http://ecowatch.org/2012/109-organizations-speak-out-against-obamas-support-for-fracking/

What is Obama fracking thinking????? DV

3-05-2012
Environmental Working Group

On March 5, more than 100 organizations—including environmental, religious and public health groups—expressed concern about President Obama’s endorsement of hydraulic fracturing and shale gas drilling in his recent State of the Union address.

“Amid mounting evidence of the harm and significant costs associated with drilling and fracking, it is premature to declare that government investment in shale gas drilling has been a success,” the groups wrote in a joint letter sent to the White House on March 5.

The groups, which represent more than 3 million supporters in 16 states, questioned the president’s statement that the U.S. sits atop a supply of natural gas that “can last America nearly 100 years.” They also disputed the claim that natural gas “will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade,” an estimate based in part on a study funded by the natural gas industry. The president repeated the job creation estimate in recent speeches on energy policy at the University of Miami on Feb. 23 and in New Hampshire on March 1.

“To consider an industrial process that has contaminated water supplies, caused rampant air pollution and disrupted communities across the country a success story is misguided,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a non-partisan advocacy organization headquartered in New York State. “Our nation needs an energy policy based on solid, independent science, not industry hype.”

The 109 groups noted that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently conducting two studies to determine whether hydraulic fracturing can contaminate water supplies. One of the studies, focused on the town of Pavillion, Wyo., has already found that fracking had likely contaminated groundwater.

“We now know that the results of fracking with unknown chemicals have included earthquakes in Ohio, contaminated drinking water in Pennsylvania and spoiled farmland and rivers wherever wastewater is dumped,” said the Rev. Jim Deming, minister for environmental justice for the Ohio-based United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries. “The administration must take concrete, meaningful steps to safeguard the health of our citizens and protect the natural resources of our communities from this unregulated industry.”

Congress has granted the industry major exemptions from important federal environmental and health protection laws, including the Clean Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts.

“Homeowners across the country have had to witness first-hand what happens when the shale gas industry is left to regulate itself,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which drafted the letter. “We hope the administration will temper its enthusiasm for fracking until the EPA has completed its studies. We urge the president to work with Congress to not only require disclosure of fracking chemicals, but also to ensure that this industry no longer gets a free pass when it comes to compliance with major federal environmental laws.”

According to the Bloomberg news service, the job number cited by the president comes from an industry-funded study conducted by the consulting firm IHS Global Insight, whose Executive Vice President, Daniel Yergin, served on a federal shale gas advisory committee. In August 2011, EWG, along with federal and state lawmakers, scientists and public interest organizations objected that Mr. Yergin and five other members of the advisory committee had ties to the natural gas and oil industry. The committee’s final report sidestepped the crucial question of whether fracking should remain exempt from most federal environmental laws.

Special thanks to Shaw Thacker

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/01/the_driller_in_chief
MICHAEL LEVI
Foreign Policy
MARCH 1, 2012 (many weblinks in original)

It was a strange scene even by the standards of an odd primary season.
Rick Santorum, fresh off a narrow loss in Michigan, started waving about a
hunk of jet-black rock during his concession speech on Tuesday night, Feb
28. “Yeah, this is oil,” he explained. “Oil. Out of rock. Shale.” But not
under this American president. Like his fellow candidates for the
Republican presidential nomination, as well as most of the fossil fuel
industry, Santorum is convinced that Barack Obama is out to kill oil and
natural gas. “We have a president who says no,” he warned. “We need a
president who says yes to the American people and energy production!”

It’s a potent line in a country where many assume that Democrats despise
oil and gas. Their instinct is sometimes right: There are large segments
of the party that have never encountered a fossil fuel development that
they liked. But Obama doesn’t fit that mold. Indeed there is a strong case
to be made that he, not his opponents, offers the best hope for American
oil and gas.

Let’s start with the statistics. After falling every year from 1991
through 2008, U.S. oil production has climbed for three years in a row.
U.S. oil imports started to drop in 2005 under President George W. Bush,
but Obama’s policies haven’t stopped the trend. Last March, Obama
announced a target of cutting oil imports by a third by 2020; less than a
year later, the United States is already more than halfway there. Natural
gas production is also surging. The United States hit rock bottom in 2006,
at which point the shale gas revolution began to re-energize the sector.
That boom has continued since Obama took office. It’s tough, in other
words, to square claims that Obama is destroying American oil and gas with
the record production numbers that the industry is posting year after
year.

Statistics, of course, can be misleading. Most of the groundwork for
what’s happening now was laid before Obama took office — and markets, not
policymakers, can take most of the credit for the oil and gas sector’s
strong performance. Critics will argue that because the energy business
moves slowly, many of the biggest consequences of the president’s policies
have yet to be felt. What might surprise them, though, is that this is
where Obama could have the best story to tell.

Take the battle over fracking, a controversial technique used to unlock
massive deposits of oil and natural gas in underground rock formations
that has come from nowhere to become one of the most critical features of
the U.S. energy scene. Santorum and his acolytes are convinced that tough
regulation will kill this key driver of the U.S. energy boom. But if the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico taught us one lesson,
it’s that lax regulation — in enabling industry mistakes to gut public
support and confidence — can be far more damaging. A spate of dumb and
preventable accidents by poorly regulated shale developers would do far
more to set back U.S. oil and gas development than some smart minimum
standards set out at the federal level.

This White House has signaled that it prefers precisely such an approach,
though precise details haven’t yet been forthcoming. Undoubtedly, some in
the administration would like to see a dominant role for the federal
government and regulations that could hit the industry harder than is
needed. So far, however, they appear to be losing. Last year, Obama had
his energy secretary appoint a group of industry experts and environmental
authorities to advise him on shale. The team, which included prominent
shale enthusiasts like Daniel Yergin and John Deutch, produced a string of
recommendations that were widely seen as constructive rather than
adversarial. Fuel Fix, a news service run by the Houston Chronicle,
described them as an “olive branch to industry.”

The Obama administration has a particularly strong case to make when it
comes to natural gas. Smart developers aren’t crying because Obama has put
too much gas out of reach — they’re terrified because production is so
strong that collapsing prices have crushed their bottom lines. The best
way out of this situation is to find new uses for natural gas. Although
markets will play a critical role in this endeavor, the most powerful
approach is to get government involved. For those who believe in the
urgency of fighting climate change, the right step is obvious: Adopt
policies that replace coal-fired power with natural gas, which would slash
carbon emissions and clean up the air at the same time.

Indeed, the worst political news for the gas industry in the last few
years should have been the collapse of a signature Obama initiative: cap
and trade. A modest cap-and-trade program would have increased the price
of coal relative to that of natural gas and encouraged utilities to switch
to the cleaner-burning fuel, just as it has in Europe. The best hope for
boosting gas demand going forward is some variation on that theme, be it
Clean Air Act rules that favor gas over coal or a clean energy standard
that creates preferences for cleaner fuels, including gas. Both are
policies that Obama has championed — and that his adversaries have
opposed.

None of this is to suggest that Obama’s record on energy is without
blemish. His delay last November of the Keystone XL pipeline sent an
unfortunate signal to developers and markets that the administration was
willing to waver on oil development when politically pressed to the wall.
The administration’s insistence that developers quickly drill on their
leases — known as “use it or lose it” provisions — is difficult to
square with how development works best. There is also a legitimate debate
to be had about whether more federal lands might prudently be opened to
energy production. In particular, though the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was
good reason to take a fresh look at offshore drilling, Obama should
probably have pressed forward with his March 2010 plan to open more waters
to production rather than reversed course.

But most of the other criticisms from administration opponents fall flat.
The White House, for example, has been called out for railing against oil
and gas industry tax subsidies. But with the exception of the “intangible
drilling costs” deduction, which can help smaller and more nimble oil and
gas companies with their cash flow, these benefits are largely without
merit; instead, they simply transfer money from taxpayers to producers’
bottom lines. Obama has been attacked for slow-rolling offshore drilling
permits in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, but the alternative
could have allowed unsafe projects to proceed — and another spill would
have been devastating for the environment and development alike.

While Obama’s opponents continue to attack him for his supposedly
anti-development policies, one group seems to have figured him out. When
TransCanada announced on Feb. 27 that it would go ahead with a segment of
the Keystone XL pipeline and the White House embraced it, the response
from a leading environmental organization was far from supportive:
“Splitting the project means double the trouble,” the Natural Resources
Defense Council declared, en route to savaging those who would disagree.
When the president spoke up in favor of a smart approach to oil and gas in
late February, Joe Romm, a prominent climate blogger at the Center for
American Progress, responded with a biting headline: “‘All of the Above’:
Obama Names His Failed Presidency.”

The attacks from the right and the left must make for a lonely White House
— and that should make those people who genuinely desire prudent energy
development worried. Instead of attacking Obama for sins not committed or
fixating on the handful of places where they differ from him, they should
lend support to the president’s surprisingly constructive policies. Both
the hands-off alternative that his opponents advocate and the (at best)
ambivalent approach that many of his erstwhile allies prefer could be far
worse.
– Michael Levi is senior fellow for energy and the environment at the
Council on Foreign Relations. He blogs regularly at Energy, Security, and
Climate.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/01/the_driller_in_chief

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-tw3r6tLDJiitG8gx4zMFX1aTcQ?docId=79dd4556994c46808cecaecf65ba58fe

By JULIE PACE, Associated Press – 53 minutes ago. 3/2/12

NEW YORK (AP) – President Barack Obama, turning his political sights on snowy New Hampshire, demanded that Congress eliminate oil and gas company subsidies that he called an outrageous government “giveaway.” Though politically a long shot, the White House believes the idea resonates at a time of high gasoline prices.

“Let’s put every single member of Congress on record: You can stand with oil companies or you can stand up for the American people,” Obama said, reiterating an appeal he made last year as gas prices were rising.

The president also said Republican charges that his policies are driving up gas prices won’t pass “a political bull-detector” test and pointed to a chart that showed decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

His remarks came as retail gasoline prices rose Thursday to a national average of $3.74 per gallon.

Obama has repeatedly called for an end to about $4 billion in annual tax breaks and subsidies for oil and gas companies, government support that Obama has said is unwarranted at a time of burgeoning profits and rising domestic production.

“It’s outrageous. It’s inexcusable. I’m asking Congress: Eliminate this oil industry giveaway right away,” he told a crowd at Nashua Community College after touring the school’s automotive lab.

Republican presidential contenders and GOP leaders in Congress denounced Obama’s appeal for ending subsidies and called on Obama to take further steps to expand oil production in the United States.

Obama’s move was his latest and most direct appeal to Congress to act on the tax breaks, a move that is certain to get stiff Republican opposition and that failed even when Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress.

But an administration official said the White House expects Congress to soon take up a measure ending some subsidies. The official requested anonymity to avoid speaking publicly without authorization.

Later Thursday, Obama shifted his political focus to raising money for his re-election campaign, blitzing through Manhattan for four high-dollar fundraisers.

During remarks at a $5,000-per-person reception, Obama defended his foreign policy record, from drawing down the war in Iraq to ordering the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Ahead of his weekend speech to a major pro-Israel group and a Monday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama defended his commitment to Israel’s security, particularly amid the turbulence in the Middle East and North Africa, where some long-time leaders having been pushed from power over the past year.

The sweeping changes, he said, make foreign policy in the region more complex. “It used to be easier to deal with one person who was an autocrat when it came to knowing who you could strike a deal with,” the president said.

With the region’s leadership structure changing, Obama said the U.S. would have to take into account the “politics and the attitudes of people in the region,” some of which he acknowledged were anti-Israel.

In choosing to launch his trip in New Hampshire, Obama picked a state he easily carried in 2008. He and his surrogates have paid particular attention to the state in recent months. It offers only four electoral votes in the November election, but Democrats have been eyeing New Hampshire warily following its sharp shift to the right in the 2010 midterm elections.

Criticized by Republicans for taking too much credit for increasing oil production at home, Obama made sure to credit both his administration and that of his predecessor, George W. Bush, without mentioning Bush by name. The move seemed intended on stripping away that line of criticism from his opposition.

Obama’s insistence on a congressional vote on the oil and gas subsidies came a day after he and House and Senate leaders held a luncheon meeting at the White House that House Speaker John Boehner described as encouraging and hopeful.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he Obama has offered nothing to show that “raising taxes on American energy production will lower gas prices and create jobs.” White House spokesman Jay Carney shot back that oil companies are making big profits and “it doesn’t make sense for the taxpayer to cushion their already very robust bottom line.”

Last year, a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service that was getting renewed attention on Thursday concluded that Obama’s oil and gas proposals “may have the effect of decreasing exploration, development, and production, while increasing prices and increasing the nation’s foreign oil dependence.”

Obama went further than he has in the past in describing how the global standoff with Iran is driving up the cost of gasoline.

“The biggest thing that’s causing the price of oil to rise right now is instability in the Middle East – this time it’s Iran,” Obama said. “A lot of folks are nervous about what might happen there, so they are anticipating there might be a big disruption in terms of flow.”

Obama has previously identified tension with Iran as a main reason for rising oil prices, but this time he ad-libbed the remark about how the prospect of a reduction in the supply of oil is making the markets nervous.

The United States and its partners are trying to deter Iran from building a nuclear weapon, including with an unprecedented European embargo on Iranian oil that takes effect this summer. Iran has responded to tightening economic sanctions and the possibility of an Israeli attack with threats to block oil shipments from the Persian Gulf.

On the presidential campaign trail, GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also decried Obama’s energy policies.

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas in Woodstock, Ga., and Kasie Hunt in Fargo, N.D., contributed to this report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/breakingviews-drilling-alone-wont-fulfil-cheap-us-oil-dreams/

24 Feb 2012 18:17
Source: Reuters // Reuters

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Christopher Swann

NEW YORK, Feb 24 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Republican presidential hopefuls are presenting the American public with a familiar fantasy: by expanding offshore drilling they can bring gasoline prices back to earth. With the U.S. pumping only 9 percent of global crude, its leverage on supply is modest. But the world’s biggest consumer can affect demand, the other determinant of price. That, however, requires frank talk about conservation.

Americans get restive as pump prices rise toward $4 a gallon. Chastising President Barack Obama, and pledging to cut prices back to $2.50 a gallon, as Newt Gingrich has done, is standard political salesmanship. It’s also economic hubris. The United States pumps just 7.5 million barrels of the world’s 82 million barrels a day of crude, according to BP. One nation can’t control world prices with such a modest market share.

Even if the United States were to throw environmental caution to the winds and open up areas currently out of bounds to producers, the extra output could be offset by oil cartel OPEC. Swing producers, most notably Saudi Arabia, might swiftly reverse the effect of years of extra American drilling if they were unhappy with the resulting oil price.

It is also hard for Republicans to argue that America is failing to exploit its own oil. Oil output has been rising for the first time since the 1970s – thanks to enthusiastic deep-sea drilling and surging output from shale regions in North Dakota, Texas and elsewhere. The result is that reliance on foreign oil has fallen below 50 percent, back to levels last seen three decades ago. None of this, however, has stopped the price of Brent from rising 60 percent over the past two years.

America’s real clout on global energy markets comes as a consumer, where it accounts for a fifth of all oil burnt. There is plenty of low-hanging fruit, here. The average fuel efficiency of the U.S. vehicle fleet is about half that of European nations. And federal taxes on gasoline, which are the most effective means of curbing usage and fostering efficiency, are correspondingly lower.

A plea for conservation is unlikely to appeal to voters of any political persuasion. But the economic laws of supply and demand are pretty simple. And they make a strong case for focusing on the latter over the former. In an election year, however, don’t expect reason to triumph over populism.

CONTEXT NEWS
— Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has unveiled an energy plan that he said would bring down the cost of gasoline to just $2.50 a gallon.
— “Americans have every right to demand $2.50 gas – we are an oil-rich country,” the former House speaker said.
— Gingrich has promised to authorize more drilling on federal lands and open up offshore areas currently unavailable to energy firms.
— The United States accounts for 8.7 percent of global oil production, according to BP’s statistical energy review, and 21 percent of consumption.
— Reuters: Obama hits back at Republican criticism of high fuel prices

— For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on (Editing by Rob Cox and Martin Langfield)

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/shells-alaska-bound-oil-drilling-ship-occupied-greenpeace-xena-actress

Alaska Dispatch: Shell’s Alaska-bound oil drilling ship occupied by Greenpeace, Xena actress
Alex DeMarban | Feb 23, 2012

Shell Oil Co. offshore Alaska drilling operations aren’t safe even from “Xena the Warrior Princess.”

Lucy Lawless, the actress who played the sexy, swashbuckling heroine of the cult classic named for her character, “Xena,” scaled the derrick of an Alaska-bound drillship Thursday with Greenpeace activists to protest exploratory oil drilling she believes could “devastate” the fragile Arctic environment and accelerate global warming, according to a statement from the pro-environment organization.

The Noble Discoverer ship, contracted by Shell to drill up to three exploratory wells this summer, was leaving Auckland, New Zealand, bound for Chukchi Sea waters off Alaska, according to the release.

“I’m blocking Shell’s Arctic drillship because I believe passionately that renewable energy is the way of the future,” Lucy said from the ship, according to the release.

Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said the company respects freedom of speech, but isn’t pleased with Greenpeace’s tactics. The company is in contact with local authorities to keep the ship on path toward Alaska, she said.

“We are disappointed that Greenpeace has chosen this method to protest,” she said. “Actions such as this jeopardize the safety of everyone involved. While we respect the right of individuals to express their point of view, the priority should be the safety of Noble’s personnel and that of the protestors.

Six Greenpeace activists, as well as Lawless, a 43-year-old mother of three now co-starring in the TV show “Spartacus,” blocked the ship from the leaving the port of Taranaki for its 6,000-mile trip, the release said. The dill-rig invaders apparently expect to stay a while: the release notes they have several days of supplies.

Op de Weegh confirmed that the Noble Discoverer is currently at port in New Zealand, and said the port had been closed.

“Personnel from Noble have been in touch with local authorities,” she said, in response to an emailed question about how the company would respond to the boarding.
Greenpeace boarded and occupied another Arctic-bound drilling ship, the Leiv Ericksen, operating off Greenland’s coast last year.

Shell says it has safely drilled exploratory wells off Alaska’s coasts before, in the 1980s, and that it found oil and gas but never developed because global prices bottomed out and Arctic drilling became cost-prohibitive. Shell invested $2 billion to obtain leases in the Chukchi Sea in 2007.

With high prices in recent years, Shell is back and hopes to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in U.S. waters this summer. The Hague-based oil conglomerate says it will exceed U.S. environmental safety requirements in its Arctic drilling efforts, and plans to employ sophisticated technology to reduce air emissions and a specially built capping and containment system to prevent an oil spill.

“Shell has taken unprecedented steps to pursue safe, environmentally responsible exploration in shallow water off the coast of Alaska,” op de Weegh said. “We recognize that industry’s license to operate in the offshore is predicated on being able to operate in a safe, environmentally sound manner.”

Greenpeace warns that a successful strike by Shell will launch a polar oil rush, threatening the relatively pristine Arctic. Environmentalists have warned that no technology exists to clean oil from the region’s thick sea ice.

“We don’t have to go to the ends of the Earth to suck out every last drop of oil. Instead we need to smarten up and begin the transition to a clean, green, sustainable energy future and right now that means keeping Shell out of the Arctic.”

Shell has recently been steaming ahead in its efforts to win regulatory approval to drill this summer in the Arctic seas, recently receiving an air permit for the Noble Discoverer and related ships. Environmental groups said Tuesday they’re challenging the permit in court.

Contact Alex DeMarban at alex(at)alaskadispatch.com

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10787694

New Zealand Herald: One arrest in Greenpeace drilling protest
By Matthew Theunissen
1:05 PM Friday Feb 24, 2012

Seven Greenpeace protesters, including Hollywood star Lucy Lawless, clambered onto an Arctic-bound oil drilling vessel and scaled its 53-metre tower at Port Taranaki this morning. Photo / Greenpeace

A man has been arrested after seven Greenpeace protesters, including Hollywood star Lucy Lawless, clambered onto an Arctic-bound oil drilling vessel and scaled its 53-metre tower at Port Taranaki this morning.

The group managed to evade the port’s tight security and, about 7am, board the Liberian-flagged Noble Discoverer, which was to depart on an 11,000km journey to drill three exploratory oil wells in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska.

They climbed to a platform atop its 53-metre drilling derrick and unravelled banners saying “Stop Shell” and “Save The Arctic”.

A police spokesman confirmed a man who was associated with the protest but not on the boat was arrested at the port gate this morning.

Five officers were on board and had made face-to-face contact with the protesters, he said.

“We’re trying to establish what their intentions are.”

Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel said police were trying to climb the derrick to get to the protesters.

“We’d be pretty concerned about that because it requires specialist knowledge and capabilities to climb so you wouldn’t want your everyday police officer having to do that without proper equipment. It’s industrial climbing.”

The protest has captured international media attention with organisations including MSNBC, The Nation and the Associated Press trying to get interviews with Lawless, whose television series Spartacus is currently airing in the United States.

“Her involvement is very significant. There are very few people with her amount of profile and number of fans who have taken this level of non-violent direct action so, yeah, it’s a pretty exceptional, historical event,” Mr Abel said.

Police area commander for New Plymouth Inspector Blair Telford said their role in these situations was to ensure any protest was lawful and owners and crew of the ship were allowed to go about their lawful business.

“The protesters are clearly breaking the law by trespassing on the ship and we are currently liaising with the Port of Taranaki and the Harbour Master to decide the most appropriate course of action. Public safety is paramount.”

Lawless, the star of Xena: Warrior Princess, is a long-time Greenpeace supporter.
“I’m here today acting on behalf of the planet and my children,” she was quoted as saying in a Greenpeace statement.

“Deep sea oil drilling is bad enough, but venturing into the Arctic, one of the most magical places on the planet, is going too far.”

Mr Abel said Lawless had decided to take part in today’s activity of her own volition.

“She really was very keen to partake in a non-violent protest activity such as this one.”

She had considered that the police could be involved and people could be arrested, he said.

“She’s got a strong passion for ensuring the Arctic does not become the latest frontier for the oil industry.”

She has taken to Twitter from the platform.

“All safe up here but a squall coming in. Good spirits,” she tweeted.

“Today I’m taking direct action with GreenpeaceNZ in peaceful protest against Shell’s Arctic oil drilling.

“I’m on one of the oldest drill rigs on the planet and it’s heading to the Arctic. Tell Shell to stop.”

The ship was built in 1966.

Shell said in a statement it was “disappointed” that Greenpeace had chosen this method of protest.

“While we respect the right of individuals to express their point of view the priority should be the safety of Noble Discoverer’s personnel and that of the protesters.

“Shell has undertaken unprecedented steps to pursue safe, environmentally responsible exploration in shallow water off the coast of Alaska. We recognise the industry licence to operate offshore is predicated on being able to operate in a safe, environmentally responsible manner.”

Shell’s Alaska exploration plans were guided by extensive Arctic expertise and world-class capabilities, it said.

– APNZ
By Matthew Theunissen | Email Matthew

Special thanks to Richard Charter