http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/26/1601327/republicans-see-high-gas-costs.html#storylink=mirelated

Northwest News
Sunday, March 26, 2011, Tacoma, WA

POLITICS
As the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $3.56 on Friday, Republicans on Capitol Hill geared up to make a little noise.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $3.56 on Friday, Republicans on Capitol Hill geared up to make a little noise.

On Thursday, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the effect of rising gasoline prices on families and businesses as part of its effort to determine “what has or hasn’t been done” since President Barack Obama took office two years ago.

Pasco Republican Rep. Doc Hastings, the panel’s chairman and a nine-term congressman, already has an answer. He says the president “has done nothing” by not moving fast enough to allow more oil drilling in the Gulf Coast and on public land. And he says his hearing “will put a spotlight on the issue.”

With the average price already exceeding $4 a gallon in Alaska and Hawaii and public anger growing, the GOP – led by Hastings – is hoping to capitalize on a potent political issue.

But Obama has plenty of defenders who say the president is being unfairly blamed for something he has little control over. They say that prices are rising because of increased global demand, instability in the Middle East and oil speculation on Wall Street.
As the new chairman of the committee, Hastings gets a loud megaphone on the issue, and he’s using it.

“Since the president’s earliest days in office, his administration has blocked, delayed, hindered and obstructed energy production across America – from coast to coast, onshore and offshore, and all the way up to Alaska,” Hastings said.

He said that Americans “know what $4-per-gallon gasoline feels like – and they don’t want to go back to those days.” And he said he is hearing about the issue from constituents whenever he goes home to his large Central Washington district.

“Listen, I’m in a rural area,” he said. “Rural areas are more impacted than urban areas.”

As he conducts his hearings into gasoline prices and other issues, Hastings will be aided by an Office of Oversight and Investigations that he created this month. Hastings said it will have “multiple staff” members with experience as attorneys and investigators. His committee already has a communications team of six to help Hastings get his messages out.

LARGER MARGIN REQUIREMENTS

Democrats say the GOP is simply playing politics with a hot and volatile issue.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said it’s “a fundamental truth” that the primary driver of gasoline prices is the price of crude oil. He noted that gasoline-price movements have exactly tracked with global crude oil prices for the past three years.

“The idea that our gasoline prices are high today because of some policy of the Obama administration is just not supported by the facts,” Bingaman said.

Twelve other Democratic senators, including Washington’s Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, entered the fray last week, saying that oil speculators are mainly responsible.

“There is strong evidence that the recent surge in gas prices has little to do with the fundamental supply and demand for oil,” they said in a letter to Gary Gensler, the chairman of the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

They asked Gensler to impose larger margin requirements for speculative oil contracts. Margin is the amount of money a person must put up to purchase futures contracts.

“Washington drivers are paying at the pump for reckless Wall Street oil speculation,” Cantwell said.

The bickering on Capitol Hill has intensified as prices have spiked in recent months.
Friday’s national price of $3.56 a gallon compares with $3.19 a month earlier and $2.81 a year ago, according to AAA. Prices ranged from a low of $3.36 in Wyoming to a high of $4.19 in Hawaii, the auto association said.

Across Washington, the average price was $3.74. In Tacoma, the average price hit $3.75 on Friday, compared with $3.44 a month ago and $2.97 a year ago. In Olympia, it was $3.76 on Friday, compared with $3.44 a month ago and $3 a year ago.

Obama is clearly sensitive about the criticism.

Two weeks ago, on the same day that an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, the president called a news conference to empathize with Americans, saying “families feel the pinch every time they fill up the tank.”

Obama said that three years ago, before the recession hit, rising demand from emerging economies such as China drove gasoline prices to more than $4 a gallon.

After the recession drove down demand and prices fell, Obama said, they increased again in the past year as the economy improved and global demand rose. The president added that turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East has added uncertainty to the market and that Libya’s lost production has tightened supply.

OIL PRODUCTION UP

He defended his record, noting that oil production in the U.S. last year rose to its highest level since 2003, with imports accounting for less than half of what Americans consumed for the first time in more than a decade.

“So any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn’t match up with reality,” Obama said.

Experts say there’s no shortage driving the increase in gasoline prices. There are at least 4 million barrels a day of spare oil production capacity globally, they say.

Despite the rising prices, U.S. gasoline inventories are exactly what they were a year ago, Ed Yardeni, a veteran financial analyst, said in a recent note to investors. Crude oil stocks are where they were two years ago, he added.

Yardeni suggested the biggest driver of the current surge in prices is speculation by people who have little interest in oil except as a way to gamble their money. He said the latest U.S. government report on oil speculation found that large speculators had acquired options to purchase almost 80 percent of the world’s entire inventory of oil.

Instead of talking about drilling more oil domestically to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil, some experts say the focus should be on conservation.

“The most important thing that we can do for consumers in the short term is to make a long-term commitment to reduce our gasoline consumption by improving the fuel economy of our vehicles,” Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America, told a congressional panel last week.

Cooper said U.S. gasoline prices this year are projected to reach a record high as measured in either current or inflation-adjusted dollars. For low- and middle-income families, that will mean that the cost of gasoline will be the single largest expense in their cost of driving, costlier than owning a vehicle.

Kevin G. Hall of the McClatchy Washington, D.C., bureau contributed to this report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.pnj.com/article/20110327/OPINION/103270309/Editorial-Drilling-risks-exposed?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cp

9:00 PM, Mar. 26, 2011 |

BP’s fault, Transocean’s fault, Cameron International’s fault, nobody’s fault – all we know is the failure of the blowout preventer to do what it was designed to do – prevent the Deepwater Horizon disaster – underscores just how much of a gamble deepwater offshore drilling really is.

Here we are almost a year after the well blowout and explosion that caused the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, and still nobody can say with certainty why it happened.

But now we have a report from a respected Norwegian company indicating that the widely used blowout preventers, built by Cameron and used as the last line of defense against catastrophic blowouts, might themselves be compromised by a design flaw.

The report also indicates that Transocean, the company drilling the well, might have made errors that also compromised the function of the blowout preventer.

So that’s possibly two fatal errors – one of design, one of operation.

That’s a recipe for the kind of complete failure that led to the blowout and oil spill last April.
This clearly and simply underscores why we should all be highly skeptical of claims by the oil industry that they have learned the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon and that deepwater drilling is now safer than it was.

The reality? They can’t know if that’s true; they can’t even say precisely what happened to the Deepwater Horizon, nor can they say that they know the blowout preventers currently “protecting” scores of other wells even work.

That means deepwater drilling remains a risky gamble of unknown proportions. Yet the oil companies are doubling down on that gamble by seeking permission to drill in even deeper waters.

We’re told the report by Det Norske Veritas “is not the final word” on the disaster. That means its conclusions don’t tell us everything we need to know.

That’s easy to see.

Cameron, the manufacturer of the blowout preventer, says the device was “designed and tested to industry standards and customer specifications.”

Transocean says the findings “confirm that the (preventer) was in proper operating condition and functioned as designed.”

It did? Oh, says Transocean, “high-pressure flow from the well created conditions that exceeded the scope of (the preventer’s) design parameters.”

In other words, the company was using a safety device unable to cope with the conditions it met … even assuming it would operate as intended?

If all this doesn’t reveal the hypocrisy behind the bland assurances coming from the proponents of offshore drilling about how safe it now is and how the industry knows what it’s doing, it will be a sure sign that they don’t really care about the environmental or economic risks.

Drill, baby, drill – and keep your fingers crossed?

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Information on the task force: http://www.restorethegulf.gov/task-force
From: U.S. EPA

Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 11:08 AM
Subject: News Brief (HQ):

CONTACT: press@epa.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2011

Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force Opens State Information Call Lines
WASHINGTON- The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which has been charged by President Obama with developing a restoration strategy for the gulf, recently announced the availability of a toll-free number for individuals who have questions or suggestions related to the mission of the task force.

Under its charge, the task force must propose a gulf coast ecosystem restoration agenda by October 5, 2011. A series of listening sessions are being held throughout the gulf coast states for community members to provide individual input that will inform the development of the restoration strategy. The goal of the listening sessions is to obtain individual input on priority issues, existing impediments and key outcomes or actions for the restoration of the gulf coast ecosystem.

Citizens from the five gulf coast states, which include Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, can call the state information call line at 1-855-427-9263 to receive additional information on task force meetings and other activities within their state.

The touch tone automated menu provides general information about task force activities and allows callers to be transferred to a task force staff member located in each state. Hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (CST) Monday through Friday. The state information call line staff includes representatives from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force was established by President Obama through an executive order on October 5, 2010. It is an advisory body made up of lead officials from state representatives appointed by the president upon recommendation of the governors of the five gulf states and 11 federal agencies and White House offices

Citizens can receive automatic updates by emailing the task force at GulfCoastTaskForce@epa.gov.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

(03/24/2011)

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

The Interior Department today announced it has issued a fifth permit
for deepwater drilling previously banned under last year’s moratorium
and the first such permit for an unexplored oil and gas deposit.

The approval allows Chevron USA Inc. to drill a “wildcat” well in 6,750
feet of water more than 200 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

The well is the first to be approved since the BP PLC oil spill last
April that targets a reservoir or field that is yet to be explored,
Interior said. The revised permit allows Chevron to resume work on a
well it began drilling a year ago but stopped during a mandatory
suspension in June 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon spill.

“Today’s permit approval further demonstrates industry’s ability to
meet and satisfy the enhanced safety requirements associated with
deepwater drilling, including the capability to contain a deepwater
loss of well control and blowout,” said Michael Bromwich, director of
Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and
Enforcement, in a statement. “We will continue to review and approve
those applications that demonstrate the ability to operate safely in
deep water.”

Chevron said it will use a capping mechanism developed by the Marine
Well Containment Co. to stop the flow of oil in the case of a runaway
well.

The approval was deemed a “milestone” by the National Ocean Industries
Association, a trade group.

“We are, of course, pleased with the previous four permits, but today’s
approval of a permit for truly new deepwater exploration in the Gulf of
Mexico is particularly noteworthy,” NOIA President Randall Luthi said
in a statement. “We are encouraged that the backlog of permit
applications is slowly growing smaller, and that some of our member
companies who were sidelined for the past year will soon get back to
work in the Gulf.”

The permit marks the third deepwater permit issued in the last week by
Interior. The agency at the start of the week had approved 26
additional deepwater permits for activities including water injection
wells to boost existing production and for other drilling activities
that involve fixed rigs or surface blowout preventers.

On Monday, the agency approved the first deepwater exploration plan
since the BP spill, a proposal by Shell Offshore Inc. to drill three
new wells more than 100 miles off Louisiana

(E&ENews PM, March 21).

Special thanks to Richard Charter

DATE: 23Mar11

LINK:

The Coast Guard has formed contingency plans to protect U.S. waters and
beaches in case of a major oil spill from drilling operations off the north
coast of Cuba.

Cuba has contracted with a Spanish Company, Repsol, to drill exploratory
wells, likely beginning later this year.

“As a result of the proposed North Cuba Basin oil exploration, the Coast
Guard is updating plans required to ensure that we are ready to address a
potential discharge from drilling off the coast of Cuba that could
potentially impact U.S. waters,” Coast Guard Rear Admiral William
Baumgartner said in a letter to U.S. House members David Rivera and Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, Miami Republicans.

The House members had met with Baumgartner on Monday to talk about Cuban
drilling plans.

“There is no longer a question of if but a question of when Cuba will
start drilling for oil,” Rivera said. “Some of the drilling sites could be
as close as 50 miles from the coast of Key West.”

Rivera has co-sponsored a bill that would deny leases and permits to
drill in U.S. waters to companies that do business with Cuba and other
countries subject to U.S. sanctions or embargoes.

Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix told the Sun Sentinel, “Regarding safety,
we are confident that we have the right personnel and materials to drill
safely and successfully in the area.”

Former Florida Senator Bob Graham, co-chairman of a national commission
on offshore drilling, is urging U.S. officials to form a regional pact with
Cuba and Mexico to establish safety standards and a oil-spill response plan.

Special thanks to Richard Charter