ecowatchorg:

“It is inconsistent with BLM’s position as a public agency and steward of our public resources that it continues to put up such a fight to withhold information about the corporations interested in extracting public resources.”

More fracking shenanigans from the Obama admin. National parks and public lands, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, are slated to be aggressively fracked for short-term gain. And the BLM’s policies aim to hide information from the public.

rtamerica:

The federal government has proposed a new set of national fracking rules that would weaken disclosure requirements. The proposal allows ‘trade secrets’ to remain unknown from the public, which has distressed environmental groups.

I called it. Last month, environmental groups were doing handstands and backflips over Sally Jewell, who is Obama’s pick to lead the BLM (US Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management).

She used to frack wells for Mobil oil company long before she was CEO of REI.

Last month, I wrote:

…the bigger story is about the left’s environmental heroine, Sally Jewell, who used to frack wells. As new head of the Dept. of Interior, she will (with Obama’s encouragement) - will - allow aggressive fracking on more public lands, possibly much more in our National Parks.

laboratoryequipment:

A new study by scientists at Duke Univ. and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found no evidence of groundwater contamination from shale gas production in Arkansas.

“Our results show no discernible impairment of groundwater quality in areas associated with natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in this region,” says Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

Read more: laboratoryequipment.com

Evidence is piling up against enviros, who really need a long-term strategy. Hit and run activism is failing.

The United States has double the amount of oil and three times the amount of natural gas than previously thought stored deep under the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, according to new data the Obama administration released Tuesday.

In announcing the new data in a conference call, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell also said the administration will release within weeks draft rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing, technology that has come under scrutiny for its environmental impact but that is essential to developing all of this energy.

“These world-class formations contain even more energy-resource potential than previously understood, which is important information as we continue to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign sources of oil,” Jewell said in a statement.

This article is circulating among the anti-peak oil crowds. To me, the bigger story is about the left’s environmental heroine, Sally Jewell, who used to frack wells. As new head of the Dept. of Interior, she will (with Obama’s encouragement) - will - allow aggressive fracking on more public lands, possibly much more in our National Parks. To forgiving environmentalists, she’s Obama’s replacement for the DOI and former CEO of REI.

For legal peeps - an interesting regulatory takings theory in play against Gov. Cuomo! Fun stuff.

Guests:

• Tom Zeller @tomzellerjr (New York , NY) Huffington Post Senior Writer
• Bjørn Lomborg (New York, NY) Author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center
• Adrianna Quintero (New York, NY) Founder of Latino Advocacy Program ”La Onda Verde” at the National Resources Defense Council
• Michael Levi @levi_m (New York, NY) Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council on Foreign Relations, Author of ‘The Power Surge’
• Dr. Michael Mann @MichaelEMann (State College, PA) Director of Penn State Earth System Science Center; Author of ‘The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars’
• Naomi Davis @NaomiDavisBIG (Chicago, IL) President & Founder of Blacks In Green

Mostly ghg discussion.

You’re probably wondering: Why is there a “weekly list” of oil spills? That’s because tens of thousands of gallons of petro-chemicals are spilled each month in the US. And the Federal Government requires oil manufacturers to voluntarily report, contain, monitor, and clean-up spills and accidents.

The key word there is “voluntary.” Fines for oil spills are minimal, often challenged in court, and are difficult to enforce. This is because, basically, the oil and gas industry helped write the reporting and clean-up rules for oil, gas, and chemical spills, but I’ll leave that background for another post.

Oil and gas spills are listed in various databases online. Two of the most popular databases are the National Response Center and the United Steel Workers (USW) union website. The USW database compiles a weekly list of spills from various sources such as the media, Dept. of Energy, the NRC above, and individual state databases.

You may have heard about last week’s 20,000 gallon oil-pipeline spill in Texas (video). The pipeline, owned by Sunoco, cracked and 550+ barrels of raw oil leaked into a river. It is unclear if any fines will be issued, nor is it clear what damage the spill will do to the environment (the spill site is off limits to the press and the public).

20,000 gallons may sound like a big spill, but it’s not. In fact, it’s just one of about 100 spills that occur each and every month in the United States.

Oil, gas, and chemical spills and fires occur in the United States week after week, month after month, for years and years. Here’s a sampling* from just last week:

Shell Reports Fire at Its 329,800 b/d Deer Park, Texas Refinery
Shell Oil Co. reported that operators had quickly isolated and contained a fire in a single, unspecified unit at its DeerPark refinery Tuesday morning. No injuries or offsite impacts were reported.

Pressure Safety Valve Malfunction Causes Butanes Emissions at Citgo’s 163,000 b/d Corpus Christi, Texas Refinery
Citgo Petroleum Corp. reported a pressure safety valve (PSV) at the East Plant Terminal of its Corpus Christi refinery opened and released Butanes to the atmosphere Thursday morning, according to a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Operators isolated the line connected to the PSV and were investigating the cause of the malfunction.

Tesoro Restarts Hydrocracker after Pipeline Repairs at Its 166,000 b/d Martinez, California Refinery
Tesoro Corp. was restarting a hydrocracker at its Golden Eagle refinery in Martinez today after replacing equipment.
Operators shut the hydrocracker on February 2 after discovering a hole in a line.

Amine System Upset Triggers Flaring at Marathon’s 490,000 b/d Garyville, Louisiana Refinery
Marathon Petroleum Corp. reported liquid hydrocarbon got into the amine system at its Garyville refinery Thursday, and in order to minimize further upset in the system, operators removed the hydrocarbon by routing it to the flare, according to a filing with the U.S. National Response Center.

Phillips 66 Reports Fire at Its 139,000 b/d Wilmington, California Refinery
Phillips 66 reported a flaring event at its Wilmington refinery Thursday, according to a filing with the California Emergency Management Agency. Operators were investigating the incident, which caused more than 500 pounds of sulfur dioxide to release to the atmosphere.

You can read hundreds of weekly reports via USW.

*Note, you’ll see the words “flaring” and “emissions” a lot in these reports. Emissions is code for spills, leaks, or fires. There are two types of “Flaring events.” Flaring events are not the same as regular manufacturing flares. The first type is when unrefined (e.g., raw or dirty) oil or gas is burned in an accidental fire. Sometimes pipelines or refineries catch fire or explode on accident, causing fuel to burn in the open air. The second type of flaringevent occurs when a refiner cannot stop the leak right away. This is an interesting loophole in the emissions law. When there is a spill onto land or into a water body, the manufacturer has the option to divert the fuel and simply burn it into the air. Manufacturers are generally (there are exceptions) not responsible for pollution from flaring events. Burning the fuel avoids expensive land and water clean-up, and the government allows this to happen without additional permits or strict monitoring. It’s a temporary solution for the manufacturer, but is still terrible for the environment. This type of flaring dumps incredibly dangerous chemicals and particulates into the air, for which the manufacturer is (generally) not responsible.

Gas drillers were caught lying to public officials. About 66% of the signatures were falsified. Company blames a PR firm, which, it seems, specializes in fudging petitions.

The drillers used the petition to lobby a local government in Colorado to pass fracking laws. Shit is fracked up and bullshit.

Pro-fracking petition with fake signatures embarrasses gas association

A full two-thirds of those denied signing or endorsing a petition opposing a ban on fracking in Fort Collins. Not only was the petition a big fat lie, it was a laughably amateur effort to deceive the city’s lawmakers. From the Coloradoan:

Cali Rastrelli’s name is signed at the bottom of a petition submitted to the council. At the top, the petition says in bold letters, “Vote NO on the Fort Collins fracking ban.”

“Big Bill Pizza” is written in the blank where the signer could enter their business or organization.

“I haven’t signed any petition in the last month,” said Rastrelli, a Colorado State University student who lives in student housing. “I didn’t put my name on this.”

By the end of last week, the association was acknowledging that “mistakes were made.” A subsequent internal audit “identified numerous areas for improvement.” Now association officials are trying to retract the petition. And they are failing.

More at Grist

North Carolina politician Buck Newton is bent on submitting to oil and gas companies. Local media has soured on the Republican, yet NC residents remain silent. The bill (in part) exempts oil and gas frackers from regular permitting procedures, such as avoiding pollution monitoring. Faster drill permits means faster fracking development for the state. (I also note that Duke Energy, which contributed to Buck Newton’s campaign, is lobbying to raise electricity rates. In other words, drillers want free money from two sources - free gas from drilling, and free money from residents’ electric bills. Clever.).

North Carolina hopes recent legislation introduced into its general assembly will send a “very clear signal” to oil and gas companies that the state wants shale gas exploration in the state, a state representative told Rigzone in an interview Monday.

State Sen. E.S. “Buck” Newton, the sponsor of Senate Bill (SB) 76, the Domestic Energy Jobs Act, told Rigzone that, while the ban on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has been lifted, the state hopes to provide certainty to the energy industry by fixing a specific date in which permits for shale gas drilling can be pulled.

Newton, who represents Johnston, Nash and Wilson counties in eastern North Carolina, introduced the bill last week. SB 76, which would authorize the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources to issue permits for oil and gas exploration and production, including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, on or after March 1, 2015.

North Carolina officials hope to send a signal in two ways – one, that the legislature is very serious about pursuing shale exploration, and two, that the state is working “with all deliberate and purposeful speed” to get itself ready to issue permits.

Early indicators show North Carolina to have shale gas reserves that may be on the order of the Fayetteville play in Arkansas, with approximately 1.4 million surface acres with shale deposits of an average thickness of 200 feet. North Carolina has three basins with shale potential. The Deep River Basin, the one that is most talked about, has wet gas reserves.

Via Rigzone