> Aug 26, 2011 at 11:04 am
> Our guest blogger is Kiley Kroh, Center for American Progress Associate Director for Ocean Communications.
> The Big Oil-backed Consumer Energy Alliance’s “Open The Gulf” campaign consists of eight ads and an initial two-week run in battleground states, featuring several people describing their hardships as a result of increased fuel cost and the temporary moratorium on Gulf drilling after the BP oil disaster, and advocating opening the Gulf of Mexico to increased offshore drilling. Here’s tugboat operator Cory Kief, backed by somber strings: [VIDEO]
> The ads, complete with sad music and images of abandoned barns and empty docks, also contain several glaring inaccuracies and misleading implications:
>
> MYTH: Opening the gulf to new drilling will lower gas prices. Though Colorado farmer Marc Amesh and truck driver David Boyer may have legitimate concerns that rising fuel costs are putting their jobs and businesses at risk, increased drilling is quite simply not the answer. Instead of providing a real solution, the CEA campaign merely parrots Big Oil lies and perpetuates the falsehood that increased drilling will lower gas prices. Even the non-partisan Energy Information Agency found that whether we dramatically expand offshore drilling or stop selling offshore leases entirely, it will have virtually no effect on gas prices – ever.
>
> MYTH: The Obama administration is not issuing offshore drilling permits or leases. According to statistics from the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management and Enforcement, 68 new shallow water well permits have been issued since the implementation of new safety and environmental standards on June 8, 2010. Permits have averaged more than seven per month since fall 2010, compared to an average of eight permits per month in 2009. For deepwater permits requiring subsea containment, they have approved 112 permits for 34 unique wells, with 19 permits pending, and 21 permits returned to the operator with requests for additional information, particularly information regarding containment. And perhaps the team at CEA missed last week’s announcement that the administration has scheduled a massive sale of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico – an auction that encompasses more than 20 million acres in the western gulf.
>
> Before complaining about the rate of issuing new permits and leases, the industry might want to take stock of what they already have – and aren’t using. A recent study conducted by the Department of Interior found that the vast majority of offshore drilling leases remain idle.
>
> Royal Dutch Shell, whose alarming safety record includes numerous spills and violations, was recently given the green light to drill in both the highly dangerous Arctic and a new development well in the Gulf of Mexico. The company also confirmed that “all five of the floating rigs that Shell was operating in the gulf before last year’s BP oil spill and drilling moratorium are now back to work” – a fact that doesn’t jive with CEA’s deceptive ads.
>
>
> MYTH: The economic potential of offshore oil and gas is worth the risk of another blowout. Despite BP’s efforts to convince the broader public that the oil is gone and the gulf is restored, the reality is much grimmer. While the ultimate toll of the spill won’t be known for several years, there is no denying the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history had a catastrophic impact on the Gulf Coast economy and its residents. An NRDC report found that the Gulf of Mexico saw a 39 percent decline in commercial fishing catches overall between 2009 and 2010, representing a $62 million loss in dockside sales. To date, the oil giant has paid out $5 billion in economic damages to individuals and businesses in the region – with 61,558 new claims received in the past three months – and faces billions more in Clean Water Act fines and NRDA liabilities. After their top execs admitted just one year ago that they weren’t prepared to handle a major offshore spill, CEA’s Big Oil backers might want to reevaluate whether that’s a risk they’re willing to take.
>
> Instead of asking why America’s not doing more for Big Oil, maybe Cory the tugboater, Marc the farmer, and David the truck driver should ask BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, and the others why they keep grubbing for American taxpayers’ dollars to pad their obscene profit margins.
>
> Kiley Kroh
> Associate Director for Ocean Communications
> Center for American Progress
> 202-741-6354
> @OceanProgress

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/08/24/24greenwire-oil-arpa-e-top-list-of-subsidy-cuts-urged-by-s-57924.html?ref=energy-environment

I really like these proposed funding cuts………….DV

By ELANA SCHOR of Greenwire
Published: August 24, 2011

As the congressional “supercommittee” readies its much-anticipated debt-cutting plan, a quartet of strange-bedfellow groups — two green and two fiscally conservative — today joined forces to pitch $380 billion in cuts to what they billed as environmentally harmful federal subsidies.

The four nonprofits — Taxpayers for Common Sense, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen and the Heartland Institute — took broad aim at high political priorities of Republicans and Democrats alike in their budget-slashing Green Scissors report. Among the spending items they eyed for phaseout are several of the oil and gas tax breaks unsuccessfully targeted by the White House this year, nuclear power loan guarantees, and a Department of Energy high-tech research program prized by the Obama administration.

Even while offering their slate of energy-money slices to the supercommittee, which must propose more than $1 trillion of cuts to fellow lawmakers by Thanksgiving as part of this month’s sweeping debt limit deal, the advocacy groups acknowledged that many programs they oppose maintain powerful constituencies on Capitol Hill.

“While these cuts are low-hanging fruit” for the four groups, Heartland Vice President Eli Lehrer told reporters today, “we’re not maintaining that they’re going to be easy cuts to make.”

Some of the cuts likely would face weaker resistance than others, such as a proposed repeal of farm supports that were on the chopping block during early spending talks led by Vice President Joe Biden. But others that appear to have momentum face a murky future — for instance, while the ethanol blenders’ tax credit was overwhelmingly rejected by the Senate this year, an alliance of biofuel reformers failed to attach its repeal to the debt-limit deal (E&ENews PM, July 26).

As it stands, the ethanol credit is scheduled to expire at year’s end, allowing Congress to forgo future spending as well as more proactive savings by not acting to renew it.

Ethanol is hardly the only alternative fuel that would see its government support cut by the four groups. The Green Scissors blueprint offers cuts to “clean coal” and carbon capture and sequestration programs as well as DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), created by the 2009 economic stimulus bill to promote “transformational energy research” in areas ranging from fuels to clean electricity.

The Green Scissors sponsors did not include ARPA-E in their overall total, adding a footnote explaining that “not all of this spending funds environmentally harmful projects.” Yet their argument that the nascent agency offers “taxpayer subsidies to develop things that the private sector was already using on a large scale” drew early criticism from its supporters.

“Eliminating funding for ARPA-e would be particularly short-sighted … because of the need for breakthroughs in development of clean, low cost energy sources,” Bipartisan Policy Center senior adviser Paul Bledsoe said via email. “Eating your seed corn is not a national strategy for long-term energy competitiveness.”

Bledsoe’s group also helps to steer the American Energy Innovation Council, a coalition of seven top-tier business chiefs including Microsoft Corp.’s Bill Gates and General Electric Co.’s Jeffrey Immelt, which is calling for a $16 billion annual public-sector investment in clean energy development.

What’s in a subsidy?

Washington’s inability to end two major ethanol subsidies as part of the debt limit deal took root this spring as conservatives battled internally over whether the rollback of tax benefits could be construed as a tax increase — a clash that famously pitted Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) against anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (E&E Daily, June 14).

Former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), toppled by a tea party challenger in his re-election race last year and now leading a coalition of conservatives seeking to address climate change, said today that he believed Coburn was the victor in that fight. As a result, Inglis added, GOP members of the newly convened “supercommittee” could consider chopping energy tax expenditures.

“By eliminating subsidies, not only do we get an immediate fiscal benefit in deficit reduction, but we also get the opportunity for growth and revenue flowing to the federal government because of the innovation that could occur as a result,” Inglis said. He was joined by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) in helping the four advocacy groups unveil their Green Scissors recommendations.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question facing the 12 members of the debt-cutting panel, including House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), is whether they can take a significant stab at overhauling the tax code given their imminent deadline. Such a tax reform effort likely would be the only viable vehicle for both parties’ leaders to accept politically risky cuts such as a repeal of oil and gas industry benefits.

Inglis said that he hopes the Green Scissors outline could come into play even beyond the “supercommittee” time horizon. But Bledsoe, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, cautioned that “much larger policy issues can best be addressed through a broader deal on tax and budget reform that is desperately needed.

“Reductions in energy subsidies like those for ethanol can play a valuable role in debt reduction, but a systemic approach is needed that considers all national priorities including economic growth, energy security, and environmental impact,” he said.
Click here (pdf) to read the Green Scissors report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://blog.al.com/live/2011/08/deepwater_trouble_on_the_horiz.html

Al.com

Deepwater trouble on the horizon: oil discovered floating near source of Gulf of Mexico spill (Photo gallery, video)
Published: Wednesday, August 24, 2011, 7:08 PM Updated: Wednesday, August 24, 2011, 9:10 PM
By Ben Raines, Press-Register

MOBILE, Alabama — Oil is once again fouling the Gulf of Mexico around the Deepwater Horizon well, which was capped a little over a year ago. Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of small, circular patches of oily sheen dotted the surface within a mile of the wellhead. With just a bare sheen present over about a quarter-mile, the scene was a far cry from the massive slick that covered the Gulf last summer.

Floating in a boat near the well site, Press-Register reporters watched blobs of oil rise to the surface and bloom into iridescent yellow patches. Those patches quickly expanded into rainbow sheens 4 to 5 feet across.

Each expanding bloom released a pronounced and pungent petroleum smell. Most of the oil was located in a patch about 50 yards wide and a quarter of a mile long.

The source of the oil was unclear, but a chemical analysis by Louisiana State University scientists confirmed that it was a sweet Louisiana crude, and could possibly be from BP PLC’s well.

The oil could be flowing from a natural seep on the seafloor near the wellhead, experts said. Other possibilities include oil trapped within the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, or oil deposited on the bottom during the spill that is slowly working its way to the surface.

The most troubling possibility, according to petroleum engineers, is that oil is leaking up through the seafloor surrounding the sealed well pipe.

Last week, in response to Internet postings by lawyers and environmental groups describing a leak, BP issued a blanket denial, stating, “None of this is true.”

Subsequently, the Gulf Restoration Network and Bonny Schumaker with On Wings of Care took aerial photographs of circles of oil floating in the area Friday. The group filed a report with the National Response Center, the federal clearinghouse for pollution incidents.

“We stand by what we said last week, neither BP nor the Coast Guard has seen any scientific evidence that oil is leaking from the Macondo well, which was permanently sealed almost a year ago,” BP spokesman Justin Saia wrote in an emailed statement Wednesday. “We welcome the opportunity to test any hydrocarbon sheens detected in the area of the well.”

U.S. Coast Guard officials said Wednesday that the earlier reports were investigated by flying over the site.

The Coast Guard determined that the reported sheens resulted from “natural seeps” and permitted pollution releases at other oil drilling sites. Coast Guard officials did not elaborate when asked how those determinations were made, and said that no boats had visited the well location since the reports were filed.

“I think the primary source with high probability is associated with the Macondo well,” said Robert Bea, an internationally prominent petroleum engineer and professor emeritus at the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Bea responded to Press-Register questions via email after examining photographs taken by the newspaper.

“Perhaps connections that developed between the well annulus (outside the casing), the reservoir sands about 17,000 feet below the seafloor, and the natural seep fault features” could provide a pathway for oil to move from deep underground to the seafloor, Bea said.

“Looks suspicious. The point of surfacing about 1 mile from the well is about the point that the oil should show up, given the seafloor at 5,000 feet … natural circulation currents would cause the drift,” Bea said. “A Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) could be used to ‘back track’ the oil that is rising to the surface to determine the source. This should be a first order of business to confirm the source.”

Oil analysis

Samples collected by the newspaper Tuesday were provided to Scott Miles, a chemist at LSU. Together with oil chemist Ed Overton, Miles conducted the chemical analysis that federal officials used to fingerprint the Deepwater Horizon oil – known as MC252.

“Looking at the fingerprinting, the samples were low concentration, so it is not giving a real good picture. It is possible it could be MC252. It’s south Louisiana crude for sure,” said Miles. “You can’t say 100 percent that it is from the spill itself, but they do need to get somebody out there to investigate further.”

Miles said he could smell the oil in the samples as soon as he opened the jars.
“The fact that it is right over the Macondo well site is pretty tantalizing,” said Overton, who was one of the first people contacted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after the spill began in April 2010.

“There is no way to say for sure whether the well is leaking, based on what is on the surface,” he said. “Of course it is suspicious.”

Overton noted that a number of natural seeps had been found within 12 miles of the well, and that those nearest the well would bear a similar chemical signature.

Phillip Johnson, author of the Standard Handbook of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering and a professor at the University of Alabama, said that photographs from the site were intriguing, but it appeared that a fairly small amount of oil was reaching the surface.

“There are two broad categories you would consider. One is leakage, and two is residual oil. I’d say leakage is pretty unlikely. That would imply that the seal on that well – which is about 5,000 feet of cement – failed. That’s unlikely,” Johnson said. “Then you think of residual oil that might be present in the 5,000 feet of riser pipe that wound up on the bottom. Large amounts of the platform ended up on the bottom. Those things could have oil in them that is slowly working its way to the high points and floating out.”

Riser pipe connected the well to the Deepwater Horizon rig on the surface. Neither the pipe nor the rig has been salvaged.

Johnson also suggested that heavier fractions of oil may have settled to the bottom during the spill. Over time, as bacteria degrade oil on the seafloor, the lighter fractions might be released and float to the surface, he said.

The Press-Register reporters located the area where the oil was rising to the surface by going to a point directly over the Macondo well and then moving in the direction of the prevailing surface current. The first blobs of oil seen on the surface were detected about a half-mile from the well. The frequency of the sightings increased gradually over the next half-mile.

In the Olympic swimming pool-sized area where the oil was rising most frequently, new sheens were erupting every few seconds on all sides of the 36-foot boat.

Marcus Kennedy, who piloted his fishing boat, the Kwazar, 115 miles from Dauphin Island to the well site, said he was stunned by the heavy petroleum scent in the air. A nearby data buoy recorded winds of less than 2 mph at the time.

Mahi-mahi and blue runners were schooling in the area. In the distance, yellowfin and blackfin tuna could be seen churning the water to a froth as they attacked bait. A 40-foot whale shark also surfaced in the area.
_____
Jeff Dute contributed to this report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.adn.com/2011/08/20/2023935/our-view-shell-spill.html

BOTTOM LINE: North Sea spill underscores the need for a sharp watch in the Arctic. (DeeVon per Richard Charter)

Published: August 20th, 2011 07:11 PM
Last Modified: August 20th, 2011 07:11 PM

The oil that leaked from a valve on a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline in the North Sea has spilled into the question of offshore drilling in Alaska’s Arctic.

Drilling foes cite the Aug. 10 spill, which Shell pegged at 1,300 barrels, as an example of why we shouldn’t allow drilling in the Beaufort or Chukchi seas. They argue that too little is known about the Arctic environment, too little support is too far away if something goes wrong, and conditions are too harsh for effective spill cleanup.

Critics argue that Shell should have been more forthcoming about the North Sea leak and spill. Shell didn’t go public with the incident until two days after discovery, and then acknowledged a continuing small leak after reporting the spill was under control.

What should Alaskans take from this?

This should be a caution, not a show-stopper.

First, Shell’s 2012 work in the Arctic is exploratory. There’s a big difference between exploration and production, with far less risk in the former.

The Coast Guard, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have said they’re confident Shell can safely handle exploration of what appear to be world-class sources of oil and natural gas. Let’s find out what’s there.

If fields prove up, production is still eight to 10 years away. More permitting will be required. We have time to learn more and prepare. During exploration, Shell can further refine its operations and build public confidence.
Second, let the North Sea spill be a reminder of the need for constant vigilance and no complacency.

Third, the only way to guarantee no spill in the Arctic is to never drill or produce there. That’s not realistic. Companies already produce oil in the Arctic with both nearshore and onshore operations and, onshore, the means to move oil to market. The nation needs the energy and the jobs; Alaska wants to fill its pipeline for decades yet.

What should Shell take from this?

First, constant vigilance and no complacency. That’s what executives Marvin Odum and Pete Slaiby have promised for Alaska’s Arctic. They must deliver.
Second, be forthcoming about everything — risks, mitigation, prevention and response.

If there’s a spill or any other problem, let people know right away. In the long run, that will go further to build trust and support than any effort to manage the message.

No spill is good, but let’s hope the North Sea spill is more lesson than damage. Let’s learn, and proceed with care.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/49-49/7123-flyover-surveillance-reveals-large-amount-of-surface-oil-at-deepwater-horizon-site

We set off a firestorm Wednesday (Aug. 17) when we reported that oil is rising once again from BP’s Macondo Well. We were informed by multiple, credible sources over the weekend and into Monday that BP had hired a fleet of shrimp boats to contain a slick sweeping across the old Deepwater Horizon site. Those reports supported evidence that we had obtained months earlier from our clients at the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN): A lab-certified Macondo Well (MC252) fingerprint on fresh oil coming ashore at Breton Island (see link to report below). So we already knew the Macondo Well was likely still discharging oil. We just didn’t know how or how much.

Hours after we posted our initial report on Wednesday, the Associated Press in London ran a story that BP admitted to “investigating a new sheen in the Gulf of Mexico,” but that it was not near “any existing BP operations.”

Only hours after the AP story hit, the Times-Picayune out of New Orleans (my home town) ran an article stating BP’s outright denial. From Mark Schleifstein’s article (posted Aug. 18 at 1:47 p.m.):

No oil is leaking from the capped Macondo well that blew out last year, destroying the Deepwater Horizon floating platform and killing 11 workers, a BP spokesman said Thursday.

BP also has not hired any vessels to clean up any oil in that area of the Gulf of Mexico, said spokesman Daren Beaudo.

A report in a blog written by trial lawyer Stuart Smith of New Orleans on Wednesday claimed that the well was leaking and that BP had hired 40 boats to clean the mess. A flurry of allegations and denials ensued. “None of this is true,” BP said in a statement. “We inspected our operations and our assets and didn’t find anything,” said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo.

We knew better than to expect any sort of candid response from BP or the Coast Guard who after all denied oil was leaking for a full week after the DH rig sank last year, so we were very pleased when Bonny Schumaker from the California-based nonprofit On Wings of Care (see link to website below) agreed to do a flyover. She took a four-hour flight out to the Deepwater Horizon site yesterday (Aug. 19) with Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) photographers Jonathan Henderson and Tarik Zawia.

They spotted oil – lots of it. So we now have damning photos of oil in the water at the “exact location” of the Deepwater Horizon. Clearly, BP has some explaining to do. From Mr. Henderson’s blog post on the Gulf Restoration Network website (see link to full report, photos and video below):

Šwe spotted oil on the surface above the exact location where the Deepwater Horizon and Macondo well are located, in Mississippi Canyon Block 252. ŠObviously, from the air I cannot confirm that the oil is BP’s and from [their] Macondo well. I can only report that I spotted oil above that location. I reported this to the National Response Center and had a lengthy conversation with a Coast Guard official. Notice that the oil seems to be clustered in round formations. I have no idea why or how this could happen and neither could the [USCG] official. The formations are clearly rainbow in color and in some cases have also a brownish tint.

Photos from Jonathan Henderson of the Gulf Restoration Network. The caption for the three photos reads: Oily substance on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in Mississippi Canyon Block 252. While there were no boats or other structures in the vicinity today, rainbow and brown tinted formations could be seen covering the area where BP’s Macondo well is located and the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded and sank in April of 2010. The coordinates are N28 44.20, 88 23.23W.

We will be sampling oil from the scene as soon as possible to establish a chemical fingerprint, which will determine the oil’s origin. As for our report of shrimp boats laying boom, Bonny and her crew were not able to catch them on film. My guess is BP immediately disbanded any cleanup operation it had going when the story broke Thursday morning. What Bonny and her team were able to document is a large amount of surface oil at the “exact location” of the old Deepwater Horizon site.

We will be staying all over this story, and posting new reports and visual documentation as they become available. In the meantime, the public and particularly the people of the Gulf Coast deserve some answers from our federal government.

What’s going on guys?

Read my previous post on fresh Macondo oil coming ashore on Breton Island in late March 2011: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/is-bps-macondo-well-site-still-leaking-fresh-oil-on-the-gulf-raises-concerns-and-haunting-memories

Read Jonathan Henderson’s damning report and view his video and photos of oil at the Deepwater Horizon site: http://healthygulf.org/201108201718/blog/bps-oil-drilling-disaster-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/breaking-news-birds-eye-view-grn-spots-oil-near-bps-macondo-well

Check out Bonny Schumaker’s flyover report here at the On Wings of Care website – and please donate to her organization to keep these critical flights going: http://onwingsofcare.org/protection-a-preservation/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2010/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2011-spring.html

Special thanks to Richard Charter