ranking member of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, in filing legislation to repeal the provision in the 2006 law that provided for revenue sharing from offshore drilling in federal waters with the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas – beginning in a big way in 2017.

That provision in the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act was one of the crowning legislative achievements of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La, who last week tried, so far to no avail, to get the Senate Energy Committee to agree to move up the date when the Gulf states would start to receive significant revenue sharing dollars from 2017 to 2015.

Landrieu has portrayed revenue sharing as a matter of simple justice for states that bear the brunt of the environmental damage and other costs of hosting the offshore industry. Now come leading members of her party in the House casting revenue sharing as an irresponsible giveaway.

“Oil fields off of our national coasts do not belong to any one governor or state legislature and should not be used to pad any favored state’s budget,” Holt said.

But in testimony before the committee Wednesday, Garret Graves, who heads Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said that revenue sharing was a matter of providing states with offshore reserves “equal treatment” with states with onshore resources, also on federal land, and that the money is needed, and would, under the state Constitution, have to be dedicated, to restore and protect the coast.

Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia, drove home the point, noting that, “the state of Louisiana, sometimes in our past colorful history, has been known to waste money,” but asking Graves to confirm that these revenue sharing dollars would be strictly directed to coastal restoration.

“Yes sir,” said Graves.

And, Landry pressed on, wouldn’t it therefore be fair to say that “anyone voting against revenue sharing would basically be voting against the environment?”

Graves again responded affirmatively.

It was a day of some rhetorical turnaround on the sharply divided committee, with Republicans stressing the need to have these dollars to protect the environment, and Democrats acting to try to keep Louisiana and the other Gulf states from having this coastal restoration money at their disposal.

Likewise, it was fiscally conservative Republicans arguing for sharing money with states that otherwise could be used to help reduce the federal deficit.

“If House Republicans are serious about cutting the deficit and making up the difference in their floundering proposals, they can start by ending this unfair practice,” said Markey, citing Interior Department figures that indicate that revenue sharing will cost the federal Treasury — and profit the four Gulf states — to the tune of an estimated $150 billion over the next 60 years.

Republicans disputed those figures, noting there is a $500 million annual cap on revenue sharing, but Democrats noted that the cap is lifted as of 2055, and that, in addition to trying to speed implementation of revenue sharing, Landrieu and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, were seeking to lift the cap through 2019.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., also made the argument that, rather than costing the federal Treasury money, “a revenue sharing proposal would help spur energy development in the Atlantic and other offshore areas, generating new revenues for the federal government.”

“It’s interesting to note that the firmest opponents of offshore revenue sharing are the same people who fundamentally oppose offshore drilling,” said Hastings. “This is quite a contorted argument to make — that revenue sharing unfairly gives away federal revenues, when if they had their way, we wouldn’t be collecting revenue from offshore drilling in the first place.”

In another sense, though it is a very straightforward argument – those who don’t want expanded drilling off the coast of other states, don’t want a financial incentive that might entice more states to allow drilling.

______________

The Associated Press
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, is pushing to repeal legislation that allows Louisiana and other Gulf states to share federal offshore oil and gas royaltie

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

From: John Larmett [mailto:Larmett.John@epamail.epa.gov]
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 08:40 AM

Dear Stakeholder:

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will issue what are referred to as New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for the oil and gas sector. Under a court order, EPA will propose rules that include the first national air standards for more than 25,000 new and existing natural gas wells that are hydraulically fractured, or re-fractured, and completed each year. They also add or strengthen requirements for storage tanks and other types of equipment.

Natural gas is an extremely clean-burning fuel that plays an important role in our nation’s clean energy future, but natural gas production cannot occur at the expense of public health and the environment. These standards rely on existing, cost-effective methods that allow operators to capture and sell natural gas that currently escapes into the air. Leveraging this technology will save tens of millions of dollars while cutting emissions of benzene and other air toxics, methane – a potent greenhouse gas, as well as volatile organic compounds.

We would like to invite you to participate in a briefing where you will have the opportunity to ask questions of senior EPA officials about NSPS and its benefits.

Please reserve this time on your calendar to join us.

Date: Thursday, July 28th
Time: 12:30 PM EDT
Call-in Number: (877) 290-8017
Conference Code ID #: 86760044

Office of Public Engagement
Office of External Affairs & Environmental Education
Office of the Administrator

Special thanks to Richard Charter

www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110725/ARTICLE/110729727

But the algae-spawning Mississippi plume is spreading to other areas of the Gulf of Mexico. “If it reaches the Florida Keys and lingers it could damage coral reefs and fish that inhabit them. It also could stir up toxic material left over from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, said Jerry Ault, a biologist with the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.”
These lingering effects of the BP blowout combined with the now growing dead zone is a recipe for disaster–DV

by Kate Spinner

Published: Monday, July 25, 2011 at 12:54 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, July 25, 2011 at 12:54 p.m.

More than a trillion gallons of polluted water — a volume equal to Tampa Bay — cascaded from the flood-swollen Mississippi Delta watershed into the Gulf of Mexico daily during May. Now, scientists say, the vast plume could trigger toxic algae blooms and harm sea life as far away as Southwest Florida and the Florida Keys.

Some of that dirty water is circulating in a large 10,800-square-mile eddy about 150 miles west of Sarasota. Another smaller, but more concentrated slug is flowing southeast toward the Florida Keys.

Loaded with nutrients, pesticides and other land-based pollutants, the contaminated water may feed blooms of toxic algae or create marine-life-killing “dead zones.”

They also could douse coral reefs with toxins or drive fish from spawning grounds off the Southwest Florida coast.

Scientists are closely watching the Mississippi water’s path through satellite tracking equipment.

“We have never seen a pulse of this type of water coming in,” said Mitchell Roffer, a biological oceanographer who runs a prominent fishing forecast service. “This is probably the largest pulse of fresh, discolored water to ever reach the keys.”

Growing signs of a troubled Gulf ecosystem have emerged without a clear explanation or obvious links to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year or the Mississippi flooding this year.

Hundreds of dolphins and sea turtles have washed ashore dead in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Lesions have been found on fish in the northern gulf and a large fish kill recently littered beaches in Collier County with hundreds of rotting fish.

Storm-water runoff from 40 percent of the U.S. flows into the Mississippi, including from the Midwest’s vast agriculture belt and major cities, including Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn. During record floods this year the river jumped its banks, sweeping away homes and cars and scooping up sediments as it scoured the land.

River flows to the Gulf in May were the highest recorded since 1973 and the rate of discharge to the Gulf exceeded records going back to 1930, according to a report in June.

That report predicted an unprecedented dead zone forming in the northern Gulf as a result. The dead zone is caused by a proliferation of algae and bacteria that rob the sea of oxygen, suffocating the creatures trapped in it.

But the algae-spawning Mississippi plume is spreading to other areas of the Gulf of Mexico.

If it reaches the Florida Keys and lingers it could damage coral reefs and fish that inhabit them. It also could stir up toxic material left over from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, said Jerry Ault, a biologist with the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

Ault and a team of other scientists, including physical oceanographers, are studying the plume’s movement and impact. He said he is concerned that a combination of toxins from the oil spill and the Mississippi plume could hinder spawning by tarpon and other valuable sport and commercial fish off Florida’s west coast.

“This balance of the ecosystem, if you will, is affected by these far afield inputs,” Ault said.

The BP spill and the Mississippi floodwater have compounded chronic strains on the Gulf from oil and gas extraction, overfishing and storm-water runoff.

“The Gulf is under significant pressure,” Ault said.

The dead zone’s size depends on the amount of nutrients in the Mississippi and the weather. A stormy season mixes oxygen into the water. More calm weather this year could contribute to a record-breaking dead zone covering an area the size of Delaware and New Jersey combined.

Mississippi water usually flows west, muddying the northern Texas beaches. The difference this year is the Mississippi’s volume, impacting a wider area of the Gulf.

Past studies on much smaller Mississippi discharges have linked red tides in Southwest Florida to nutrient-rich water moving from the Delta to the edge of the west Florida shelf.

Red tide blooms have been conspicuously absent from Southwest Florida since the winter of 2007.

Scientists think the fish kill in Collier was caused by oxygen depletion from an algae bloom, but the bloom’s origin is unclear. Ault said the problem could have stemmed from excessive local storm-water runoff.

Even if the Mississippi water causes little discernible negative effects for Southwest Florida or the Keys, large species of fish that swim in Southwest Florida waters rely on the northern Gulf for a seasonal feast of menhaden — a small baitfish that usually flourishes in riverine plume waters.

“That area where the Mississippi comes out is super important as a prey source,” Ault said, suggesting that recent blows from oil and pollution could lead to major fish kills or chronic reproductive problems that appear much later. “It’s this combination of effects. It’s not a single source. We’re adding to a stressed situation.”

Special thanks to Frank Jackalone, Sierra Club

From our “Money Never Sleeps” department…..

(07/21/2011)

Paul Quinlan, E&E reporter

A bipartisan group of nine senators unveiled legislation today that would send most of the billions of dollars in fines collected by the federal government from last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill to Gulf Coast states.

The bill would capture 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalties resulting from the spill and divide it among Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Under current law, the money would flow into a Treasury trust fund to pay for future spill cleanups.

Total fines expected from the Deepwater Horizon disaster are expected to range from $5.4 billion to $21.1 billion. The final dollar figure will likely be negotiated between companies deemed responsible for the spill and the Justice Department.

“This is a very exciting and promising day for the Gulf Coast, a region of our country that has suffered significantly in the last several years from a variety of storms, hurricanes, floods and a major oil spill,” Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu said.

Of money diverted to the Gulf Coast, 35 percent would be divided among the five states in equal shares; 60 percent would go to a newly created, state-federal Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council; and 5 percent would go to a new science, monitoring and fisheries-management endowment.

Half the cash that goes to the council would be used for ecosystem restoration, while the other half would be further divided among states based on an “impact driven” formula, under the Senate proposal. The impact formula would be based on the weighted average of oiled shoreline miles, proximity to the crippled oil well and average coastal population.

The Senate deal emerged after months of closed-door meetings of Gulf State senators and staff led by Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The talks were salvaged by Landrieu’s after- hours phone call to Boxer at her home to encourage her to continue the effort, lawmakers said at a press conference this afternoon.

“We had some very, very tough meetings,” Boxer said. “Every once in a while, these magical moments happen where you find the sweet spot and everyone comes together.”

Boxer had declared two weeks ago that a deal had been reached and set a date for her committee to vote on a bill sponsored by Landrieu and Louisiana Republican David Vitter. The vote was called off after other senators publicly disputed that the group had reached a consensus (Greenwire, June 29).

Disagreements centered not only on how to fairly divide up the money among the states but also how to divide cash between economic
development and environmental restoration.

“The bill will speed economic and environmental recovery to the Gulf Coast following last year’s oil spill,” Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker said. “It represents a balanced approach by all Gulf state senators to support economic and environmental restoration.”

Boxer’s committee will likely vote on the bill before the August recess. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet assigned a pricetag to the legislation, but Landrieu said the figure would be “much less” than the project penalties and would be offset.

Also backing the bill are Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Marco Rubio (R- Fla.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas.).

House lawmakers have yet to introduce a Gulf revenue-sharing bill. But Steven Bell, a spokesman for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) who helped form the House’s Gulf Coast Caucus earlier this year, said late this afternoon that the lawmaker expects to introduce legislation soon that would closely resemble the Senate bill.

Special thanks to Richard Charter