AUSTRALIA

Queensland quietly grants fracking leases to Origin in fragile channel country

Environment groups believe the energy giant is targeting shale oil, but the company says project in ‘early stages’

Origin Energy will now need to gain environmental approvals before any fossil fuel exploration in Queensland’s channel country after it was granted fracking leases. Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

Graham Readfearn
@readfearn
Fri 17 Dec 2021 02.12 GMT

The Queensland government has quietly approved applications from energy company Origin that could lead to the extraction of fossil fuels across 225,000 hectares of Queensland’s channel country – part of one of the world’s last major free-flowing desert river systems.

Environmentalists and traditional owners said drilling in the fragile environment would threaten rivers, unique wildlife and could compromise the region’s organic beef industry. There are fears that the controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could also be used.

The Queensland government said Origin would now need to gain environmental approvals before it could begin any exploration works. The company said the project was in its “early days”.


‘The living heart of Australia’: fracking plans threaten fragile channel country

The Guardian revealed in January Origin had submitted petroleum applications in 10 areas across the channel country – part of the vast Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin.

Angus Emmott, a channel country grazier and naturalist, said the granting of the leases was “totally unacceptable” and the state government had promised at the last three elections to protect the region.

“Now they’ve gone and done this. These are the last free-flowing desert rivers on the face of the earth and we need governments with the guts to protect them.”

Environment groups believe Origin is targeting shale oil from the region, but the company says until exploration starts it will not know what kind of fossil fuels are there.

Ellie Smith, of environment group Lock the Gate Alliance, said there had not been meaningful consultation with the community before the leases were granted.

She said: “Communities who rely on the free-flowing desert rivers of the region will suffer tremendously if Origin Energy now builds industrial-scale, polluting shale oilfields.

“Exploiting this unique and spectacular part of Queensland for shale oil will also release a carbon bomb at a time when the world desperately needs to rein in its addiction to fossil fuels to mitigate the climate crisis.”

Riley Rocco, a spokesperson for the Western Rivers Alliance, a group of conservationists, graziers and traditional owners, said they were “deeply concerned” and feared Origin would use controversial hydraulic fracturing techniques.

Rocco said the government had committed to consulting with traditional owners and stakeholders “to ensure this world renowned river and wetland system is protected”.

“The Lake Eyre basin rivers and wetlands are rich in wildlife and cultural heritage,” Rocco said. “The channel country’s profitable organic beef industry relies on the floodplains being naturally irrigated from unhindered clean water flows. To allow new oil and gas mining here is to put the local community and wildlife at risk.”

Traditional owners are worried about the potential impact of drilling, pipelines and infrastructure on waterways and that this could also interfere with traditional songlines that are based on the routes of the rivers.

Karen Monaghan, a Wangkangurru Yarluyandi traditional owner and member of Lake Eyre Basin Traditional Owners Alliance, said: “The channel country is my mother’s Country.

“I grew up swimming in these rivers and I don’t want them fracked for oil or gas, dried out or dammed.”

A statement from Origin Energy said no work had been carried out on any of the petroleum leases.

“It’s very early days with regards to any proposed exploration activity in these permit areas,” a spokesperson said.


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“The nature of exploration is to firstly determine what resources are in that particular area and whether they are recoverable.

“As is the case with all our operations, we would put in place approved management plans, procedures and controls to protect the environment and waterways, as well as areas of cultural significance.”

A statement from the Queensland Department of Resources said: “Any resources project must stack up environmentally, socially and financially and are assessed against strict criteria.”

Origin Energy must be granted an environmental authority before it could carry out exploration works, the statement said.

The department said traditional owners that held a native title claim were notified and consented prior to the approval of the petroleum leases.

An independent report commissioned in 2019 by the Queensland government, but not made public until last year, called for a ban on unconventional gas exploration in the region.

The report, which was leaked and later tabled in parliament, recommended gas wells and ponds be excluded from areas which frequently flood, and unconventional petroleum and gas production should be designated “unacceptable use” in an area that overlaps with some of the Origin lease applications.

The Guardian has approached the state’s environment department for comment.

Queensland Government grants oil and gas leases in Channel Country, failing to consult traditional owners

ABC Western Qld /
By Ellie Grounds and Nathan Morris
Posted Thu 16 Dec 2021 

The Queensland Government was advised in 2019 by environmental scientists that fracking in the Channel Country was "unacceptable".(ABC News: Brendan Esposito)

The Queensland Government has quietly paved the way for fracking in the environmentally sensitive Channel Country, despite repeated promises to protect the area and an unfulfilled commitment to consult with traditional owners.

Key points:
The Queensland Government has quietly granted leases to Origin Energy to develop oil and gas over the Channel Country

The move comes after an election promise to protect the region and consult with traditional owners, some of whom say they feel 'dudded'

Controversial gas 'fracking' could now happen for the first time in the sensitive inland waterway
\

In October, 11 applications for petroleum leases across more than 250,000 hectares of land in the Channel Country bioregion of the Lake Eyre Basin were granted to gas company Origin Energy.

The Queensland Department of Resources said it received consent from the registered native title claim group, however, there is currently no native title claim over the land concerned.

An alliance group of traditional owner groups, which the government promised to consult, was also not consulted prior to the leases being approved.

The leases give Origin Energy the right to explore for and produce petroleum, and test for petroleum production. Though, the company still needs an Environmental Authority before commencing any resource development.

The granting of the petroleum leases means unconventional gas production could occur in the Channel Country for the first time which, in the shale geology of the Lake Eyre Basin, will likely require fracking.

The Lake Eyre Basin is one of the last remaining free-flowing river systems in the world.(ABC News: Brendan Esposito)

The Lake Eyre Basin is one of the last remaining free-flowing river systems in the world, where spectacular webs of waterways spread over 120 million hectares, across four states and territories.

The floodplains in the Channel Country support a thriving organic beef industry and carry enormous environmental importance as a wildlife habitat.


"It's of international significance," grazier Angus Emmott said, who lives on a property south-west of Longreach, at the top end of the Channel Country floodplains.

"We've got the Cooper [Creek], the Georgina and the Diamantina rivers, which are the last major desert rivers on the face of the planet that are not seriously compromised by human actions."

Angus Emmott and his family have been running cattle on Noonbah Station near Longreach for more than 100 years.(ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris)

'There hasn't been any consultation'

Since the end of 2019, Labor has repeatedly committed to establishing a stakeholder advisory group and consulting traditional owners on achieving a balance between the region's economic prosperity and ecological sustainability.

The government helped establish the Lake Eyre Basin Traditional Owners Alliance, made up of more than a dozen local traditional owner groups, which former Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch promised to consult.

"We are going to work in partnership with First Nations peoples and support their establishment of the Lake Eyre Basin Traditional Owner Alliance, which will have an active role in the decision-making and management of that area," Ms Enoch said in a media release in December 2019.

An excerpt from the Queensland Resources Industry Development Plan published in November 2021.(Supplied: Department of Resources)

Mithaka man George Gorringe is a traditional landowner in the area and is a founding member of the Alliance.

At the group's first meeting, which happened on Tuesday, December 14, Mr Gorringe said there was no mention of the petroleum leases being granted.

He only found out later that day.

"I got a phone call to say that this is what happened, and that is the first I'd heard about it," Mr Gorringe said.


"It was very disappointing to hear this, and also that there hasn't been any consultation."

The department said, "the registered native title claim group was notified and consented to the grant of the petroleum leases prior to the approval of the petroleum leases."

Origin Energy also said it had "been in contact with native title groups about meeting for some time and have participated in an introductory meeting with one group in recent weeks."

The National Native Title Tribunal shows there is currently no registered native title claim over the 11 Origin Energy petroleum leases.

The 11 petroleum leases (in purple) fall on land parcels that do not have a native title claim over them.(Supplied: Native Title Vision)

The area concerned falls between a Native Title claim by the Mithaka people to the west, and one by the Boonthamurra people to the east.

Mr Gorringe said neither the Mithaka people nor the Alliance was consulted prior to the petroleum leases being granted, which represents the Mithaka and Boonthamurra people among others.


"My feeling is, and it's pretty raw at the moment, that we've been sort of dudded," he said.

"Is it worthwhile to have this [stakeholder advisory] committee?

"I just wonder why that's even there?"

11 petroleum leases were granted by the government in October across more than 250,000 hectares of land in the Channel Country.(ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris)

Grazier Angus Emmott, said holding meetings after the fact showed that the government was not genuine in its past commitment to protect the Channel Country and consult the community.

"We now have a government that is setting up this new sham consultation process to try and rubber stamp an outcome that they've pre-determined with the fossil fuel industry," Mr Emmott said.


"It's just pure political opportunism led by money, power and greed.

"I think it stinks."
Fracking in Channel Country 'unacceptable'

In September 2019 the Department of Environment and Science commissioned an independent scientific report into the potential impacts of oil and gas development, and other activities such as agriculture and tourism, on Queensland's Channel Country.

It found oil and gas development could "create barriers" on natural watercourses and drawdown water in the Great Artesian Basin.

In a 2019 report on the Channel Country, a scientific expert panel recommended unconventional gas production be deemed unacceptable.(Supplied: Queensland Government)

The scientists also said drilling and fracturing fluids could potentially pollute soil and water.

The report recommended that "unconventional petroleum and gas production be an unacceptable use" in the area and that "gas wells and ponds" be excluded from frequently flooded areas.

The Channel Country's floodplains support a thriving organic beef industry.

(Supplied: Angus Emmott)

Ellie Smith from environmental group Lock The Gate said the government's decision to grant the petroleum leases went against both scientific advice and election promises.

"What we've had over many election cycles is commitments from Labor governments to have some kind of adequate protection for the Lake Eyre Basin rivers and watercourses and balance that with the economic development in the region," Ms Smith said.

"We thought that the government would at least wait until the consultation had taken place before progressing any of those leases.

"I think the trust of the group is broken."

Government still committed

In a statement to the ABC, the Department of Environment and Science said, "We are committed to protecting the rivers, watercourses and floodplains of the river systems in the Queensland section of the Lake Eyre Basin."

A spokesperson for the Department of Resources added that "any resources project must stack up environmentally, socially and financially and are assessed against strict criteria."

Angus Emmott's dog Banjo cools off in a flooded channel on their property.

(Supplied: Angus Emmott)

Researchers investigate health effects of fracking in B.C.’s Northeast


U of T's Élyse Caron-Beaudoin and Marianne Hatzopoulou are working together to shed light on how fracking impacts air quality for B.C. communities and residents' exposure to contaminants (photo by Johnny Guatto)


With thousands of wells and counting, the Northeast region of British Columbia is one of Canada’s most important hubs of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking – the process of blasting pressurized liquid at rock formations to fracture them and release the natural gas trapped inside.

Part of the region sits atop the Montney Formation, a massive, football-shaped tract of land that stretches into northwestern Alberta and is believed to contain one of the world’s richest reserves of shale gas.

But in addition to releasing gas, fracking also causes the emission of chemicals that can cause or exacerbate health problems including birth defects, cancers and asthma. And while communities located near fracking areas have raised concerns about the health impacts, there has been a dearth of Canadian studies on the topic – until now.

Élyse Caron-Beaudoin, an assistant professor in environmental health in the department of health and society at the University of Toronto Scarborough, is lead author of the only Canadian studies to have explored the health impacts and exposure to contaminants associated with fracking. The latest study, published in Science of the Total Environment, found high levels of some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in tap water and indoor air in the homes of pregnant women living in the Peace River Valley in Northeast B.C. The study was designed in partnership with the Treaty 8 Tribal Association, the West Moberly First Nations and the Saulteau First Nations.

“Overall, there are consistent associations with negative health effects,” says Caron-Beaudoin, who co-leads one of the only research groups actively investigating the health impacts of fracking in Canada and previously ran a smaller pilot study that found high levels of trace metals in urine and hair samples of pregnant women in two Northeast B.C. communities.

“What we don’t have a lot of in the literature is exposure assessment – measuring the level of exposure of local communities to chemicals that are potentially emitted or released during unconventional natural gas operations.”

To help fill this gap, Caron-Beaudoin is teaming up with Marianne Hatzopoulou, a professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, to shed light on how fracking impacts air quality and exposure to contaminants.

The project combines Hatzopoulou’s expertise in air quality research – modelling road transportation emissions, assessing urban air quality and evaluating population exposure to air pollutants – with Caron-Beaudoin’s scholarship in environmental health to lay the groundwork for a better understanding of the environmental and health justice implications of fracking.

It’s being supported by a $120,000 grant from XSeed, a funding program that aims to catalyze inter-disciplinary research collaborations involving scholars from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and one of U of T’s other academic divisions.

Hatzopoulou’s first task is to develop air quality models – computer simulations that estimate the concentration of air pollutants generated by an activity, and the degree of population exposure to these contaminants – for various fracking scenarios.

“In urban environments, we try to quantify how much a car emits while it’s driving one kilometre,” says Hatzopoulou. “In industrial settings, we may try to understand how much is emitted from the stack as a function of the production of a certain material. With gas fracking, we try to understand what is being emitted during the different life stages of gas wells.

The modelling, which involves combining existing measurements, data from regulatory agencies and data from published literature, includes creating an “emissions inventory.” It’s effectively a database containing information on the pollutants generated by different kinds of wells across their various stages of operation.

“What the air quality model does is resolve how air pollutants being emitted in the environment are going to disperse because of wind, meteorology, etc., and how they are going to chemically react with other species that are present in the atmosphere. Eventually, the output includes concentrations of multiple air pollutants that individuals are exposed to,” Hatzopolou says.

“Once exposures from the model are assigned to various individuals, we want to investigate how they relate to measurements conducted in homes and other markers in biological samples.”

This is where data from Caron-Beaudoin’s studies – she measured chemicals in indoor air and tap water, as well as the hair and nails of pregnant women – come into play.

“The urine gives you an indication of short-term exposure and the nails and hair more of a long-term exposure, so we can trace their exposure patterns back in time using those different types of samples,” Caron-Beaudoin says.

By probing the associations between Hatzopoulou’s modelled air pollution data and the chemical and biological samples gathered by Caron-Beaudoin, the researchers hope to develop a better understanding of the links between fracking activity and exposure to toxins.

Caron-Beaudoin’s team have also been working on developing exposure metrics related to well density, proximity and the different stages of well operation. That includes well pad preparation, drilling, fracking and gas production. The association between those metrics and modelled fracking emissions will also be investigated.

Ultimately, the goal is to generate evidence – and a suite of tools – to help estimate exposure to contaminants, an area where little knowledge exists due to the exorbitant cost of carrying out ongoing exposure studies.

“A big challenge of exposure assessment is the logistics and cost – it costs a lot of money to go to remote areas and have air quality sampling and water quality sampling,” Caron-Beaudoin says. “Hopefully our project can provide tools to estimate exposure accurately without having to rely on traditional exposure assessment methods that are costly and difficult to implement.”

Hatzopoulou adds that she hopes their work can be leveraged to inform regulations and engineering decisions that make it possible to curb the detrimental health impacts of fracking. What if well numbers are capped in certain areas? Should exploration be concentrated in certain spaces? How can air pollution be minimized through smart engineering decisions?

“This study will provide health and exposure information, which are lacking when regulatory agencies are currently issuing permits for fracking,” Hatzopoulou says.

A more immediate priority is to empower communities with knowledge about the impact of fracking operations on their health. Such information is critical given that the communities located near Canada’s fracking hotspots are disproportionately rural and Indigenous, and are therefore already disadvantaged by health and economic disparities.

“First and foremost, it’s important to arm communities with data about their exposures, what they’re breathing and the impact of what they’re seeing every day,” Hatzopoulou says.

“That’s the goal,” Caron-Beaudoin adds. “To share the data and results with communities so that they have as much information as possible to help make decisions on the types of industrial development happening on their territory.”

BC oil and gas royalty review seriously flawed without consideration of water

By CCPA

Photo by Garth Lenz

Open letter to the provincial government

As prospects grow for intensified gas extraction in our province, we applaud the provincial government’s decision to review British Columbia’s decades-old oil and gas royalty regime. This once in a generation review is essential, given the significant threats posed to the climate and the environment by continued fossil fuel extraction.

However, we strongly urge the province to broaden the terms to include a review of the outdated water-related subsidies, policies and regulations that are currently enjoyed by the fracking industry in BC.

It is imperative that the government end the fracking industry’s access to free or deeply discounted water, and that the industry no longer be given a free pass to not treat its highly toxic wastewater.

Almost all of the gas produced in BC is fracked gas, the production of which requires huge amounts of water. That means both the subsidized access to water and the future liability resulting from the lack of wastewater treatment must be addressed when considering whether the industry is paying fair value for public resources. Otherwise, the royalty review will be seriously flawed.

Outdated provincial policies and laws that have resulted in the fracking industry being heavily subsidized or given a free ride on its water use and wastewater disposal include:

• Subsidized costs of water plus free water. Water rentals are the basis for paying to use water but they shouldn’t apply in situations where water is permanently removed from the water cycle. Under existing regulations, fracking companies pay just $5.62 for the water equivalent of each Olympic-sized swimming pool of water they withdraw under water licenses. In addition, oil and gas operators are exempted from paying anything at all for the large quantities of water they obtain through outdated “use approval” permits and for water that is called “deep groundwater”.
• Exemption from wastewater treatment—polluter does not pay. This is by far the most significant and dangerous impact of the fracking industry. BC’s water rental system was intended to ensure a fair return to the people of the province, based on the idea that industrial water users ‘borrow’ water that they eventually treat, then return to the water cycle for future ecosystem and human use. Unlike other industries, however, the fracking industry is not required to treat its wastewater, and is instead allowed to just dispose of it by pumping it underground, thus permanently removing it from the water cycle.Disposal does not equal treatment and carries significant risks. In the case of the fracking industry, those risks include older, leaking wells; earthquakes triggered during disposal operations (in addition to the many earthquakes triggered in the fracking process itself); and pollution of groundwater from leaking wastewater storage pits. There is also the loss of farmlands and forestlands due to the growing number of large wastewater pits and above ground storage tanks used to hold toxic water prior to its disposal or re-use in fracking operations.The application of an outdated exemption for so-called “produced water” means that fracking companies are legally let off the hook, thereby saving significant costs that other industries are required to incur to treat their wastewater.

(To give you clearer insight into these and other related issues, see the technical review of outdated subsidies, policies and regulations governing water use by the fossil fuel industry prepared by Donna Forsyth, a former legislative advisor in the Ministry of Environment and Climate Strategy who not only helped draft the Water Sustainability Act, but who also has expertise on oil and gas legislation.)

Fossil fuel industry water use needs to be considered against the deeply concerning backdrop of the climate crisis and the impacts of climate change on water resources across British Columbia. This summer saw an unprecedented heat dome that resulted in the death of hundreds of people, numerous uncontrollable wildfires and a number of orders to halt water withdrawals in four watersheds in the province. In the South Montney region, where fracking industry water use is accelerating, there have been repeated summers during which water levels in the Kiskatinaw watershed fell so low that orders were issued to halt water withdrawals.

In our view, the fossil fuel industry must be required to operate on polluter pay, full cost accounting and precautionary principles. This means ending all subsidies, including both cheap or free water at the front end of the fracking process and outdated policies that allow this one industry to increase public health and safety risks at the back end, by pumping untreated toxic waste underground.

The pending royalty review is a long-overdue opportunity not only to ensure that British Columbians get a fair return for their gas resources but also to recognize the value of the tremendous quantities of water required to produce fracked gas. A fair return on water levels the playing field so that all industrial water users play by the same set of rules.

Now is the time to make a real commitment to review the outdated subsidies, policies and regulations governing the water used to produce fossil fuels in BC. Broadening the oil and gas royalty review to include water is clearly in the interests of present and future generations of British Columbians.

 

Signatories

Hannah Askew, Sierra Club BC
Larry Barzelai, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
Sven Biggs, Stand.earth
Helen Boyd, Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment
Oliver Brandes, University of Victoria’s POLIS Project on Ecological Governance
Robyn Duncan, Wildsight
Greg Knox, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust
Peter McCartney, Wilderness Committee
Ben Parfitt, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC Office
Shannon Turner, Public Health Association of BC
Alexandra Woodsworth, Dogwood

Topics: Climate change & energy policy, Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability, Fracking & LNG

OIL-BACKED GROUP OPPOSES OFFSHORE WIND — FOR ENVIRONMENTAL REASONS

Local think tanks that previously supported offshore drilling have engaged in a wide-ranging campaign to stop the expansion of offshore wind farms.

The GE-Alstom Block Island Wind Farm stands in the water off 

Block Island, R.I., on Sept. 14, 2016. 

Photo: Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Lee Fang
December 8 2021, 

IN NOVEMBER 2019, local property owners in Delaware and Maryland were sent a letter from “Save Our Beach View” asking neighbors to lobby local politicians against the Skipjack wind farm.

The plan, which was approved in 2017, sanctioned a Danish company to build a 120-megawatt capacity wind energy project — enough to power 40,000 homes by placing turbines 26 nautical miles offshore. The letter warned that the project would “irreparably damage beach tourism, home values and the economy,” “lower rents generally,” and produce “no environmental benefit.” “In fact,” the letter claimed, “regional air quality would become worse because of them.”

While the letter was signed by a local resident, it made little mention of its true author: the Caesar Rodney Institute, a libertarian think tank at the time funded by the oil industry. The subterfuge was intentional. In an interview with the State Policy Network, a group that coordinates best practices for oil-and-gas-backed and libertarian think tanks, the Caesar Rodney Institute said it produced the letter and had it signed by a local concerned beach homeowner to “establish rapport” with the target audience of local residents and merchants.

Save Our Beach View was also created by Caesar Rodney expressly for the purpose of undermining the Skipjack project. “Our strategy was to market and promote the ‘campaign’ rather than our organization, so we came up with the name ‘Save Our Beach View,’ a project of the Caesar Rodney Institute,” said the think tank’s representative in the interview.

WindTurbineNotificationletter4 pages


The buzzsaw of advocacy threatens to derail the Biden administration’s ambitious goal of opening up wind energy production from coast to coast. Ørsted, the Danish company in charge of the Skipjack project, has delayed construction until 2026 and may face further delays as local opposition and regulatory barriers mount.

The Caesar Rodney Institute-backed network, the American Coalition for Ocean Protection, has backed a federal lawsuit, petitioned regulators, and mobilized seaside communities to protest offshore wind turbines as an existential threat, arguing that the turbines will diminish tourism, endanger local wildlife, and could lead to “leaking oil [lubricants] from turbines.”

It’s true that while wind energy provides many climate benefits to power generation, particularly its ability to generate power without burning fossil fuels, the energy source is not without its risks. The effects of offshore wind farms on the fishing industry, as well as marine and bird life, are not fully understood.

Groups backed by oil industry money demanded expedited approval of offshore oil drilling in the same regions now under consideration for wind farms.

But many of the groups leading the opposition to the wind farms are not entirely sincere in their concern for the environment and the demand that regulators slow down construction. In previous years, these groups, backed by oil industry money, demanded expedited approval of offshore oil drilling in the same regions now under consideration for wind farms. In advocating for offshore drilling, they cast aside any concerns around tourism, potential pollution, or impacts on local wildlife.

Many of the groups also emulate the appearance of local grassroots organizations, despite backing from the oil and gas industry and sophisticated communications support from national conservative groups.

David Stevenson, the director of the Caesar Rodney Institute’s Center for Energy Competitiveness, has said he is raising funds to file lawsuits against wind energy projects along the East Coast. And the American Coalition for Ocean Protection has similar advocacy efforts against wind projects in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia, Maine and the Great Lakes. Last summer, Stevenson, a former Trump official, led a press conference in Boston to announce a lawsuit aimed at stopping the construction of Vineyard Wind, the first major offshore wind project in the U.S., which is slated to be built 12 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

In June, the Caesar Rodney Institute filed comments to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a division of the Department of Interior, arguing that regulators overseeing the Vineyard Wind project had failed to account for the lost tourism that would result from visible wind farms in the ocean.

“We communicate with each other, help each other out with resources and ideas,” said Stevenson last summer, speaking about the growing opposition to wind farms led by his coalition. “You’ve got the emotional power of the beach community, that comes without a lot of background in how to get things done, with these state policy groups.”

In response to a request for comment, Stevenson wrote that the Caesar Rodney Institute, like other nonprofits such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, protects “the privacy of our donors.” “I can’t speak for all the coalition members as we don’t share donor info, but we are not receiving donations from the fossil fuel industry. Our donors do not impact our positions which are determined by the facts our research uncover. We would accept donations from the fossil fuel industry if offered. Got any contacts?”

Grant information from 2019 shows that the institute was supported financially by the American Energy Alliance at the time of their Skipjack campaign.

The group does not voluntarily disclose donor information, but grant information from 2019 shows that the institute was supported financially by the American Energy Alliance at the time of their Skipjack campaign. AEA is funded by the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an oil refinery trade group, as well as the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, the business trade group formed in part by Koch Industries. The president of AEA is Thomas Pyle, a former in-house lobbyist for Koch Industries.

“My research on offshore wind shows it as an environmental and economic disaster,” added Stevenson, pointing to a study showing potential harm posed by offshore windmills to North Atlantic right whales. “My basic, and consistent objective is to do honest research and support things that actually work rather than what’s popular at the moment.”

The American Coalition for Ocean Protection includes another group, “Protect Our Coast NJ,” that makes similar grassroots appeals for members of the public to oppose offshore wind turbines over environmental concerns, claiming the projects will lead to an “industrialization of our ocean” with turbine towers that threaten marine and bird life. The group makes no donor information public, but a link redirects viewers to donate to the Caesar Rodney Institute.

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The appeals are especially insidious given that less than a decade ago, in 2014, the Caesar Rodney Institute sponsored a study that promoted drilling off of the shores of Maryland and Delaware, touting the benefits of offshore oil for jobs, energy independence, and boosted economic development.

In 2017, Stevenson called offshore drilling near North Carolina a potential boon to the local economy that would help achieve energy independence. The following year, in an article for the Heartland Institute, Stevenson praised the potential for offshore drilling near Delaware. “The risks of seismic testing and oil spills have been exaggerated and are manageable compared to the potential large economic benefits,” he said.

In his statement to the Intercept, Stevenson said he does not “specifically endorse oil drilling” and that his comments attached to the 2014 study simply called for a more “lively debate about whether to develop the oil reserves off our coasts.”

Highly motivated fossil fuel interests have long lobbied to prevent the adoption of wind and other renewable energy into the nation’s energy portfolio. The State Policy Network has long worked to prevent the adoption of renewable energy in favor of maintaining a reliance on oil, gas, and coal.

In previous years, AEA has acted as the tip of the spear against renewable energy, lobbying against electric vehicle subsidies, greenhouse gas emission regulations, and wind energy projects. In 2019, AEA spent $1.7 million advocating on its agenda.

Stevenson — a policy adviser to the Heartland Institute, a nonprofit that denies that the burning of fossil fuels influences global warming — previously was a member of the Trump administration’s EPA transition team. Stevenson used the position to request records relating to “Climategate,” hacked emails from 2009 between climate scientists in the U.K. that many conservatives claimed showed doctored climate projections, and records relating to the cost of carbon regulations.

Stevenson, who was also a former DuPont executive, has reversed many long-standing free-market principles in fighting the expansion of wind energy. Most fossil fuel-backed libertarians have long argued against environmental rules that tend to bog down energy development, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act. But the Caesar Rodney Institute, notably, cited the NEPA, which requires major federal projects to undergo careful environmental impact review and additional review under the ESA, in attempting to block wind energy.

In previous years, during the Obama administration, the Caesar Rodney Institute argued that NEPA and the ESA, along with additional environmental regulations, created “permitting delays as the agencies are flooded with paperwork.”

Other fossil fuel think tanks in the coalition are also singing a dramatically different tune. The John Locke Foundation, a North Carolina-based think tank involved in the State Policy Network and the American Coalition for Ocean Protection, filed comments with regulators in opposition to the Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind Project off the coast of the Outer Banks.

The foundation argues that any offshore wind development would pose risks for the environment given North Carolina’s location and vulnerability to hurricanes, “depressed tourism,” and potential ecological damage. But those concerns were not raised a few years ago, when the John Locke Foundation, which is funded heavily by the Charles Koch Institute and Charles Koch Foundation, advocated for oil drilling off the coast of North Carolina.

In those days, any concerns about environmental impact were minimal. “There are certainly some risks associated with offshore drilling, as there are with pretty much any large-scale enterprise,” said John Hood, chair of the John Locke Foundation, in a Hickory Daily Record newspaper column in 2018. But the many benefits, wrote Wood, outweighed the risks. After all, he added, “There are highly traveled tourist destinations in many places around the world that have coexisted with offshore drilling for decades.”

Environmental Groups File FOIA Request Over Interior Secretary’s Illegal Sale of Public Waters to Oil and Gas Industry

Legal Memo Proves Biden Administration Knew It Wasn’t Legally Forced to Conduct Sale Before Claiming It Was

Dec 13, 2021

Washington, D.C. — Environmental organizations Food & Water Watch and the Action Center on Race and the Economy, along with youth advocacy groups Earth Uprising and One Up Action, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request today seeking records related to the recent leasing of more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas extraction.

The FOIA request was submitted to the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and seeks any and all communications related to the lease sale between Interior Secretary Haaland, DOI and BOEM officials, White House officials including John Kerry, Gina McCarthy, Ron Klain, David Hayes, members of Congress and their staff including Senators Manchin and Sinema, and the oil and gas industry.

Meanwhile, a newly uncovered memo indicates that the Biden administration was presented with a legal analysis confirming that it was not required to go ahead with the lease sale, just weeks before it claimed it was legally compelled to conduct the sale quickly.

The memorandum of opposition filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on August 24, 2021, the administration itself acknowledged that the court did not compel the DOI on a specific timing to resume lease sales (see page 11 of the memo here). Yet the DOI announced it would resume Lease Sale 257 a week later despite clear violations of the National Environmental Protection Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Both federal laws authorize the Interior Secretary to only move forward with lease sales that are in accordance with environmental safeguards and in a manner that will not cause harm to life or the environment.

“This lease sale will deepen the climate crisis and completely undermine the country’s credibility as a global climate leader. Moreover, allowing new oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters constitutes a blatant disregard for Biden’s repeated campaign pledges to halt this foolish activity. We know this action has already disillusioned many Democratic voters who were counting on serious climate action from the Biden administration. What we don’t know is why the administration went ahead with this sale without the required environmental review when it clearly knew it wasn’t compelled to do so,” said Thomas Meyer, National Organizing Manager at Food & Water Watch.

Early in his administration, President Biden issued an executive order that paused new leasing of federal lands and waters for oil and gas development to complete a comprehensive review of the impacts of offshore drilling on climate change. After a preliminary U.S. District Court decision struck down Executive Order 14008, the administration quickly backed down, claiming that its hands were tied by the court, despite filing legal briefs in ongoing litigation arguing the contrary. However, the administration has simultaneously acknowledged that it has many other legal mechanisms to prohibit new oil and gas leasing aside from the one the District Court addressed.

Today, youth climate leaders from Earth Uprising, Grounded, and One Up Action who attended COP26 also submitted a letter to Secretary Haaland urging her to reject the bids from the illegal sale of public waters in the Gulf of Mexico to ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and other major polluters. The full letter can be read here.

“The Biden Administration’s official position is that they were forced to conduct this sale by the court. But we’ve done our homework and we know that is not true. If the court did not compel the administration to sell our public waters to the very companies responsible for the climate crisis and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, then what did?” said Kevin Patel, Founder and Executive Director of One Up Action.

Public opposition to the Gulf lease sale is mounting. Over 100,000 petition signatures have been gathered and over one thousand calls were made to the DOI last week. Celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo have joined environmental groups in a social media campaign to #StopTheSale. And a lawsuit filed by EarthJustice on behalf of Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the Center for Biological Diversity to compel Interior Secretary Deb Halaand and the DOI to comply with NEPA will be heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this Thursday, December 16.

Contact: Seth Gladstone – sgladstone@fwwatch.org

IRELAND

Protesters urge Sinn Féin to block fracking licence

Extinction Rebellion Ireland held a demonstration outside the party’s headquarters in Dublin to highlight its ‘lack of timely action’. Photo: PA Images

08/12/2021 | 

BY CATE MCCURRY, PA

Fracking protesters have urged Sinn Féin to block petroleum licences in Northern Ireland.

Extinction Rebellion Ireland held a demonstration outside the party’s headquarters in Dublin on Wednesday, in a bid to highlight Sinn Féin’s “lack of timely action” to prevent oil exploration and extraction of oil and gas.

Campaigners said the protest was held in solidarity with communities in Northern Ireland, along with activist groups Futureproof Clare, Shale Must Fall, LAMP Fermanagh, and Belcoo Frack Free.

Stormont Economy Minister Gordon Lyons is expected to bring forward a policy on oil and gas drilling before the end of the year.

Extinction Rebellion Ireland activists Art O’Laoghaire, Oscar Mooney and Louis Heath protest outside Sinn Fein’s Dublin HQ (Brian Lawless/PA)

While Sinn Féin last week put forward a Bill which would outlaw the exploration and extraction of petroleum by fracking, it has been criticised by campaign groups.

Oscar Mooney, of Extinction Rebellion Ireland, said: “Fracking is a dangerous practice that destroys environments, communities, and is a violation of human rights.

“In Sinn Féin’s election manifesto they stated they would secure ‘a total ban on fracking across the island of Ireland, including exploratory drilling’.

“The DUP Minister of Economy, Gordon Lyons, is reviewing petroleum licensing policy and intends to introduce petroleum licensing policy options into the Northern Ireland Executive before Christmas.

“Sinn Féin have four seats in the Executive, the DUP have five seats, but Sinn Féin can work with the commitments from Alliance and UUP to ensure the new policy is to ban petroleum licensing in Northern Ireland.

“We call on Sinn Féin to act now in the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure a full and final ban on petroleum licensing by voting for a ban on petroleum licensing to be the new Northern Ireland policy.

“This will fulfil Sinn Féin’s promise, before it is too late.”

Extinction Rebellion Ireland is calling on Sinn Féin to act now in the Northern Irish Executive to ensure a full and final ban on petroleum licensing 

(Brian Lawless/PA)

The group said that, while there is currently no fracking on the island of Ireland, if a petroleum licensing policy is passed then two current applications will be granted.

This will allow drilling and fracking at two locations in Northern Ireland – in Fermanagh and at Lough Neagh.

Mr Mooney added: “The expansion of the fossil fuel industry, just after Cop26 in Glasgow, is not just disappointing but wholly irresponsible.

“We know that we need to stop relying on fossil fuels and rapidly switch to renewables immediately if we want to stay under 1.5 degrees and avoid the worst effects of climate change.”

Virginia board denies permit to extend fracking pipeline into North Carolina

BY ZACK BUDRYK - 12/03/21

Virginia’s air pollution governing body on Friday voted against approving an air quality permit for a proposed compressor station in the southern Virginia town of Chatham.

On the second day of a two-day meeting, the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board voted 6-1 against the proposal. The proposal would have extended the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which carries fracked fuel, over the border into North Carolina.

Environmental groups and local advocates have vocally opposed the project, citing environmental reviews indicating it would increase the levels of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde.

Sixteen members of Virginia’s House of Delegates had previously urged the board to deny the permit in October, citing environmental justice concerns.

“Emissions from compressor stations contain toxic materials and any proposed project that would introduce new health hazards into a community should be very carefully considered,” they wrote. “A project’s potential impacts and contribution to cumulative impacts must be weighed against any arguments as to its necessity.”

Environmental advocates praised the board’s decision, including Lynn Godfrey, community outreach coordinator for the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter.

“No one should be asked to sacrifice their air, water, and health so that fossil fuel executives can make a quick buck in a world transitioning to clean energy. This is a win for Virginia communities who already live with elevated levels of fossil fuel pollution, and everyone everywhere who wants a livable future for their children,” Godfrey said in a statement. “The writing is on the wall if the wealthy investors backing this project are willing to read it: the age of fossil fuels is over, it’s time to drop this polluting pipeline.”

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan has repeatedly emphasized a focus on environmental justice, or addressing the impacts of environmental policy on disadvantaged communities. In October, the agency began the process to increase reporting requirements for another compound, ethylene oxide, that has been linked to respiratory issues and cancer in local communities.

Texas families fight fracking near day care center, homes amid health worries from natural gas drilling

Living close to drilling sites has been linked to health risks, especially to kids. Many of the wells Total Energy has drilled in Arlington are near Latino and Black or low-income communities.

By Cathy Bussewitz | AP and Martha Irvine 

| AP Nov 30, 2021

Rosalia Tejeda, second from left, plays with her children, from left, son Juscianni Blackeller, 13; Adaliana Gray, 5, and Audrey Gray, 2, in their backyard in Arlington, Texas, Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. As Tejeda, 38, has learned more about health risks posed by fracking for natural gas, she has become a vocal opponent of a plan to add more natural gas wells at a site near her home. 

(AP Photo/Martha Irvine) ORG XMIT: RPMI201 Martha Irvine / AP

ARLINGTON, Texas — At a playground outside a North Texas day care center, giggling preschoolers chase each other into a playhouse. Toddlers scoot by on tricycles. A boy cries as a teacher helps him negotiate over a toy.

Uphill from the playground, peeking between trees, Total Energies is pumping for natural gas.

The French energy giant wants to drill three new wells on the property next to Mother’s Heart Learning Center, which serves mainly Black and Latino children. The three wells and two existing ones would lie about 600 feet from where the children planted a garden of sunflowers.

For families of the children and for others nearby, it’s a prospect fraught with fear and anxiety.

Living near drilling sites has been linked to health risks, especially to children, ranging from asthma to neurological and developmental disorders.

While some states are requiring energy companies to drill farther from day care centers, schools and homes, Texas has made it exceedingly difficult for local governments to fight back.

The affected areas also include communities near related infrastructure — compressor stations, for example, which push gas through pipelines and emit toxic fumes, and export facilities, where gas is cooled before being shipped overseas.

Wanda Vincent prepares to check the temperature of 2-year-old Olivia Grace Charles, who holds the hand of her mother Guerda Philemond outside the Mother’s Heart Learning Center in Arlington, Texas. Philemond is worried about a proposal to add three new gas wells at a drill site that’s a few hundred feet from the day care center and several homes. 

Martha Irvine / AP

“I’m trying to protect my little one,” said Guerda Philemond, whose 2-year-old Olivia Grace Charles attends the day care center in Arlington. “There’s a lot of land, empty space they can drill. It doesn’t have to be in the back yard of a day care.”

Total declined an interview request. In a written statement, the company said it has operated near Mother’s Heart for more than a decade without any safety concerns expressed by the city of Arlington.

“We listen to and do understand the concerns of the local communities with whom we interact frequently to ensure we operate in harmony with them and the local authorities,” the statement said.

The clash in Arlington comes against the backdrop of pledges from world leaders to reduce emissions, burn less fossil fuel and transition to cleaner energy. Yet the world’s reliance on natural gas is growing. As soon as next year, the United States is set to become the world’s largest exporter of liquid natural gas, or LNG, according to Rystad Energy.

As a result, despite pressure for energy companies to shift their spending to cleaner technologies, there likely will be more drilling for natural gas in Arlington and other communities.

And children who spend time near drilling sites or natural gas distribution centers — in neighborhoods critics call “sacrifice zones” — could face a risk of developing neurological or learning problems and exposure to carcinogens. A report by Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, which reviewed dozens of scientific studies, found the public health risks associated with these sites include cancers, asthma, respiratory diseases, rashes, heart problems and mental health disorders.

Many of the wells Total has drilled in Arlington are near Latino and Black or low-income communities, often just a few hundred feet from homes. An analysis by The Associated Press of the locations of wells Total operates in Arlington shows their density is higher in neighborhoods that many people of color call home.


“America is segregated, and so is pollution,” said Robert Bullard, director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. “The dirty industries and what planners call locally unwanted land uses oftentimes followed the path of least resistance. Historically, that’s been poor communities and communities of color.”

When gas pumped in Texas is shipped out for export, it goes to liquid natural gas facilities along the Gulf Coast. Many of those facilities are near communities, that are predominantly non-white, such as in Port Arthur, Texas.

“There’s constant talk of expansions here,” said John Beard, founder of the Port Arthur Community Action Network, which opposes the expansion of export facilities. “When you keep adding this to the air, the air quality degrades, and so does our quality of life ,and so does our health.”

Wanda Vincent, who owns Mother’s Heart Learning Center in Arlington, Texas, is upset about a proposal to add natural gas wells at a nearby fracking site that’s operated by TEP Barnett. 

Martha Irvine / AP

At the Arlington day care center, owner Wanda Vincent has been cautioning parents about the health risks and gathering signatures to petition the city to reject Total’s drilling request.

When she opened the center nearly two decades ago, Vincent said, she wanted to provide a refuge for children in her care, some of whom suffer from hunger and poverty.

That was before natural gas production accelerated in the United States. Around 2005, energy companies discovered how to drill horizontally into shale formations using hydraulic fracturing techniques — a technique known as fracking.

Water and chemicals are shot deep underground into a well bore that travels horizontally. It is highly effective. But fracking is known to contribute to air and water pollution and to raise risks to people and the environment.

Some states have acted to force fracking away from where people live and go to school. Vermont and New York state banned fracking years ago. Last year, Colorado required new wells to be drilled at least 2,000 feet from homes and schools. California has proposed a limit of 3,200 feet. Los Angeles has taken steps to ban urban drilling.

In Arlington, drilling is supposed to be done no closer than 600 feet from day care centers or homes. But companies can apply for a waiver to drill as close as 300 feet.

France, Total’s home country, bars fracking. But that ban is largely symbolic because no meaningful oil or gas supplies exist in France. Total, one of the world’s largest natural gas companies, drills in 27 other countries. It turns much of that gas into liquid, then ships it, trades it and re-gasifies it at LNG terminals worldwide.

The gas wells next to Mother’s Heart represent a tiny fraction of Total’s global operations. Yet the company holds tight to its plans to drill there despite the community’s resistance.

“Nobody should have a production ban unless they have a consumption ban because it has made places like Arlington extraction colonies for countries like France, and they have shifted the environmental toll, the human toll, to us,” said Ranjana Bhandari, director of Liveable Arlington, a group leading the opposition to Total’s drilling plans.

In Arlington, companies that are rejected for a drilling permit can reapply after a year. Some Arlington city council members, who declined interview requests, previously have said they fear litigation if they don’t allow the drilling. That’s because a Texas law bars local governments from banning, limiting or even regulating oil or gas operations except in limited circumstances.

“If I’m able to reach out to the French and speak to them directly, I would let them know, ‘Would you be able to allow somebody to go in your back yard and do natural gas drilling where you know your wife lays her head or your kids lay their head?’ ” said Philemond, the day care center parent. “And the answer would absolutely be ‘No’ within a second.”

Frank and Michelle Meeks in their backyard in Arlington, Texas, with a fracking site, hidden by “sound walls,” looms behind them. 

Martha Irvine / AP

A mile or so from the day care, in the back yard of Frank and Michelle Meeks, a high-pitched ringing blares like a school fire alarm as the sun sets. Just beyond their patio and grill looms the wall of a Total site where one of the wells was in the “flowback” stage. This site also sits behind other houses and near two day care centers.

When the wells were first drilled, Michelle Meeks said, the sound and vibrations were a full-body experience. At this point, she and her husband barely notice it.

After the drilling started a decade ago at the site a few hundred feet behind their house, they noticed cracks in their foundation and their patio. They now receive royalty checks for $15 or $20 a few times a year. That wouldn’t make a dent in the cost of repairing the cracks in their foundation. But when the oil and gas developers came knocking years ago, the couple thought saying no would have been futile.

“In Texas, you really can’t fight oil and gas production,” said Frank Meeks, 60, a machine operator. “We don’t have the money to go and get big-time lawyers to keep them out of our back yards.”

Arlington’s air quality exceeds federal ozone pollution standards. In 2012, at the height of the fracking boom, asthma rates for school children in Tarrant County were 19% to 25% — far above national and state norms.

As the fracking boom took off, “land men” from the oil and gas companies went door to door in Arlington, asking permission to drill beneath homes of those who owned mineral rights. Some homeowners were offered signing bonuses and royalties. Renters — who don’t own the rights to the minerals beneath their homes — had no choice but to yield to drilling and received nothing for it.

Arlington sits atop the Barnett Shale, one of the largest on-land natural gas fields in the United States. Gas production, which peaked in the Barnett Shale a decade ago, has been declining. Even with natural gas prices rising, few large U.S. companies plan to drill new wells at a time when investors are seeking environmentally responsible companies.

“Total is a publicly traded company. They claim to be very interested in the energy transition and so forth,” said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University. “If a U.S. company were to do that here that was publicly traded, their stock would be hammered.”

CALIFORNIA
Not just fracking: State slows almost all oil permitting

By JOHN COX jcox@bakersfield.com

Erik Bartsch, president and CEO of Bakersfield-based oil producer Aera Energy LLC, addressed the 15th annual Kern County Energy Summit Nov. 10 at the Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center.
John Cox / The Californian


Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, is briefed by Billy Lacobie, of Chevron, center, and Jason Marshall, of the then-California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, on July 24, 2019, while touring the Chevron oil field west of Bakersfield, where a spill of about 900,000 gallons flowed into a dry creek bed. Newsom said the state needs to be more aggressive on regulating oil drilling in the state to avoid other major spills.
Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times / file

Behind California's de-facto fracking moratorium is a broader trend of growing concern to Kern's oil industry: fewer permits for every other type of well work except plugging and abandonments.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has resisted environmentalists' calls to halt all new drilling. But at the same time, his administration has introduced new levels of scrutiny among other changes that have restricted permitting at a time high oil prices have forced the Biden administration to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

State and federal data show that in the two years after Newsom took office in January 2019, California saw a 19 percent drop to 1,796 in permits given annually for new drilling. Permits awarded each year for plugging and abandonment of wells actually jumped 11 percent to 3,001 during that period, while the number awarded for work on existing wells fell 37 percent to hit 1,550.

POLITICAL FOOTBALL

California oil permitting has followed politics since before Newsom became governor. Former Gov. Jerry Brown fired former State Oil and Gas Supervisor Elena Miller in 2011 after a fervent campaign by local executives and pressure by politicians including Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield.

The main complaint against Miller then was the same as it is now against state regulators: Greater scrutiny and a lack of urgency on the state's part mean it takes longer for oil producers to get a permit that can sustain local jobs and support local tax revenues.

The head of Bakersfield-based oil producer Aera Energy LLC spotlighted the issue Nov. 10 during his keynote speech at this month's Kern County Energy Summit.

QUIET SLOWDOWN

President and CEO Erik Bartsch clicked to show a slide titled "California Permitting Slowdown." It charted big jumps in the number of days the state has taken in recent years to approve underground injection permits and well stimulation projects like fracking, the controversial well-finishing technique also known as hydraulic fracturing.

His point was that Newsom is quietly attacking California's oil supply.

"The phase-out is happening today with no public debate," said the head of Aera, whose state permit denials for frack jobs in western Kern are the subject of a lawsuit pending in Kern County Superior Court.

STATE RESPONSE

The state's primary oil regulator, when presented with industry summaries showing the permitting declines, pointed to the Newsom administration's reprioritization of public health and safety in oil field project reviews, and what it called the most rigorous oversight process in the country.

The California Geologic Energy Management Division pointed to several initiatives ensuring more thorough reviews of oil field operators' permit requests, as well as an in-depth review of the state's permitting process. It acknowledged that additional work has taken time.

It noted a recent audit of the state's permitting review process, CalGEM's introduction of federal scientific reviews of fracking project applications and new regulations on injection work. It also called attention to a moratorium the Newsom administration imposed on certain high-pressure steam injection jobs after a large oil leak near McKittrick.

COURT TWIST

A twist recently arose when a judge ruled against Kern's attempts to institute an over-the-counter permitting process for oil and gas operations. The ruling has, at least temporarily, returned CalGEM to being the lead agency in California environmental reviews of oil field projects.

The agency said in an email its staff will "rigorously review every permit request in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act."

"This action allows operators to move forward with more than 200 upcoming plugging operations to permanently seal old wells which are no longer in use," CalGEM stated.

INDUSTRY VIEW

The CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association trade group, Rock Zierman, said the state is fully empowered by the court to permit wells that have already gone through the county process prior to Oct. 6. But he said the agency insists on giving only conditional approval to new wells until the county's permitting case is resolved.

A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association trade group said the Newsom administration is making it difficult for oil producers to get the permits they need to produce affordable, reliable energy for the state. He questioned why it's happening at a time President Joe Biden is calling on Russia and OPEC to increase oil production to help lower global fuel prices.

Santa Clarita-based California Resources Corp., responding to questions about the pace of state oil permitting, voiced no complaints as it pursues conventional projects, not involving well stimulation, and "works constructively with state agencies to secure the permitting required to safely produce stable, affordable low-carbon fuel for Californians."

CHEVRON'S COMMENTS

Chevron Corp., when asked the same questions, noted California produces just 30 percent of the oil it consumes and that, as an energy island, in-state production contributes to energy reliability and security.

The company said policies that restrict supply only shift energy production, along with high-paying jobs and tax revenue, to places with lower regulatory standards. It said it supports predictable, consistent permitting that promotes safe, responsible developing of oil and gas resources.

"We need permitting predictability and consistency to build and execute our business plans," a Chevron spokesman wrote in an email.

Did California issue its last fracking permit? Let’s hope so

The sun sets over an oil field near the Kern County community of McKittrick. California regulators this year began denying fracking permits on the grounds of climate change.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

BY THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD

DEC. 17, 2021 

There’s been a welcome development in California’s fight against climate change: Regulators are saying no to the oil industry.

Earlier this year, state oil and gas regulators quietly began denying hydraulic fracturing permits on climate change grounds, without waiting to finish regulations to ban fracking by 2024 that Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered. Since July, the state Geologic Energy Management Division has denied 109 permits sought by oil companies to use hydraulic fracturing or other well stimulation methods, and in 50 of those cases has cited the impacts on the climate and public health.

California has not granted a fracking permit since February. So if the streak of denials continues, it’s possible that will be the last one ever issued.

Let’s hope so. California needs this kind of decisive action, and more of it, to help slow the heating of the planet and do right by the communities near drilling operations, which are disproportionately Black and Latino, and have suffered the health impacts for far too long.


Dec. 12, 2021

In one letter to Aera Energy, State Oil and Gas Supervisor Uduak-Joe Ntuk put the permit denials in the context of deadly heat waves, devastating wildfires, intensifying drought and the need to rapidly decrease fossil fuel extraction to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Given the increasingly urgent climate effects of fossil-fuel production, the continuing impacts of climate change and hydraulic fracturing on public health and natural resources,” Ntuk wrote, he “could not in good conscience” grant the company the permits it sought.

A California law that took effect in 2014 requires additional review and permitting for hydraulic fracturing, which involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals underground at high pressure. But the state had never actually denied a fracking permit until last year.

The denials have prompted lawsuits, including one filed in Kern County Superior Court by the Western States Petroleum Assn., which calls it a “de facto moratorium” on well stimulation permits and says the applications were improperly denied. But as regulators point out, state law gives them discretion over fracking permits and they are not obligated to approve them.

What oil interests really fear is the end of oil and gas production and the elimination of their industry in the state.


OPINION
Editorial: Why a fossilized gas station is the perfect symbol for California’s climate fight
Nov. 23, 2021

But the science is clear: To avert catastrophic climate change we must phase out the extraction and burning of fossil fuels and shift rapidly to emissions-free energy sources. These permit denials affect a small amount of California’s overall oil production, only 2% of which involved hydraulic fracturing in 2020, and the extraction method is almost exclusively limited to Kern County, according to state officials. Nonetheless, it’s encouraging to see the Newsom administration use permitting as a tool to keep more oil in the ground.

So what’s stopping his administration from going further and turning down more oil industry permits because of the threats to the climate and our health? The state has issued 517 new oil and gas drilling permits since February, projects that will also increase pollution and heat the planet.

Officials argue that broadly rejecting drilling permits and stopping so much production at once would be too big of a jolt to the state’s still overwhelmingly fossil-fueled economy. Though Newsom’s administration is evaluating how to end oil extraction by 2045, in-state production still accounts for about one-third of California’s oil supply. So for now, regulators are targeting fracking, which is one of the most intense types of extraction, and drilling operations close to homes and schools.

Newsom has had a somewhat confusing evolution on the issue. In 2019 he fired the state’s top oil industry regulator for issuing too many fracking permits, then his administration stopped granting them while conducting scientific reviews, only to start again. Last year Newsom asked state legislators to send him a bill to ban fracking, insisting that he lacked the executive authority. But after legislative efforts failed, he announced in April that his administration would move forward with regulations to ban fracking by 2024. His administration is also now developing rules to prohibit new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools and healthcare facilities, measures that are also moving forward administratively after legislation died amid opposition from the oil industry and its allies in organized labor.

Newsom is right to forge ahead when state lawmakers will not act to protect public health and the planet. California is still not doing nearly enough, but at least the governor seems to be waking up to the idea that even relatively small actions, like saying no to oil companies, cannot wait.

UK

Economists to vote on strike action after below-inflation pay offer

NIESR’s management offered an increase worth 2% while latest data shows cost of living is up 5.1%

The institute is among the country’s pre-eminent forecasters of inflation, and it forecast average pay growth across the economy next year of 4.5%. 

Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA


Richard Partington

Economics correspondent
THE GUARDIAN
Wed 15 Dec 2021 

Asking workers to stomach a below-inflation pay rise is never popular. Asking them to do so when their day job is forecasting the cost of living is really asking for trouble.

And so it has proved at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. A strike ballot opened on Wednesday for members of the Unite union after the NIESR’s management offered a basic pay deal worth 2%. It comes after wages were frozen last year.

With the latest official data showing the cost of living was up by 5.1% in year to November, the union is confident its members will vote to shut down their computers and stop working on their spreadsheets.

Staff at the institute, founded in 1938 by a group of leading social and economic reformers including John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge, are among the country’s pre-eminent forecasters of inflation, and have forecast average pay growth across the economy next year of 4.5%.

Now 21 Unite members, representing about half the total workforce, where average pay for economists and social researchers is between £22,000 and £41,000, predict a high probability of strike action outside the institute’s bookish Westminster offices.

The ballot will close on 7 January. Any action to down tools could affect research contracts which the NIESR has with other organisations, and its forecasts for the UK and global economies, which have been published quarterly since the 1980s.

It comes amid signs of growing unrest among workers as soaring energy costs and disruption to global supply chains pushes up living costs at the fastest rate for more than a decade, leading employees to push for higher pay in wider sectors of the economy than where there are immediately obvious pressure points.

The institute has promised staff a 0.6% rise above the 2% settlement backdated to September – if its financial performance improves between now and the end of March, while benefits such as extra holidays have been awarded.

Meanwhile, the economists’ own forecasts suggest Britain’s current inflationary burst is likely to prove temporary. According to their latest estimates, a “wage-price spiral” is especially unlikely, following a reduction in trade union power in recent decades.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said the union was still ready to fight for a better pay deal.

“It’s astonishing that management are trying to fool economists by claiming they can’t afford to pay staff more. The workers play an important part in our national life and they have my full support,” she said.

A spokesperson for the NIESR said the pay offer was in-line with other similar organisations and came after a difficult year when the focus was on securing jobs without the need for government support.

“We have also committed, should the situation improve, to increasing our financial offer. We are therefore disappointed that strike action is now being considered by Unite, especially since we have been actively working with them in an attempt to resolve the situation.”