Tag Archives: petroleum

John Hickenlooper has a curious connection to a Trump Cabinet secretary

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper’s ties to the oil and gas industry run deep, especially when compared to those of other candidates in the unwieldy 2020 Democratic field. In some ways, given that Hickenlooper served two terms in the fifth-largest oil-and-gas-producing state, these connections are not surprising. But what may be less apparent is that his government service also intersected with David Bernhardt, the new secretary of the Interior responsible for opening public lands to industry development. Hickenlooper has also often ended up aligned with Bernhardt’s former law and lobbying firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, on matters regarding fracking, the use of public lands, and support for the oil and gas industry over the interests of consumers.

Any governor of Colorado, no matter what party, would inevitably come into contact with the firm, which represents dozens of clients across the energy sector alone. His own chief of staff, Doug Friednash, came from Brownstein in 2015, only to return to it again before the governor’s tenure ended last year. Hickenlooper has been dubbed “Frackenlooper” by critics who claim he’s prioritized major oil and gas development at the expense of citizen activism.

Brownstein is one of the most profitable lobbying firms in the country, and its influence naturally extends into Colorado government as well. According to the Denver alt-weekly Westword, “When there’s a hot political issue in Colorado, the Brownstein firm usually has a seat at the table … and sometimes more than one.”

Now, internal emails reveal how the law firm enjoyed a seat at the table very close to the governor’s. They show how Brownstein became a conduit for the relationship between Hickenlooper’s administration and one of its most prominent Colorado clients, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA), an industry group that led the way in trying to thwart local attempts to restrict fracking. In this matter, pitting local communities against the fossil fuel industry, Bernhardt, who was the chair of Brownstein’s natural resources division, and Hickenlooper’s administration repeatedly fought on the same side to clear hurdles to drilling.

In 2012 and 2013, two Colorado towns, Longmont and Fort Collins, had placed a moratorium on fracking development. The communities, worried about potential groundwater contamination, argued that municipalities should have the right to reject Colorado’s fracking expansion, setting up a face-off with the considerably more lax Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, whose appointments by the governor often include regulators with extensive energy sector connections.

Hickenlooper’s administration sued Longmont and Fort Collins for preempting state law, and, on behalf of COGA, Brownstein sued them in a case that worked its way all the way up to the state Supreme Court. Before becoming Ryan Zinke’s deputy at the Department of the Interior, Bernhardt was the energy and natural resources chair at the firm with broad responsibilities and a long list of his own clients in the oil sector. In 2016, the state Supreme Court struck down the bans in Longmont and Fort Collins, setting a precedent statewide and providing a big win for Brownstein, Hickenlooper, and COGA.

“We appreciate the Supreme Court’s guidance on balancing private property rights and local government jurisdiction of oil and gas operations in Colorado,” Hickenlooper said in a celebratory statement that struck his usual theme of working with industry, not against it. “We’ll continue to work creatively and energetically with communities and industry to ensure our world-class environment is protected while remaining a place that is welcoming to business and jobs.”

It is unclear how direct a role Bernhardt played in the industry’s fight as chair of the natural resources division, and the matter doesn’t appear on the listed conflicts of interest in his ethics disclosure. But he was front and center celebrating his firm’s victory in a May 2016 press release issued from the firm: “This case involved precedent-setting issues pertaining to state preemption of oil and gas activities,” Bernhardt said in a statement commending his employee, whose “knowledge of energy and land use law were on exceptional display in front of the Supreme Court, showing the depth and breadth of our team.”

A few months after the 2016 state Supreme Court win, environmental activists were gathering signatures for a pair of ballot initiatives, Nos. 75 and 78, that would have given municipalities the power to ban fracking and force fracking operations to be located 2,500 feet from occupied buildings. COGA objected to the efforts and sought a series of meetings, including getting oil and gas executives on the “governor’s dance card” to plot a strategy to defeat or at least undermine the initiatives, according to emails obtained through state requests by the watchdog group Documented and shared with Mother Jones.

The ballot initiatives barely gathered support, and neither one cleared the threshold for enough valid signatures to make the 2016 cycle. Activists tried again in 2018 with Proposition 112, a state initiative that would have required the sites for new oil and gas wells to be located more than 2,500 feet away from any occupied building — schools, homes, and sensitive areas — because of health concerns. Once more, Hickenlooper was on the side of COGA and opposed Proposition 112, arguing that the measure would impose excessive burdens on the economy and state budget. Both the governor and COGA pointed to the estimate that 85 percent of non-federal lands would be off the table. The industry contributed $38 million to help defeat it and back a different initiative, which also failed.

Nonetheless, before leaving office in 2018, the state commission struck a compromise ahead of a newly elected Democratic wave, unanimously approving a more narrow order setting new fracking operations back 1,000 feet from schools.

Now Hickenlooper is on the campaign trail, Bernhardt is running the Department of the Interior, and COGA is working with the Colorado arm of the American Petroleum Institute in its next fight: preventing the new Democratic majority in Colorado from passing a law to give local entities more power to curb fracking. Tracee Bentley, Hickenlooper’s legislative director at the time, started the American Petroleum Institute’s Colorado arm in 2015 and is working on the side of oil and gas on this effort.

Last year, Bentley hosted an American Petroleum Institute roundtable in which she sounded the alarm about citizen efforts to rein in the oil industry and praised compromise in terms that Hickenlooper now echoes on the campaign trail. “I know that the key to our success is collaboration,” she said in a statement, “and we will continue to work hand-in-hand with government partners, communities and stakeholders alike to ensure that our shared future betters the lives of all Coloradans.”

Appearing on the same panel was then-deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

Visit site:  

John Hickenlooper has a curious connection to a Trump Cabinet secretary

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on John Hickenlooper has a curious connection to a Trump Cabinet secretary

L.A.’s promise to join the Paris Agreement is a wee bit presumptuous.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority mentioned the leak in an annual report on offshore exploration but revealed no details about who operated the well.

That information came to light on Friday, when Woodside Petroleum — Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, owned by Royal Dutch Shell — admitted to owning the well on the North West Shelf of the country. The leak began in April 2016 and lasted about two months. All told, it spilled nearly 2,800 gallons of oil into the ocean.

Woodside gave a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Company claiming the spill caused no damage: “Due to the composition of the fluid, small quantity released, water depth at release site, and distance from environmentally sensitive areas, there was no lasting impact to the environment.”

Offshore oil safety expert Andrew Hopkins told the Guardian that the Australian regulator’s failure to identify who was responsible for the spill is concerning, as it spares reckless firms from justice via “naming and shaming.”

“Companies that know they will be named in the case of an incident like this,” Hopkins said, “are going to be less likely to do it.”

Originally posted here: 

L.A.’s promise to join the Paris Agreement is a wee bit presumptuous.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, Jason, LAI, LG, ONA, Ringer, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on L.A.’s promise to join the Paris Agreement is a wee bit presumptuous.

Apple doesn’t want you to be able to fix your own phone.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority mentioned the leak in an annual report on offshore exploration but revealed no details about who operated the well.

That information came to light on Friday, when Woodside Petroleum — Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, owned by Royal Dutch Shell — admitted to owning the well on the North West Shelf of the country. The leak began in April 2016 and lasted about two months. All told, it spilled nearly 2,800 gallons of oil into the ocean.

Woodside gave a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Company claiming the spill caused no damage: “Due to the composition of the fluid, small quantity released, water depth at release site, and distance from environmentally sensitive areas, there was no lasting impact to the environment.”

Offshore oil safety expert Andrew Hopkins told the Guardian that the Australian regulator’s failure to identify who was responsible for the spill is concerning, as it spares reckless firms from justice via “naming and shaming.”

“Companies that know they will be named in the case of an incident like this,” Hopkins said, “are going to be less likely to do it.”

Continue reading: 

Apple doesn’t want you to be able to fix your own phone.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, Jason, LAI, LG, ONA, Ringer, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Apple doesn’t want you to be able to fix your own phone.

10 Products You Won’t Believe Are Derived From Petroleum

Most of us associate petroleum products with transportationgas for your car, jet fuel, etc. However, only 19.4 gallons out of a 42-gallon barrel is used to create gasoline.

Sowhat’s the rest used for?

The History of Petroleum Products

Back in 1872, a chemist named Robert Chesebrough came up with a method for extracting a waxy balm from the oily residue leftover in oil wells. What is that substance called today? Vaseline. Then a few years later, in 1913, the sister of a man named Thomas Williamsstartedadding in darkening agents to make a deeply coloredgel out of the stuff. They called their companyMaybelline.

Get where this is going?

Very soon, hundreds of other petroleum-derived products were making their wayinto the marketplace in the form of candles, sealing waxes, ammonia and even candy gum!

Are Petroleum Products Eco-Friendly or Safe?

Now isn’t this the million dollar question.

Many of us work hard to reduce oil demand by cuttingdown on our use of fossil fuels, limiting how often we drive, taking public transportation and trying to do away with plastics. The problem is, oil-derived products have infiltrated much more than just transportation.

Petroleum jelly, for example, is a byproduct of the oil drilling and refining process. It’s a result of one of the most environmentally degrading processes on earth!

There is also the question of safety.

While the beauty industry claims it removes all of the harmful components from its petroleum-based products,researchers are still findingdangersthatputs many people on the fence.

Petroleum products like mineral oil cannot be metabolized (which means once it ends up in your body it will never leave), and some studies suggest theymay be carcinogenic. No thank you!

Worried about your beauty products? Check your labels to see if any of these are present:

Mineral oil
Petrolatum
Liquid paraffin
Paraffin oil

10 Products You Won’t Believe are Derived from Petroleum

1. Chewing Gum

Sorry friends, it’s true! The soft, chewy quality of chewing gum comes from an oil-derived base that includes waxes, petroleum, stearic acid, glycerin, lanolin and otheringredients all housed under the ingredient “gum base.” Gross!

2. Pantyhose

Tights, nylons,pantyhose. These little tights are made from nylon, a textile fiber that is actually a petroleum-derived thermoplastic.

3.Cosmetics

Many cosmetic products like lipsticks and lotions are made with petroleum derivatives. Paraffin wax, for example, is used to help tube lipsticks keep their shape and then go on smooth. It might be time to replace that lipstick, considering how much product a woman swallows over the course of her life.

4.Non-Stick Coating

That Teflon-coated pan you love so much is actually made from a combination of chemicals called PFCs or perfluorinated chemicals which arepetro-derived. These are lipophobic and carcinogenic, and have been linked to many diseases like cancer and liver damage. Gross! Need a replacement? Go for cast iron!

5. Crayons

Every single crayon found in that Crayola box was made from paraffin wax, a solid that comes straight from petroleum. Paraffin wax is also used to make candles, add a shiny coating to apples or make chocolate look glossy. Not great.

Related: 7 Candles That Won’t Give You Cancer

6. Synthetic Fabrics

Most wrinkle-resistant clothing items are made from polyestera substance that gets its origin at the oil refinery. However, in this case it’s not all bad. Polyester fabrics can be easily recycled to produce new, high quality polyester fibers.

7. Aspirin

Aspirin is easily one of the most reliable medications discovered over the past few decades. And its uses are widespread! Most aspirin manufacturing today begins with benzene, a hydrocarbon that is usually derived from petroleum. Looking for a natural alternative? Try white willow bark.

8. Sports Equipment

Golf balls, basketballs, tennis racks and skis are all made with petroleum in some form or another.

9. Dentures

Modern denturesare dyed with carbon-based pigments that are manufactured using coal and petroleum resources. Want to avoid getting a fake set colored by fossil fuels? Try flossing instead.

10. Toothpaste

Toothpaste makes use of more oil-based ingredients than just about any other product. Poloxamer 407, for example, is a substance that helps oil-based ingredients to be dissolved in water.

Toothpaste manufacturers also toss in a number of dyes made from petroleum: D&C Yellow #10, DYC Red #30, and FD&C Blue #1. Red 40 is also a big one. All the more reason to start making your own!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Continued here:  

10 Products You Won’t Believe Are Derived From Petroleum

Posted in bamboo, Dolphin, eco-friendly, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 10 Products You Won’t Believe Are Derived From Petroleum

John Oliver to oil lobby: You bozos picked the wrong man to plagiarize

Nah

John Oliver to oil lobby: You bozos picked the wrong man to plagiarize

By on Aug 15, 2016Share

Incredulous British person and Last Week Tonight host John Oliver has a new nemesis: the American Petroleum Institute.

Oliver pointed out on Sunday that the lobbying arm of the oil industry aired a commercial during the Rio Olympics that essentially carbon-copied the opening credit sequence of his own show. In response, he aired an imitation of one of API’s more shameless millennial-targeted ads.

A sunny, #relatable actress in Oliver’s version of the ad explains: “Did you know that [API] had research warning them about the link between fossil fuels and climate change as early as 1968? Maybe that’s why their logo looks like it’s being impaled by a polar bear’s dick.”

For the full ad, and more of Oliver’s thoughts on the organization that spent decades and millions of dollars fighting the public acceptance of climate change, watch the clip above.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

Original article:  

John Oliver to oil lobby: You bozos picked the wrong man to plagiarize

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on John Oliver to oil lobby: You bozos picked the wrong man to plagiarize

9 Surprising Things Fungus Can Decompose

Fungus has an amazing ability to decompose organic matter. But it doesnt stop at leaves on the forest floor. Fungi can safely recycle a lot of different human waste and pollution.

How Decomposition Works

In biological terms, organic refers to any material that is made up of molecules containing carbon and hydrogen atoms. All living things are considered organic.

Fungi are able to decompose organic matter by producing specialized enzymes that break the hydrogen-carbon bonds holding it together. The original material is reduced to carbon dioxide gas, water and the mineral forms of nutrients like nitrogen.

You may have seen how compost piles often shrink as they decompose. This is from the release of the carbon dioxide gas and water. Youre typically left with a fine-textured, black, nutrient-rich organic matter that is great for soils and treasured by gardeners.

Unfortunately, the majority of garbage that ends up in landfills is made up of organic matter. If these materials could be composted instead, it would remove a significant amount of the expense and pollution produced by landfills.

What Fungus Can Decompose

1. Paper

This may seem obvious, but its an opportunity thats currently being missed. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, paper waste makes up over 31 percent of landfills. This is by far the largest portion of garbage that goes into landfills.

Fungi can decompose paper products such as cardboard, newspapers, magazines, food packages or even books. Gardening Know How has a great step-by-step process on composting cardboard, which could also be used for most other paper products.

2. Pesticides

Various fungal species have been found to degrade different pesticides, such as DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), which is very persistent in the environment. And long-term exposure to DDT causes the most significant health risks, such as cancer, hormone disruption and neurotoxic effects. A 2011 study was able to reduce the DDT levels in historically contaminated soil by 64 percent.

3. Paint

A 2012 study found that paint sludge can be effectively composted. Researchers added a compost starter culture and additional nutrients to paint sludge that contained melamine formaldehyde resin. These resins are a type of plastic material that make products like laminate counter tops and paints more durable. They can be toxic when released into the environment.

The researchers found the resin was 73-95 percent completely degraded at the end of 147 days. The final paint compost was enriched with nitrogen and other essential plant nutrients from the broken down melamine resin.

4. Glues and Adhesives

Chemical glues and adhesives are another carbon-based material that can be decomposed. A study published in Arid Soil Research and Rehabilitation found that glue waste mixed with rice straw was well composted after 128 days. The researchers suggested it was a cheap and practical way to convert agricultural and industrial waste into a beneficial compost product.

5. Plastics

Plastics are made from petroleum, which is the remains of decomposed microscopic creatures from the oceans of the Mesozoic Era. That means plastics are biologically organic and can be consumed by fungi.

A Yale University study used various strains of fungi to decompose polyester polyurethane, a type of plastic commonly used for clothing. Interestingly, they were able to decompose the material under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Fungi typically work better in well-aerated conditions. The fact they could also work in areas without air circulation is a hopeful sign for dealing with deeply buried landfill waste.

6. Clothing

In addition to decomposing plastic-based fabrics, fungi can also recycle cotton, linen, blue jeans, leather and most other materials used in clothing. These are all made from natural, compostable products.

7. Oil-based Fuels

Gasoline, jet fuel, engine oil and many other fuels and industrial lubricants are made from petroleum. This means theyre fair game for fungi.

Paul Stamets is a mycologist (fungi specialist) committed to finding ways we can use fungi to improve our world. In 1998, he worked with the Washington State Department of Transportation and used mushrooms to detoxify soil from a truck maintenance yard. The yards soil was contaminated with diesel fuel and oil at around 20,000 parts per million (ppm) of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs). This was roughly the same concentration that was measured on the beaches after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.

The researchers inoculated a large pile of contaminated soil with a certain strain of oyster mushrooms. At the end of four weeks, the pile was covered with mushrooms and the soil itself had lost the black stain from the oil and no longer smelled like diesel fuel. After eight weeks, the TPHs had plummeted to 200 ppm.

After nine weeks, young plants started to grow in the same soil. The untouched, contaminated soil on the site remained lifeless, black and foul-smelling. Lab analysis of the mushrooms themselves showed no detectable petroleum residues.

8. Water Contamination

Fungi can also be used to filter water, a process known as mycofiltration. Certain species of fungi are capable of actively seeking out and preying on colonies of bacteria. This includes bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes, which can both cause very serious illnesses when ingested.

Other fungal species have been shown to paralyze and consume parasites like Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria.

In addition, using fungi like these in water treatment and biofiltration systems can help control the toxins produced by large-scale animal farming. For instance, toxic levels of zinc and copper often accumulate in livestock feedlots as a by-product of manure production. A North Carolina study found that the fungus Aspergillus niger removed 91 percent of the copper and 70 percent of the zinc from treated swine effluent.

9. Human Bodies

The Infinity Burial Project, founded by Jae Rhim Lee, is currently developing unique strains of fungus that can safely decompose human tissue. The project will be offering burial suits that are embedded with the fungus. The fungi they are working on will also be able to degrade many of the toxins we collect in our bodies and store throughout our lives.

The developers suggest this will be a more ecologically-friendly form of burial as well as a way to promote greater acceptance of death and decomposition.

Sources:
Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, by Paul Stamets

Related
Cutting Food Waste Would Help Fight Climate Change
11 Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About Your Brain
Permaculture: Landscaping That Works With Nature

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

View original article: 

9 Surprising Things Fungus Can Decompose

Posted in alo, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, organic, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 9 Surprising Things Fungus Can Decompose

This is how much the fossil fuel industry spends to avoid climate regs

This is how much the fossil fuel industry spends to avoid climate regs

By on 7 Apr 2016commentsShare

ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, along with three oil industry trade groups, spend close to an estimated $115 million annually to obstruct policies that would address climate change around the world, according to a report released by Influence Map, a British nonprofit that conducts research on how corporations influence political inaction.

The report shows the American Petroleum Institute as the clear heavyweight spender, followed by ExxonMobil, Shell, the Western States Petroleum Association, and the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association.

Influence Map

But the $27 million Exxon spent, for example, was just a drop in the bucket compared to the company’s annual earnings of $16 billion last year (which technically was a bad year; Exxon earned double that in 2014).

Using guidelines set out by the United Nations on climate lobbying practices, Influence Map combed through lobbying registers, Internal Revenue Service documents, and annual financial reports to find how much these groups devoted to opposing climate policy. The report, which is not peer reviewed, counts spending on lobbying, political contributions, and advocacy in its overall number, but it’s probably an underestimation: It does not include dark money spent on outside organizations.

Still, $115 million is already a lot more than what the other side is spending to push through pro-climate reform. The researchers estimate that climate-advocacy investor groups have spent less than $5 million. But their pro-climate campaign to reform fossil fuel companies from within has picked up momentum all the same. In 2016 alone, oil and gas shareholders have filed 45 resolutions related to climate change, many of them demanding that major energy companies disclose how it will impact their business.

Despite the momentum, the report observes the pro-climate side will need a “significant ramp up in investment and activity” to match Big Oil’s war chest.

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Link – 

This is how much the fossil fuel industry spends to avoid climate regs

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This is how much the fossil fuel industry spends to avoid climate regs

This lobbying shop is so dirty even oil companies want out

This lobbying shop is so dirty even oil companies want out

30 Sep 2014 4:40 PM

Share

Share

This lobbying shop is so dirty even oil companies want out

×

The mass exodus from the lobbying group ALEC (that’s short for the American Legislative Exchange Council) continues, as more companies shy away from its stance on climate change (read: total denial). Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Yahoo all cut ties with the group over the last few months, thanks to a pretty staggering track record on blocking renewable energy initiatives and other kinds of environmental legislation.

So why would Occidental Petroleum, one of the largest U.S.-based international oil companies, also leave ALEC? For its stance on climate change!

According to the National Journal, Occidential sent a letter to its investment managers declaring its intent to quit the group. An ALEC spokesperson denied the move has anything to do with the current anti-ALEC frenzy, but the letter suggests otherwise.

Occidental’s letter notes a concern that it could be “presumed to share the positions” on global warming and regulations to limit air pollution from the nation’s fleet of power plants held by organizations of which the company is a member, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry.

“We do not support all of the positions taken by organizations to which we belong,” Occidental’s associate general counsel, Linda Peterson, wrote.

Oh, the irony: A ginormous oil company doesn’t want to be associated with global warming denial or power plant pollution. Heaven forbid we’d think it doesn’t care about the climate!

But hey, if green is cool even to you, Occidental Petroleum, then by all means: Put your money where your mouth is and leave ALEC in the dust.

Source:
Large Oil Company Bolts From ALEC

, National Journal.

Amid Climate Change Backlash, Even Oil Companies Are Dumping ALEC Now

, Think Progress.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

See original article here: 

This lobbying shop is so dirty even oil companies want out

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, solar, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This lobbying shop is so dirty even oil companies want out

Some Fracking Companies Illegally Use Diesel Fuel, In Violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story originally appeared on ProPublica.

A new report charges that several oil and gas companies have been illegally using diesel fuel in their hydraulic fracturing operations, and then doctoring records to hide violations of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

The report, published this week by the Environmental Integrity Project, found that between 2010 and July 2014 at least 351 wells were fracked by 33 different companies using diesel fuels without a permit. The Integrity Project, an environmental organization based in Washington, DC, said it used the industry-backed database, FracFocus, to identify violations and to determine the records had been retroactively amended by the companies to erase the evidence.

The Safe Drinking Water Act requires drilling companies to obtain permits when they intend to use diesel fuel in their fracking operations. As well, the companies are obligated to notify nearby landowners of their activity, report the chemical and physical characteristics of the fluids used, conduct water quality tests before and after drilling, and test the integrity of well structures to ensure they can withstand high injection pressures. Diesel fuel contains a high concentration of carcinogenic chemicals including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, and they disperse easily in groundwater.

FracFocus is an online registry that allows companies to list the chemicals they use during fracking. At least 10 states, including Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania, mandate the use of the website for such disclosures.

The report asserts that the industry data shows that the companies admitted using diesel without the proper permits. The Integrity Project’s analysis, the report said, then showed that in some 30 percent of those cases, the companies later removed the information about their diesel use from the database.

“What’s problematic is that this is an industry that is self-reporting and self-policing,” said Mary Greene, senior managing attorney for the environmental organization. “There’s no federal or state oversight of filings with FracFocus.”

The FracFocus website currently has no way to track changes to disclosures. The Integrity Project noticed the changes when it compared newer disclosures to those in older FracFocus data purchased from PIVOT Upstream Group, a consulting firm in Houston.

Energy In Depth, the communications and research arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, published a lengthy response to the Integrity Project’s report and criticized it for including diesel use that occurred prior to a 2014 Environmental Protection Agency rule clarifying the types of chemicals considered “diesel fuels.”

Energy In Depth said the Integrity Project was “retroactively changing the definition of diesel fuel in order to malign more operations for engaging in an activity (a “diesel frack”) that did not occur.”

The EPA first listed kerosene as a type of diesel fuel in May 2012 when it released a draft version of the rule finalized this year. Kerosene is also listed as a type of diesel fuel in the definition of the Toxic Substance Control Act, which controls the production, use and disposal of chemicals.

In its response, Energy In Depth also pointed out that in some cases companies may have provided incorrect data to the FracFocus website and were seeking to correct it, not skirt the law.

“We no longer use the contract completions crews that used very small trace amounts of kerosene and a hydrocarbon distillate on five wells more than three years ago,” said John Christiansen, director of external communications at Anadarko Petroleum Corp., one of the companies listed in the report. “Since 2011, there has been no re-occurrence, and we remain in compliance with EPA regulations,” he said in an email to ProPublica.

The report found that six companies had changed disclosures for wells; Pioneer Natural Resources accounted for 62 of the changes. Tadd Owens, vice president of governmental affairs at Pioneer said most of these changes were made because of “coding errors” while submitting data to FracFocus.

“We did use trace amounts of kerosene in 2011 prior to when the EPA issued guidance. The rest of the wells on the list are coding errors and we have an ongoing internal quality control process to identify them,” he said.

For many years fracking industry groups insisted their member companies never used diesel fuels in their operations. Then, in 2011, a congressional investigation found that in fact between 2005 and 2009, 12 companies had injected 32 million gallons of diesel fuel or fracking fluids containing diesel fuel in wells in 19 states.

The industry groups then shifted their argument, declaring that they could not be in violation of federal regulations in their use of diesel fuels because the EPA had never adequately spelled out exactly what exact kinds of fuels were barred.

Indeed, in a 2011 email to ProPublica, Halliburton, a company listed in the congressional investigation as having used 7.2 million gallons of diesel fuel, said it had not violated any laws “because there are currently no requirements in the federal environmental regulations that require a company to obtain a federal permit prior to undertaking a hydraulic fracturing project using diesel.”

The EPA then acted to make its enforcement authority explicit, and earlier this year finalized more detailed regulations governing the use of diesel fuels in fracking operations.

In February 2014, after the EPA released its rule, Lee Fuller, the vice president of government affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, stated that the rule was “a solution in search of a problem.”

“Based on actual industry practices, diesel fuel use has already been effectively phased out of hydraulic fracturing operations,” Fuller said.

Yet energy companies have continued to produce fracking fluids containing diesel fuels. The Environmental Integrity Project’s report identified 14 well fracturing products—commercially called emulsifiers, dispersants, additives and solvents—sold by Halliburton that contain diesel fuels. Halliburton’s own safety data sheets for these products list diesel as a chemical in these products.

“Halliburton is working with state regulators and customers to be sure all FracFocus reports are accurate,” said Emily Mir, a spokeswoman for the company. Mir would not comment on whether Halliburton informs drillers that purchase its products that they are required to obtain a permit before diesel fuel can be used for fracking.

Continue reading: 

Some Fracking Companies Illegally Use Diesel Fuel, In Violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, ProPublica, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Some Fracking Companies Illegally Use Diesel Fuel, In Violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act

Oil companies would rather let trains explode than cooperate with feds

Oil companies would rather let trains explode than cooperate with feds

PHMSA

As federal officials work frantically to reverse an uptick in explosions and oil spills from crude-hauling trains, the companies that are fracking the crude and transporting it by rail are responding with an unhelpful collective shrug.

Lawmakers and regulators want information from the oil companies about their rail shipments. The oil companies initially made helpful-sounding noises and pledged to cooperate. Now, however, it seems they’re more worried about keeping corporate secrets than protecting Americans from their explosive loads. From The Hill:

“Just last month before the Commerce Committee, the crude oil industry assured us they were focused on safety and willing to work on this issue,” [Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.)] said in a statement. “Since then, I’ve seen nothing to convince me this was more than just lip service.”…

Rockefeller said he and other legislators had received assurances from the American Petroleum Institute (API) that the crude industry was on board with the push to increase the safety of oil trains.

But the West Virginia senator said on Monday that Congress was still waiting to see the promised assistance.

Rockefeller’s frustrations mirror those of top rail regulators. As Reuters reported last week:

Cynthia Quarterman, chief of the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, specifically cited the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s top lobbying group, for not keeping its promise to share data about oil-by-rail shipments. …

“More than two months ago, we received assurances from industry that the safe transport of crude oil across the country was a top priority and, to that end, API would begin sharing important testing data,” she said in a statement.

“To date, that data has not been shared.”

The oil industry isn’t keeping its word? We’re shocked, shocked.


Source
Senate Dem: Oil industry paying ‘lip service’ to freight rail safety, The Hill
Oil industry balks at sharing crucial rail data, U.S. regulator says, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

,

Politics

See the original article here: 

Oil companies would rather let trains explode than cooperate with feds

Posted in Anchor, FF, Free Press, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Oil companies would rather let trains explode than cooperate with feds