[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
``WHAT MORE GULF OF MEXICO
OIL AND GAS LEASING MEANS
FOR ACHIEVING U.S. CLIMATE
TARGETS''
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
MINERAL RESOURCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
Thursday, January 20, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-12
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
or
Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-588 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Chair
JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, IL, Vice Chair
GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, CNMI, Vice Chair, Insular Affairs
BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Ranking Member
Grace F. Napolitano, CA Don Young, AK
Jim Costa, CA Louie Gohmert, TX
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Doug Lamborn, CO
CNMI Robert J. Wittman, VA
Jared Huffman, CA Tom McClintock, CA
Alan S. Lowenthal, CA Paul A. Gosar, AZ
Ruben Gallego, AZ Garret Graves, LA
Joe Neguse, CO Jody B. Hice, GA
Mike Levin, CA Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Katie Porter, CA Daniel Webster, FL
Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
Melanie A. Stansbury, NM Russ Fulcher, ID
Nydia M. Velazquez, NY Pete Stauber, MN
Diana DeGette, CO Thomas P. Tiffany, WI
Julia Brownley, CA Jerry L. Carl, AL
Debbie Dingell, MI Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., MT
A. Donald McEachin, VA Blake D. Moore, UT
Darren Soto, FL Yvette Herrell, NM
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU Lauren Boebert, CO
Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, IL Jay Obernolte, CA
Ed Case, HI Cliff Bentz, OR
Betty McCollum, MN
Steve Cohen, TN
Paul Tonko, NY
Rashida Tlaib, MI
Lori Trahan, MA
David Watkins, Staff Director
Luis Urbina, Chief Counsel
Vivian Moeglein, Republican Staff Director
http://naturalresources.house.gov
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES
ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, CA, Chair
PETE STAUBER, MN, Ranking Member
A. Donald McEachin, VA Yvette Herrell, NM
Mike Levin, CA Doug Lamborn, CO
Katie Porter, CA Paul A. Gosar, AZ
Diana DeGette, CO Garret Graves, LA
Betty McCollum, MN Thomas P. Tiffany, WI
Jared Huffman, CA Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio
Debbie Dingell, MI
Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio
------
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Thursday, January 20, 2022....................... 1
Statement of Members:
Lowenthal, Hon. Alan S., a Representative in Congress from
the State of California.................................... 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Stauber, Hon. Pete, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Minnesota......................................... 4
Statement of Witnesses:
Dahl, Kristina, Senior Climate Scientist, Union of Concerned
Scientists, Cambridge, Massachusetts....................... 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
Questions submitted for the record....................... 13
Pugliaresi, Lucian (Lou), President, Energy Policy Research
Foundation, Inc. (EPRINC), Washington, DC.................. 31
Prepared statement of.................................... 32
Questions submitted for the record....................... 43
Sarinsky, Max, Senior Attorney, Institute for Policy
Integrity, New York University School of Law, New York, New
York....................................................... 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 21
Questions submitted for the record....................... 28
Wright, Beverly, Executive Director, Deep South Center for
Environmental Justice, New Orleans, Louisiana.............. 14
Prepared statement of.................................... 16
Questions submitted for the record....................... 19
Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:
Submissions for the Record by Representative Lowenthal
Group of Environmental Organizations and Activists,
Letter dated January 20, 2022 to President Biden and
Secretary Deb Haaland.................................. 65
Our Children's Trust, Letter dated February 3, 2022 to
Chair Lowenthal and Ranking Member Stauber............. 69
Submissions for the Record by Representative Stauber
``Eliminating Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Leasing Will
Hurt U.S. Climate Achievements, Consumer Group Says,''
Article dated January 19, 2022 by Consumer Energy
Alliance............................................... 63
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON ``WHAT MORE GULF OF MEXICO OIL AND GAS LEASING
MEANS FOR ACHIEVING U.S. CLIMATE TARGETS''
----------
Thursday, January 20, 2022
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:06 p.m.,
via WebEx, Hon. Alan S. Lowenthal [Chairman of the
Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Lowenthal, McEachin, Levin,
Porter, McCollum; Stauber, Herrell, Graves, and Tiffany.
Also present: Representative Carl.
Dr. Lowenthal. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral
Resources will come to order.
Good morning, or good afternoon, depending upon where you
are. Welcome to the Subcommittee. We are meeting today to hear
testimony on what additional Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leasing
means for the United States to achieve its climate targets.
Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at
hearings are limited to the Chair and the Ranking Minority
Member, or their designee. This will allow us to hear from our
witnesses sooner and help Members to keep to their schedules.
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that all other Members'
opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they
are submitted to the Clerk by 5 p.m. today, or at the close of
this hearing, whichever comes first.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
Without objection, the Chair may also declare a recess,
subject to the call of the Chair.
Without objection also, the Member from Alabama,
Representative Carl, is authorized to question the witnesses in
today's hearing.
As described in the notice, statements, documents, or
motions must be submitted to the electronic repository at
[email protected].
Additionally, please note that as with in-person meetings,
Members are responsible for their own microphones. As with our
in-person meetings, Members can be muted by staff only to avoid
inadvertent background noise.
Finally, Members or witnesses experiencing technical
problems should inform Committee staff immediately.
With that, I will begin with my opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Dr. Lowenthal. The Earth's 7 hottest years on record have
all occurred since 2015. And 2021 was the ocean's hottest, and
that was for the third year in a row. With a rapidly warming
climate, the Biden administration must chart a course that
leads the world to achieve our emissions reduction goals. And
while the Administration has taken numerous positive steps, and
is moving in the right direction, good is not nearly enough.
At the last Subcommittee hearing in December, we looked at
the climate implications of fossil fuel production on public
lands which was managed by the Department of the Interior.
Today's hearing is an opportunity to look at the offshore lands
in the Gulf of Mexico, where the vast majority of Federal
leasing occurs.
Both Congress and the Biden administration must do more to
ensure that the management of our public waters aligns with the
commitment to reduce emissions 52 percent from 2005 levels by
2030 and to achieve economy-wide net-zero emissions by 2050.
But the November Gulf of Mexico lease sale and the Interior
Department's leasing report demonstrates that the Biden
administration has not yet found the political courage
necessary to confront the realities of climate change. We need
the Administration to act boldly, but they don't have to go it
alone. They have allies in Congress and across the country
ready to help them undertake this challenge of reducing our
emissions.
Federal oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico produces
nearly 20 percent of all carbon dioxide pollution from public
lands and waters each year. The Gulf also spews out about 20
percent of all methane emissions from public lands and waters.
Oil and gas companies have stockpiled over 9 million acres of
non-producing leases off our coastline. Yet, the Biden
administration used the June preliminary injunction as an
excuse to sell off another 1.7 million acres to the oil and gas
industry during a recent lease sale in November.
I strongly disagree with the Department's decision making
around this sale and found it particularly disappointing, given
the extensive commitments to address climate change that were
made in Glasgow at the COP26 Climate Conference. Secretary
Haaland must ensure her Department accurately accounts for the
damage that carbon pollution from leasing causes, and she must
develop a long-term strategy to reduce emissions from all
existing and new leases, starting with the next 5-year leasing
plan due out later this year.
While many of my colleagues and I are passionate supporters
of the Administration, we will continue to push them to follow
the science and use the tools at their disposal to reduce
emissions from America's public lands and waters.
Reducing emissions from fossil fuel production has been an
area of bipartisan agreement on this Subcommittee, and I hope
that we can discuss that shared goal during today's hearing.
Despite some claims otherwise, we know that reducing
emissions from oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will
help reduce overall carbon emissions.
Research shows that, on average, eliminating one barrel of
U.S. oil supply decreases--and I point that out--decreases
global supply by about half a barrel. To put it simply, we can
successfully reduce oil and gas leasing here in the United
States without driving up emissions because of increased
production overseas.
In addition to combating climate change, limiting fossil
fuel leasing and extraction in Federal waters will yield
enormous health benefits for the communities that call the Gulf
Coast region home.
For too long, the Gulf Coast has been treated as a
sacrifice zone. The fossil fuel industry has been allowed to
contaminate the water and air, causing disease and
disproportionately high cancer rates. Gulf Coast communities
are also on the front lines of climate change and sea level
rise, erosion, flooding, and more powerful storms will continue
to wreak havoc unless and until we reduce our emissions.
And we must reduce our emissions. Failure to do so will
spell disaster for our climate and those Americans most
impacted by the fossil fuel industry's toxic pollution.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lowenthal follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Alan S. Lowenthal, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California
The Earth's seven hottest years on record have all occurred since
2015, and 2021 was the ocean's hottest for the third year in a row.
With a rapidly warming climate, the Biden administration must chart
a course that leads the world to achieve our emission reduction goals.
And while the administration has taken numerous positive steps and
is moving in the right direction, good is not nearly enough.
At the last Subcommittee hearing in December, we looked at the
climate implications of fossil fuel production on public lands managed
by the Department of the Interior.
Today's hearing is an opportunity to look offshore to the Gulf of
Mexico, where the vast majority of federal leasing occurs.
Both Congress and the Biden administration must do more to ensure
that the management of our public waters aligns with the commitment to
reduce emissions 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve
economy-wide net-zero emissions by 2050.
But the November Gulf of Mexico lease sale and the Interior
Department's leasing report demonstrates that the Biden administration
has not yet found the political courage necessary to confront the
realities of climate change.
We need the administration to act boldly, but they don't have to go
it alone. They have allies in Congress and across the county ready to
help them undertake this challenge of reducing our emissions.
Federal oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico produces nearly
20 percent of all carbon dioxide pollution from public lands and waters
each year. The Gulf also spews out about 20 percent of all methane
emissions from public lands and waters.
Oil and gas companies have stockpiled over 9 million acres of non-
producing leases off our coastlines. And yet the Biden administration
used the June preliminary injunction as an excuse to sell off another
1.7 million acres to the oil and gas industry during the recent lease
sale in November.
I strongly disagree with the Department's decision-making around
this sale and found it particularly disappointing given the extensive
commitments to addressing climate change that were made in Glasgow at
the COP26 Climate Conference.
Secretary Haaland must ensure her Department accurately accounts
for the damage the carbon pollution from leasing causes. And she must
develop a long-term strategy to reduce emissions from all existing and
new leases, starting with the next 5-year leasing plan due out later
this year.
While many of my colleagues and I are passionate supporters of the
administration, we will continue to push them to follow the science and
use the tools at their disposal to reduce emissions from America's
public lands and waters.
The stakes are just too high for the health of our planet and
future generations for us to maintain the status quo.
Reducing emissions from fossil fuel production has been an area of
bipartisan agreement on this Subcommittee, and I hope that we can
discuss that shared goal during today's hearing.
Despite some claims otherwise, we know that reducing emissions from
oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will help reduce overall
carbon emissions.
Research shows that, on average, eliminating one barrel of U.S. oil
supply decreases global supply by about half a barrel. To put it
simply, we can successfully reduce oil and gas leasing here in the
United States without driving up emissions because of increased
production overseas.
In addition to combating climate change, limiting fossil fuel
leasing and extraction in federal waters will yield enormous health
benefits for the communities that call the Gulf Coast region home.
For too long, the Gulf Coast has been treated as a sacrifice zone.
The fossil fuel industry has been allowed to contaminate the water and
air, causing disease and disproportionally high cancer rates.
Gulf Coast communities are also on the front lines of climate
change, and sea-level rise, erosion, flooding, and more powerful storms
will continue to wreak havoc until we reduce our emissions.
And we must reduce our emissions. Failure to do so will spell
disaster for our climate and those Americans most impacted by the
fossil fuel industry's toxic pollution.
______
Dr. Lowenthal. With that, I look forward to the testimony
of our witnesses, and I now recognize Ranking Member Stauber
for his opening remarks.
Welcome, Ranking Member.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETE STAUBER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Chairman Lowenthal, and thank you
to the witnesses for joining us virtually today.
Before we begin, I want to take a moment to recognize my
good friend and colleague, Chairman Lowenthal, who announced
his retirement since we last had an EMR meeting. Although it
has only been a year since I have been fortunate enough to be
Ranking Member alongside him, I have grown to really appreciate
his demeanor when leading this Committee. Therefore, I
certainly look to Mr. Lowenthal's leadership style as a strong
template in how to conduct Committee business. I couldn't be
happier for Alan and his family. Energy and Mineral Resources
will miss him. But Long Beach, California is fortunate to have
him back full-time.
And with that, I would like to welcome everyone back from a
busy Christmas and holiday season. Apparently, my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle are choosing to pick up right where
we left off, discussing emissions.
Just like previous hearings, the Majority is making an
active choice to include U.S. in the title, and consciously
choosing to ignore a holistic, global view of carbon because
the Majority knows, just as well as we do, that the cleanest
energy in the world is produced in America, whether it be
Federal lands onshore or offshore.
Between 2005 and 2020, the United States decreased its
CO2 emissions by 24 percent, while global emissions
grew by 14 percent. Today, I look forward to joining my
colleagues from the Gulf, Mr. Graves and Mr. Carl, in sharing
the good news about how the oil and gas producers in the Gulf
are leading the charge on reducing emissions.
But just don't take our word for it. Ask President Obama's
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, who, in a 2016 report,
stated U.S. emissions would be higher if BOEM were to have no
lease sales. Emissions from substitutions are higher due to
exploration, development, production, and transportation of oil
from international sources being more carbon intensive.
That is right, Mr. Chair. It is a fact that a barrel of oil
from the Gulf or elsewhere in America is far and away cleaner
than our rival exporters like OPEC, plus Russia, or even
Canada. And President Obama's Interior Department recognized
that. In fact, the Gulf specifically decreased emissions by
more than 8 percent from 2013 to 2019, which coincides with an
unprecedented increase in American oil and gas export and
production.
This fact bears repeating. While America increased oil and
gas production and exports, we decreased our emissions, with
Gulf operators leading the way.
And despite this unprecedented success, President Biden
listened to his radical base and banned oil and gas development
on his very first day in office, contributing to skyrocketing
gas prices and crippling inflation. This was, of course,
illegal, and the courts, like they have a couple of times now
under this Administration, rightfully have mandated lease
sales.
Through gritted teeth, the Interior Department finally
released its ``early summer oil and gas report'' in November
and held its court-mandated lease, the Sale 257 in the Gulf of
Mexico. Lease Sale 257 was a resounding success, generating
roughly $200 million in bonus bids, illustrating a clear market
desire for more Gulf oil and gas.
And we are putting these resources to good use. Homes in my
district, where temperatures have already touched 36 degrees
below zero, rely on the natural gas-powered energy grid for
electricity and natural gas and propane for direct heating to
keep their homes heated and comfortable.
All of this can be derived from our own resource. We can
make sure Minnesotans and the Mississippi headwaters can heat
their homes during sub-zero temperatures with affordable energy
from American resources originating in the Gulf of Mexico at
the south end of the river.
And not only does this lease sale illustrate the continued
demand we have for oil and gas, but this means restoration of
conservation funding. Whether it be bonus bids or royalties,
revenue sharing of oil and gas funds allows for a good chunk of
the money to stay in the Gulf states, focusing on projects like
coastal resiliency, while disseminating the rest throughout the
country.
Do you have a national park in your district, or one that
you care about? Well, then you should support oil and gas
leasing in the Gulf. Much of the royalties goes to fund those
national parks.
So, let's be clear about what we are talking about when we
consider oil and gas development in the Gulf. We are talking
about affordable energy, low emissions, and funding for our
treasured conservation efforts. Therefore, I look forward to
more lease sales. I look forward to producing more American
energy for our homes and businesses. And I look forward to
funding conservation.
Thank you very much, Chairman Lowenthal, and I yield back
to you.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Ranking Member Stauber, for your
opening remarks.
I am wondering, is Ranking Member Westerman on this
Subcommittee hearing? If he is here, would he like to make a
statement?
Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Westerman is not on
the hearing, so there will be no opening statement.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you. Now I will introduce today's
witnesses.
Dr. Kristina Dahl is a Senior Climate Scientist for the
Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned
Scientists.
Dr. Beverly Wright is the Founder and Executive Director of
the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. Dr. Wright is
also an environmental justice scholar, an author, and professor
of sociology.
Dr. Max Sarinsky is a Senior Attorney at the Institute for
Policy Integrity, housed at the New York University School of
Law, where he is also an adjunct professor.
And Mr. Lucian Pugliaresi--I hope I haven't mangled that--
is the President of the Energy Policy Research Foundation.
Let me remind the witnesses that, under our Committee
Rules, they must limit their oral statements to 5 minutes, but
that their entire statement will appear in the hearing record.
When you begin, the timer will start, and it will turn
orange when you have 1 minute remaining. I recommend that
Members and witnesses joining remotely use the stage view so
they may pin the timer on their screen.
After your testimony is complete, please remember to mute
yourself to avoid any inadvertent background noise.
I will also allow the entire panel to testify before
questioning the witnesses.
The Chair now recognizes Dr. Dahl for 5 minutes.
Welcome to the Committee, Dr. Dahl.
STATEMENT OF KRISTINA DAHL, SENIOR CLIMATE SCIENTIST, UNION OF
CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Dr. Dahl. Chairman Lowenthal, Ranking Member Stauber, and
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today about the implications of additional oil and gas
leasing in the Gulf of Mexico. My name is Dr. Kristina Dahl,
and I am a Senior Climate Scientist at the Union of Concerned
Scientists.
I spent the last decade of my career working to understand
how climate change will affect communities across the United
States and how the choices we make today will shape the world
that we ultimately pass along to our children and
grandchildren. The message I would like to communicate to you
today is this: We have precious little time to affect a
wholesale shift in how we power our lives and our economy, if
we wish to avert the most dangerous consequences of climate
change. We are decades late in making that shift, so any
increases in our heat-trapping emissions will make the narrow
chance we have of averting those consequences even slimmer.
The Federal Government can and must align its actions with
what is needed to meet the climate challenge and, therefore,
must not apply business-as-usual thinking to energy-related
decisions, including those relating to leasing Federal lands in
the Gulf of Mexico.
The cumulative result of every energy-related decision for
the last 150 years is that we are now struggling to cope with a
climate that is nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1 degree
Celsius, warmer than it was at the start of the 20th century.
In the United States in 2021 alone, heat waves claimed the
lives of some of the most vulnerable among us. Wildfires
crossed the spine of the Sierra Nevada twice and made the air
we breathe toxic for thousands of miles downwind. Hurricanes
intensified at an unbelievable pace before leaving 1,000-mile-
long trails of destruction. During these and many other
climate-related events in 2021, we watched as infrastructure
built for the climate of our ancestors failed and as people
lost their homes and their lives.
Recognizing that the consequences of climate change would
be devastating with continued warming, in 2015 the United
States and other signatories of the Paris Agreement committed
to pursuing efforts to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The science now tells us
that to have just a 50/50 chance of staying within that limit,
nations around the world can only collectively emit another 500
gigatons of carbon dioxide. That is our collective carbon
budget. At the current global pace of emissions, we are in
danger of exceeding that budget and reaching the 1.5 degree C
mark within the next 10 to 20 years.
To ensure that warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees C, use
of all fossil fuels, including oil and gas, must decline
significantly and quickly. The United States has committed to
reducing fossil fuel use, and such reductions could be at least
partially achieved by expedited passage by Congress of the
Build Back Better Act. Yet, in November 2021, with that package
stalled in Congress, the U.S. Government opened more than 80
million acres of Federal lands in the Gulf of Mexico for oil
and gas leases that could produce up to 1.2 billion barrels of
oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50
years. As a rough estimate, the full combustion of those
products would release an estimated .76 gigatons of carbon
dioxide, equivalent to about 16 percent of the Nation's fossil
fuel emissions for 1 year.
Phasing out our use of fossil fuels is about much more than
securing our climate goals. Spills from drilling equipment in
the Gulf of Mexico have affected the environment and ecosystems
repeatedly and tragically for decades, and Gulf Coast residents
have lost their livelihoods and experienced long-lasting health
problems because of these spills.
Given that climate change is expected to increase the
intensity of hurricanes, and given the prevalence of hurricanes
in the Gulf of Mexico, siting yet more drilling infrastructure
within the Gulf could place additional health burdens on
residents living alongside and suffering from the output of
fossil fuel facilities.
The science is clear, that surpassing the 1.5 degree C
temperature target would be disastrous. Science has also shown
us that that temperature target translates into a specific
carbon budget that, in turn, necessitates sharp reductions in
fossil fuel use and systemic shifts in our energy system. We
must, therefore, assess our energy investments holistically,
not as one-offs, to ensure the smoothest possible transition to
cleaner forms of energy.
With the stakes so high, continuing with lease sales in the
Gulf of Mexico without taking the time to fully interrogate
whether or how the enabled extraction will fit within our
Nation's future is both reckless and irresponsible. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Dahl follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Kristina Dahl, Senior Climate Scientist,
Union of Concerned Scientists
Chairperson Lowenthal, Ranking Member Stauber, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today
about the climate implications of additional oil and gas leasing in the
Gulf of Mexico. My name is Dr. Kristina Dahl, and I am a senior climate
scientist in the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned
Scientists. I have spent the last decade of my career working to
understand how climate change will affect communities across the United
States and how the choices we make today will shape the world that we
ultimately pass along to our children and grandchildren.
The research my colleagues and I at the Union of Concerned
Scientists have done and the research of thousands of dedicated
scientists around the world makes clear that the ability for people,
plants, and animals to thrive now and in the future depends on our
ability to rein in heat-trapping emissions both nationally and
globally. And indeed, future generations will be the inheritors of the
choices we make today.
In my testimony today, I will address the current state of our
climate; the current state of national and global emissions with a
particular eye toward contributions from the oil and gas sector; the
latest science on how emissions will need to decrease globally to limit
dangerous levels of climate change; and the implications of increased
oil and gas production for our climate, our health, the environment in
which we live, and the ecosystems on which we depend.
We have precious little time to effect a wholesale shift in how we
power our lives and our economy if we wish to avert the most dangerous
consequences of climate change. We are decades late in making that
shift, and we now find ourselves in a position where any additional
increases in our heat-trapping emissions will make the narrow chance we
have of averting those consequences even slimmer. The federal
government can and must align its actions with what is needed to meet
the climate challenge and therefore must not apply business-as-usual
thinking to energy-related decisions, including those relating to
leasing federal lands in the Gulf of Mexico.
Climate change is here, and it is a product of human activity
Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) released reports summarizing the state of our
climate that serve as sobering reminders that we have already begun to
live with the effects of climate change and that our society is
underequipped for its consequences. Scientists at these agencies found
that 2021 was the sixth-warmest year on record for the globe, with an
average temperature of 1.5+F (0.84+C) above the 20th-century average,
and that the last eight years have been the eight warmest since
recordkeeping began in 1880.\1\ The anomalously warm years we have
experienced recently are the product of the decades-long warming trend
that has resulted from human emissions from the burning of coal, oil,
and gas.2,3 At present, the average temperature of the Earth
is about 1.8+F (1.0+C) warmer than the 1850-1900 average.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/202113
\2\ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/
IPCC_AR6_WGI_Headline_ Statements.pdf
\3\ https://blog.ucsusa.org/kristy-dahl/new-noaa-data-shows-just-
how-abnormal-our-climate-has-become/
\4\ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/
IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM_final.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The consequences of that warming were felt acutely around the world
in 2021, including here at home in the United States, where 20 extreme
weather and climate-related disasters causing $1 billion or more in
damages cost at least $145 billion last year alone and claimed a record
number of lives--nearly 700.\5\ More than 40% of US residents live in
counties that experienced climate-related disasters in 2021,\6\ and
millions of people experienced the toxic air from wildfires, power
outages resulting from extreme heat or cold, or devastating floods. And
this doesn't even capture the full toll--for example, the hundreds of
deaths from the extreme heatwave in the Pacific Northwest last year are
not included in that total.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/overview
\6\ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/05/
climate-disasters-2021-fires/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The climate extremes we and others around the world have been
experiencing bear the fingerprints of human-caused climate change. The
heat waves that have become more frequent and intense, the hurricanes
that intensify rapidly and dump record-breaking amounts of rain, and
the wildfires of unprecedented scale are all in line with our
expectations of how extreme weather and climate-related events respond
to higher concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere that
result from the burning of fossil fuels.
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s to
today, our collective burning of fossil fuels (primarily coal, oil, and
gas) has emitted 2,390 gigatonnes of CO2 (GtCO2),
with each gigatonne equaling one billion tonnes, or about twice the
mass of all the people on Earth.\7\ The United States alone is
responsible for nearly 25% of all historical emissions \8\ despite
being home to just 4% of the world's population today,\9\ which means
that we bear a disproportionately large responsibility for the
emissions and warming we as a planet have incurred.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Gigatonne#cite_note-1
\8\ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-
historically-responsible-for-climate-change
\9\ https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In terms of annual emissions, the United States was the top
emitter--by far--until the year 2006, when China's annual emissions
began to exceed those of the United States.\10\ While our total annual
emissions are currently about half those of China's,\11\ our per capita
emissions are more than twice those of China.\12\ The burning of oil
and gas for US energy purposes accounted for the vast majority (81%) of
total U.S. emissions in 2019 (the remaining 19% of energy-related
emissions were derived from burning coal).\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57483492
\11\ https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-
emissions
\12\ http://energyatlas.iea.org/#!/tellmap/1378539487/4
\13\ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/energy-and-the-
environment/where-greenhouse-gases-come-from.php
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 2020, production on offshore federal lands amounted to 642
million barrels of oil (16% of all domestic oil production) and 910
million cubic feet of gas (3% of all domestic natural gas
production).\14\ Most of this offshore production takes place in the
Gulf of Mexico.\15\ Notably, however, the area of the Gulf of Mexico
under lease has declined significantly over the last decade and 55% of
leased acreage is non-producing, which indicates that the current
leased acreage should be sufficient to meet demand for years to
come.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/report-on-the-federal-
oil-and-gas-leasing-program-doi-eo-14008.pdf
\15\ https://www.boem.gov/regions/gulf-mexico-ocs-region/oil-and-
gas-gulf-mexico
\16\ http://energyatlas.iea.org/#!/tellmap/1378539487/4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent assessments of the full life cycle of oil, meaning from the
time of production through the refining and transportation stages and
the consumption or burning of that fuel, showed that the pre-
consumption stages (producing, refining, and transportation) are
responsible for between 10% and 30% of the full life cycle
emissions.\17\ Similarly, those pre-consumption stages for gas account
for between 15% and 40% of the fuel's full life cycle emissions.\18\ A
significant portion of the emissions from oil and gas therefore comes
from the consumption of those fuels for transportation, industrial,
residential, and commercial purposes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2018/oil-and-
gas-innovation
\18\ https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1485127
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Swift and deep emissions cuts are needed to limit future warming
Global and national climate assessments along with thousands of
individual scientific studies point to an even more dire future if we
fail to rein in our heat-trapping emissions.
Drawing on the best available science, the global community--
including the United States--pledged in the 2015 Paris Agreement to
``holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below
2+C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the
temperature increase to 1.5+C above pre-industrial levels'' to help
limit the risks and impacts of climate change.\19\ To cap global
warming at any specific level, whether that is 1.5+C, 2+C, or any other
target, we must reach net-zero emissions, meaning that any remaining
emissions of heat-trapping gases are balanced by removals of in the
same amount.\20\ And to stay at or below a specific temperature target,
we must stay within a specific carbon budget. In other words, we can
only emit so much more carbon before we exceed dangerous thresholds of
warming.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/
english_paris_agreement.pdf
\20\ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/
IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On our current trajectory and with the current pledges from nations
party to the Paris Agreement, the planet is on track to warm by at
least 4.3+F (2.4+C) by the end of the century.\21\ As just one example
among myriad examples of what that warming implies for the US, the
number of dangerously hot days across the country is projected to
double between now and midcentury if we are slow to act to reduce
global heat-trapping emissions.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ https://climateactiontracker.org/press/Glasgows-one-degree-
2030-credibility-gap-net-zeros-lip-service-to-climate-action/
\22\ https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ab27cf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The relationship between our cumulative global emissions of
CO2 and global temperature is roughly linear: increased
emissions, resulting in higher concentrations of CO2 in the
atmosphere, translate directly to higher global temperatures.\23\ This
strong relationship allows us to estimate that to have a 50% chance of
limiting future warming to 1.5+C above preindustrial temperatures,
nations around the world can only collectively emit another 500
GtCO2.\24\ Giving ourselves an 85% chance of meeting that
1.5+C goal would mean emitting even less than that--just 300
GtCO2.\25\ Total global CO2 emissions currently
amount to roughly 36 GtCO2 per year (Global Carbon Project
via Carbon Brief), which means that we are in danger of reaching the
1.5+C mark within the next 10 to 20 years.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/
IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
\24\ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/
IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
\25\ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/
IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
\26\ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/
IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staying below the 1.5+C mark--that is, not overshooting it at any
point--requires us to decrease emissions quickly. The best available
science suggests that we must reduce global CO2 emissions by
about 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions around
2050.\27\ Emissions of other heat-trapping gases, such as methane, will
need to decline along similarly steep pathways. Achieving these
emissions reductions will mean significantly curtailing our fossil fuel
use as quickly as possible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scientific modeling has shown that in most scenarios in which we
are able to limit warming to 1.5+C above preindustrial levels, use of
all fossil fuels, including oil and gas, must decline significantly
28,29 To meet global energy demand, those declines must be
coupled with a commensurate increase in energy efficiency and renewable
energy, with renewables supplying 90% or more of our electricity in
2050.30,31 And numerous studies show that these investments
in efficiency and clean energy will more than pay off, especially when
evaluated against the prohibitive costs of runaway climate change and
the steep public health burden of fossil fuels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2021
\29\ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ (2.4.2)
\30\ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ (2.4.1, 2.4.2, 2.4.3)
\31\ https://www.iea.org/news/pathway-to-critical-and-formidable-
goal-of-net-zero-emissions-by-2050-is-narrow-but-brings-huge-benefits
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The energy investments we make now will have repercussions for
decades to come. Research suggests that developing the energy-related
technologies and infrastructure consistent with a 1.5+C pathway will
require investment in clean energy technologies and energy efficiency
to overtake fossil investments by around 2025.\32\ Furthermore, the
International Energy Agency--among the world's leading energy
organizations--has found that reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 would
require having ceased investment in new fossil fuel supply projects as
of last year.\33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ (2.5.2)
\33\ https://www.iea.org/news/pathway-to-critical-and-formidable-
goal-of-net-zero-emissions-by-2050-is-narrow-but-brings-huge-benefits
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The United States is committed to substantial and necessary emissions
reductions
The Biden Administration has committed the US to a 50-52% reduction
in national heat-trapping emissions below 2005 levels by 2030, and to
putting the nation on a path to net-zero emissions by midcentury.\34\
Such reductions mirror the global emissions cuts necessary for capping
warming at 1.5+C above preindustrial levels and there is a case to be
made that the US's outsized contribution to global emissions
historically and per capita demands that we shoulder a larger share of
the global emissions reductions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/
2021/04/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-sets-2030-greenhouse-gas-
pollution-reduction-target-aimed-at-creating-good-paying-union-jobs-
and-securing-u-s-leadership-on-clean-energy-technologies/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Achieving a 50% reduction in national emissions by 2030 will
require bold action, resolute vision, and an exacting attention to the
consequences of every energy-related decision we make going forward.
And so we must bring that exacting attention and the best available
science to our understanding of the consequences of opening up new
leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
Research by energy and transportation experts at the Union of
Concerned Scientists indicates that deep cuts in heat-trapping
emissions are feasible, both within this decade and continuing through
2050, in line with rigorous climate targets.\35\ To achieve these
reductions, though, every sector of the economy must shift, including
through widespread uptake of energy efficiency, end-use
electrification, and carbon-free energy. With currently available
technologies, a viable solution set to achieving the US's stated
emissions-reduction commitments is within our grasp today. The system
costs of this transition are comparatively modest--and easily
outweighed when compared to the benefits of improved health and avoided
climate impacts. However, delaying necessary near-term action,
including emissions reductions that could be achieved by expedited
passage by Congress of the Build Back Better package--or further
entrenching ourselves in a fossil-fuel-based economy--is costly and
risks stranding assets, foreclosing some solutions pathways, and
probably falling short of climate goals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/A-
Transformative-Climate-Action-Framework.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The implications of additional oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico
In November 2021, the US government opened up more than 80 million
acres of offshore federal land--an area larger than the state of New
Mexico--in the Gulf of Mexico for lease sales. Within days, fossil fuel
corporations had bid a combined $192 million for drilling rights on
nearly two million of those acres.\36\ It is likely to be several years
before these areas are producing oil or gas, which means that they'd be
coming online late this decade when emissions from fossil fuels must be
in a steep decline to meet the US's climate goals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/economy/days-after-climate-
talks-u-s-to-hold-huge-crude-sale-in-the-gulf-of-mexico
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) estimates that the
area recently opened for lease sales could produce up to 1.2 billion
barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the next
50 years.\37\ Using the Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse
Gas Equivalency guidelines, the combustion of those products would
release an estimated 0.76 GtCO2 with 0.52 GtCO2
resulting from oil combustion and 0.24 GtCO2 resulting from
gas combustion. In 2019, US fossil-fuel emissions totaled 4.7
GtCO2.\38\ With this rough estimate and assuming no other
changes in US fossil fuel sourcing or use, the potential emissions from
the areas recently opened to leasing therefore represent about 16% of
the nation's fossil-fuel emissions for one year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ https://www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/documents/oil-gas-
energy/GOM-LS-257.pdf
\38\ https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-
emissions
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the potential emissions from these Gulf of Mexico lease sales
may seem limited,\39\ viewing them in isolation fundamentally
mischaracterizes the cumulative and collective action challenge of
climate change. It will take joint efforts by all nations to address
the scale of the climate challenge--each contributing their fair share,
cutting emissions across every sector of their economies, so that
together we can meet science-based emission reduction goals. It is the
cumulative result of each energy-related decision that has been made by
nations over the last century and half that we are now struggling to
cope with our already-altered climate. In this warmer climate, heat
waves claim the lives of the most vulnerable among us--those who
harvest our food,\40\ our elderly parents and grandparents,\41\ people
who have no home in which to cool off.\42\ Wildfires cross the spine of
the Sierra Nevada \43\ and make the air we breathe toxic for thousands
of miles downwind.\44\ Hurricanes intensify at an unbelievable pace
\45\ before slamming into the coast claiming lives along a 1,000-mile
path.\46\ Deadly heatwaves follow on the heels of hurricanes,\47\
wildfire smoke exacerbates a pandemic's ravages on our health,\48\ and
infrastructure built for the climate of our ancestors fails.\49\ And
this is only considering impacts in the US.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ ``Each 1,000 GtCO2 of cumulative CO2 emissions is assessed to
likely cause a 0.27+C to 0.63+C increase in global surface temperature
with a best estimate of 0.45+C'' (IPCC AR6)
\40\ https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/03/oregon-heat-wave-
deaths-farm-workers-sebastian-francisco-perez-vigil/
\41\ https://www.kuow.org/stories/heat-wave-death-toll-in-
washington-state-jumps-to-112-people
\42\ https://www.koin.com/news/special-reports/new-data-shows-
scope-of-heatwave-related-homeless-deaths/
\43\ https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Giant-Dixie-Fire-
first-ever-to-burn-its-way-clear-16396141.php
\44\ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/21/new-york-air-
quality-plunges-smoke-west-coast-wildfires
\45\ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-climate-rapid-
intensification-revved-up-hurricane-ida/2021/08/31/cfb0b5be-0a63-11ec-
a7c8-61bb7b3bf628_story.html
\46\ https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/ida-aftermath-09-02-21/
index.html
\47\ https://weather.com/news/news/2021-09-09-heat-hurricane-ida-
new-orleans-louisiana-power-outages
\48\ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/08/wildfire-smoke-
linked-to-increase-in-covid-19-cases-and-deaths/
\49\ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/12/14/winter-weather-texas-
climate-change/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spills from oil drilling equipment have profoundly affected marine
environments and ecosystems repeatedly and tragically for decades. Ten
years after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico,
researchers have found that there is still a substantial amount of oil
in the sediment at the bottom of the gulf; that reproduction rates of
fish and dolphins near the spill site remain low; and that fish in the
gulf remain contaminated with oil-related toxins.\50\ An estimated
600,000 to 800,000 birds died because of the spill.\51\ People, too,
have suffered in the wake of the spill. In addition to the 11 Deepwater
Horizon workers\52\ who lost their lives when the rig exploded and
sank, Gulf Coast residents experienced the loss of their livelihoods as
well as health problems--including headaches, shortness of breath,
depression, and anxiety--for years after the spill.\53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/877/
\51\ https://usa.oceana.org/reports/time-action-six-years-after-
deepwater-horizon/
\52\ https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/deepwater-horizon-bp-gulf-
mexico-oil-spill
\53\ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5932154/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Human health also suffers as oil and gas are processed or refined
and transported. Communities located near oil refineries and
petrochemical facilities exhibit higher rates of a wide range of
cancers, including brain and lung cancer.\54\ They are also at risk of
immune system suppression resulting from exposure to harmful
chemicals.\55\ Threats to health from fossil fuel facilities along the
Gulf Coast rise acutely during and after hurricanes, when accidents,
emergency shutdowns, and restarts lead to the release of toxic
chemicals into the air and water.\56\ These threats are particularly
acute in communities of color \57\ because centuries of systemic racism
have led to a constriction of living options and resources \58\ as well
as the deliberate siting of industrial facilities in and around these
neighborhoods.\59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S0013935120303881
\55\ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/
09603123.2019.1689232
\56\ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S030438940701477X
\57\ https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/env.2020.0052
\58\ https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/39.1/-
94.58&text=intro
\59\ https://news.umich.edu/targeting-minority-low-income-
neighborhoods-for-hazardous-waste-sites/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ramifications of failures in drilling infrastructure can be
long lasting. Seventeen years after a mudslide triggered by Hurricane
Ivan caused a Taylor Energy oil platform to sink, the undersea wells
that had been broken open as a result were still seeping oil into the
Gulf.\60\ Given that climate change is expected to increase the
intensity of hurricanes \61\ and given the prevalence of hurricanes in
the Gulf of Mexico,\62\ siting additional drilling infrastructure
within the Gulf poses long-term hazards to the region.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/climate/taylor-energy-oil-
spill-gulf.html
\61\ https://archive.ipcc.ch/report/srex/
\62\ https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/#map=2/60.49/-
23.25&search=eyJzZWFyY2hTdHJpbmci
OiJOb3J0aCBBdGxhbnRpYyBPY2VhbiBCYXNpbiIsInNlYXJjaFR5cGUiOiJiYXNpbiIsImNh
d
GVnb3JpZXMiOlsiSDUiLCJINCIsIkgzIiwiSDIiLCJIMSIsIlRTIiwiVEQiLCJFVCJdLCJ5Z
WFy
cyI6W10sIm1vbnRocyI6W10sImVuc28iOltdLCJwcmVzc3VyZSI6eyJyYW5nZSI6WzAsMTE1
MF
0sImluY2x1ZGVVbmtub3duUHJlc3N1cmUiOnRydWV9LCJidWZmZXJVbml0IjpbIk1pbGVzIl
0
sInNvcnRTZWxlY3Rpb24iOnsidmFsdWUiOiJ5ZWFyc19uZXdlc3QiLCJsYWJlbCI6IlllYXI
gKE5
ld2VzdCkifSwiYXBwbHlUb0FPSSI6ZmFsc2UsImlzU3Rvcm1MYWJlbHNWaXNpYmxlIjp0cn
VlfQ==
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sharply phasing down our use of fossil fuels and securing our
climate goals is about much more than cutting carbon emissions. By
looking beyond carbon to all the ways in which our fossil fuel-based
economy affects people, ecosystems, and the environment in which we
live, we can unlock new opportunities for progress.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\63\ https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/A-
Transformative-Climate-Action-Framework.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
Human activity has warmed the Earth by about 1+C over the last
century and people are already suffering in a multitude of ways as a
result. The science is clear that the consequences of surpassing the
1.5+C temperature target would be disastrous, the consequences of
surpassing the 2+C temperature target almost unimaginable. Science has
also shown us that those temperature targets translate into specific
carbon budgets that, in turn, necessitate sharp reductions in fossil
fuel use and systemic shifts in our energy system. Each of these pieces
points to the urgent need to assess our energy investments
holistically, not as one offs, to ensure the smoothest, best possible
transition to cleaner forms of energy. With the stakes so high, there
is no room for business-as-usual thinking when it comes to our energy-
related decisions, including those regarding lease sales in the Gulf of
Mexico. Continuing with lease sales without taking the time to fully
interrogate whether or how the enabled extraction will fit with our
nation's future is reckless and irresponsible.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Dr. Kristina Dahl, Senior Climate
Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists
Questions Submitted by Representative Huffman
Question 1. Dr. Dahl, in 2020, researchers at the University of
Michigan found that oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico have a
2.9 percent natural gas loss rate, meaning platforms were leaking twice
as much methane as the EPA estimates. According to the researchers,
this is because of undercounting offshore platforms, higher emissions
from shallow-water facilities, and a small number of sporadic super-
emitting incidents. Can you speak to the human health and climate
impacts of methane emissions?
Answer.
Dear Representative Huffman,
Thank you for reaching out to me with your question about the human
health and climate impacts of methane emissions following the January
20, 2022, hearing on oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico. I hope
the response I provide below is helpful but would be happy to follow up
with you or your staff if you have additional questions relating to the
impacts of greenhouse gas emissions or climate change.
Methane is the primary component of natural gas and methane
emissions have important implications for our climate and for human
health. While methane is much less abundant than CO2 in our
atmosphere, it's a much more potent heat-trapping gas. Methane
emissions to date are responsible for about 30% of the warming we've
experienced over the last 150 years. That said, the lifetime of methane
in the atmosphere is relatively short--about 10 years. After that
point, most emitted methane will have broken down to form water and
CO2, which will continue warming the planet for hundreds of
years.
The more we learn about methane and its impacts on our climate, the
worse the picture is and the higher the emissions are than we have
previously understood. Moreover, EPA estimates are likely significantly
undercounting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. With this
in mind, is critically important to fully consider the implications of
oil and gas extraction on methane emissions.
While the bigger beast to tackle is our long-term CO2
emissions, reducing methane emissions here and now could help us to
reach our 2030 climate goals. Notably and intuitively, oil and gas
operations account for more than a quarter of all methane emissions, so
as we pursue reductions in fossil fuel production and use, we would
expect methane emissions to decline as well.
Because methane emissions contribute to the overall warming of our
planet, they influence human health. Rising temperatures are associated
with more frequent, more intense heatwaves; stronger hurricanes; larger
wildfires; more frequent floods; and less predictability in our water
systems. Each of these climate impacts poses a risk to our health, with
the risks expected to grow as we continue to alter our climate.
Methane also has indirect impacts on our health because it is a
precursor formation of ground-level ozone, which can cause respiratory
problems, damage our airways, and worsen asthma and other lung
diseases. Children, older adults, and people who work outdoors are
particularly at risk. Methane is also often released along with a host
of other toxic chemicals, like hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and
formaldehyde. These pollutants increase the risks of cancer, immune
system problems, neurological and reproductive issues, and other health
problems.
Thank you again for your question and for your service to our
shared home state of California.
______
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Dr. Dahl. The Chair now
recognizes Dr. Wright for 5 minutes of testimony.
Welcome, Dr. Wright.
[Pause.]
Dr. Lowenthal. Dr. Wright, I believe you are muted.
Dr. Wright. Clearly, I am, yes.
STATEMENT OF BEVERLY WRIGHT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEEP SOUTH
CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Dr. Wright. Thank you to the Energy and Mineral Resources
Subcommittee for holding this hearing and inviting me today. My
name is Dr. Beverly Wright, Executive Director of the Deep
South Center for Environmental Justice and co-founder of the
Center for nearly 30 years in the city of New Orleans,
Louisiana.
At the Center, we partner with communities who are harmed
by environmental racism and face serious climate threats in the
Gulf Coast region. We provide education and research, as well
as policy and legal assistance that support communities to
effectively engage in governmental decisions affecting their
health and wellness. Our worker training program in six states
prepares unemployed and underemployed people to obtain state
certifications for environmental careers. And this year, we
will host the Eighth Annual HBCU Climate Change Consortium,
which I co-direct with Dr. Robert Bullard from Texas Southern
University. This gathering prepares more than 300 students at
32 HBCUs to contribute to climate solutions through scientific
research they conduct and present at the annual HBCU Climate
Change Conference.
I am here today not just as a scholar and advocate, but as
a Black mother and a decades-long resident of New Orleans,
Louisiana. I have seen and felt firsthand the effects of
climate change, environmental racism, and policies that favor
the oil and gas industry over the health and safety of Black
children and families. I have seen eroding pipes in Black
neighborhoods covered in oil, Black residents displaced from
homes that have been in their families for decades, Black-owned
small businesses and restaurants struggling because of a
seafood industry on the brink of ruin from oil spills and
extreme weather.
As you consider the question at hand, I want you all to
remember that economic gain does not outweigh the devastation
we are feeling right now, particularly Black communities. In
2019, the Environmental Protection Agency published a report
that found the petroleum sector released over 11 million pounds
of pollution in 25 Louisiana parishes, with many of these
facilities operating in close proximity to Black residents.
Within this pollution were chemicals widely known to cause
cancer and damage heart and lung functions, making it difficult
to breathe and leading to premature death. And now, as studies
show that air pollution exacerbates the impacts of COVID-19,
the threat oil and gas facilities pose to our communities is
magnified.
Simply put, these communities are in double jeopardy,
facing exposure to the pollution and destruction to their
homes. If we don't take action soon, they face a triple
jeopardy of extinction.
Following the BP oil drilling disaster, massive amounts of
oil waste were dumped in landfills next to Black communities,
jeopardizing our water supplies. And as offshore drilling
continues, our coastlines are deteriorating, leaving areas
without natural defenses to extreme weather events. To make
matters worse, greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas
industry are massive contributors to the climate crisis, which
disproportionately affects our communities.
I want you to take a hard look at this map.
[Slide.]
Dr. Wright. These are the oil and gas pipelines that exist
today throughout the Gulf Coast region. We are inundated. We
can't even make out the outline of my home state through what
looks like a picture of human veins and arteries. Is this not
enough? More of what is bad for you is not better for you.
President Biden has made it clear that reforming the
leasing system is a leading priority. While detractors framed
the Administration's pause on new leases as stopping progress
while the source of gas price is rising, it presented an
opportunity to review the system and create a transition from
fossil fuel development that is both environmentally and
economically just. The pause was for research, to take a look
at the impact of the leases that already exist.
Simply put, the State of Louisiana vs. Biden litigation
continues necessary, time sensitive research. We must take
advantage of this moment to act properly and carefully with
environmental justice at the center for decision making.
I call upon you as Members of Congress to work alongside us
to make this a reality by: (1) mandating the targeted
reductions in a way that is equitable for communities of color
that have been suffering for so long; and (2) requiring an
annual impact analysis from the Department of Energy studying
how the oil and gas industry is affecting the community's
health, wellness, and the very land they call home.
There is a lot of work to be done. The environmental
justice community is up to the task, and we hope you will join
us in this work, because our lives depend on it.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Wright follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Beverly Wright, Founding Executive Director,
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Good afternoon Chairperson Lowenthal, Ranking Member Stauber, and
members of the Subcommittee. I am Beverly Wright, and I am the founding
executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
in New Orleans, Louisiana.\1\ At the Center, we work to improve the
lives of children and families harmed by pollution and vulnerable to
climate change in the Gulf Coast Region. We do this through education,
research, community engagement, and worker training programs. We foster
collaborative projects among communities, students, scientists, and
policymakers that promote the right of all people to be free from
environmental harm as it impacts health, jobs, housing, education, and
quality of life. I appreciate this opportunity to provide testimony on
the impacts of oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and what more
leasing means for achieving U.S. climate targets.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Beverly Wright Curriculum Vitae, Appendix 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Impacts of Oil and Gas Leasing in the Gulf of Mexico
For more than 80 years, oil and gas leases have been issued off the
coast of Louisiana.\2\ In this time, Indigenous communities have lost
forested lands to ongoing coastal erosion brought on by the extensive
network of oil and gas pipelines.\3\ Historic Black communities have
been vacated due to toxic exposures and contamination from inland oil
refineries and petrochemical industries.\4\ Over the course of 30
years, oil and gas leasing and all the infrastructure for drilling
platforms, pipelines, and industrial facilities were firmly established
before Black people gained the right to vote.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ See U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management
Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, History of the Offshore Oil and Gas
Industry in Southern Louisiana, September 2008, vol. 1, p. 30,
available at https://espis.boem.gov/final%20reports/4530.pdf (noting
that in 1936 Louisiana leased a combined 33,000 acres offshore to the
Pure Oil Company and the Superior Oil Company).
\3\ Saskia de Melker and Melanie Saltzman, ``Native American
Community Relocates as Land Washes Away,'' PBS News Hour, July 30,
2016, available at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/native-community-
louisiana-relocates-land-washes-away.
\4\ Bullard, Robert D., Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and
Environmental Quality, Boulder: Westview Press, 1994 (documenting the
lost Black communities of Reveilletown, Sunrise, and Morrisonville in
Louisiana); Lerner, Steve, Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental
Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006;
Heather Rogers, ``Erasing Mossville: How Pollution Killed a Louisiana
Town,'' The Intercept, November 4, 2015, available at https://
theintercept.com/2015/11/04/erasing-mossville-how-pollution-killed-a-
louisiana-town/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more than 50 years, the oil and gas industry has dominated the
Gulf Coast Region to the detriment of Black communities engulfed in the
massive amounts of toxic pollution from oil refining and the
manufacturing of plastics from oil and gas feedstocks. In the 2019
Toxic Release Inventory, the petroleum sectors report the release of 11
million pounds of pollution in 25 Louisiana parishes. Much of this
pollution is released from multiple facilities located in close
proximity to Black residents. These facilities release chemicals in the
air that are scientifically known to cause cancer as well as damage
heart and lung functions which make it difficult to breathe and cause
premature death.
Black communities are disproportionately exposed to oil and gas
operations, where the view from windows is oil and gas storage tanks,
oil refinery smokestacks, or gas-fired power plants. A national report
by the NAACP found that over 1 million Black people in the United
States live within a half mile of at least one oil or gas facility and
in areas where pollution from these facilities exceeds EPA's cancer
risk guidelines.\5\ This report is further confirmation of the
connection between pollution and race and the existence of
environmental racism, which is well documented in reports by
governmental and non-governmental entities. The source of oil and gas
pollution in Black communities are the oil and gas leases in the Gulf
of Mexico.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ NAACP, Fumes Across the Fenceline: Fumes Across the Fence-Line:
The Health Impacts of Air Pollution from Oil & Gas Facilities on
African American Communities, 2017, available at https://naacp.org/
resources/fumes-across-fence-line-health-impacts-air-pollution-oil-gas-
facilities-african-american.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With each hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, there is growing concern
regarding the lack of preparedness and response to oil spills and other
industrial hazards. Even air monitoring is mired in resistance by some
state governments to collect and share data on toxic releases during a
disaster.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Mark Schleifstein, ``Louisiana refineries, chemical plants
flaring at full blast; 15 air monitors knocked out,'' The Times-
Picayune/NOLA.com, September 2, 2021, available at https://
www.nola.com/news/environment/article_6c017212-0c2d-11ec-b3ff-
3b08d3c3460d.html; Susan Rust and Louis Sahagun, ``Post-Hurricane
Harvey: NASA tried to fly a pollution-spotting plane over Houston. The
EPA said no,'' The Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2019, available at
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-nasa-jet-epa-hurricane-
harvey-20190305-story.html.
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There is a massive array of pipelines and platforms in shallow and
deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico. See below Graphic: Detailed Map of
Active Oil and Gas Leases and Infrastructure as of May 2021, prepared
by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement
(BOEMRE).\7\ The map below does not include the recent federal offshore
leases that occurred in November 2021 in which companies placed bids on
1.7 million acres.\8\ According to BOEMRE, a total of approximately 11
million acres of the Gulf of Mexico are now subject to active
leases.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Graphic map with zoom functions available at https://
www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/documents/about-boem/Visual-1-Active-
Leases-and-Infrastructure_2.pdf.
\8\ Nathan Rott, ``The Biden Administration Sold Oil and Gas Leases
Days after the Climate Summit,'' NPR News, Nov. 17, 2021, available at
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1056713397/the-biden-administration-
sold-oil-and-gas-leases-days-after-the-climate-summit.
\9\ BOEMRE, Combined Leasing Report as of January 1, 2022,
available at https://www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/documents//
Lease%20stats%201-1-22.pdf.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6588.016
Pursuant to a lease, the exploration for oil and gas typically
involves seismic activity that harms marine ecosystems. The discovery
of oil or gas leads to production requiring transport via pipeline or
vessels to refineries where oil spills or gas leaks can result in
contamination, fires, or explosions. The BP oil spill disaster in 2010
involved the exploration for oil in the deep waters of the Gulf of
Mexico which caused the biggest environmental disaster in US history.
BP responded to the spill in ways that magnified the damage with toxic
air emissions, the use of harmful chemicals to disperse the oil, and
disposal in landfills located in close proximity to Black
communities.\10\ The BP oil spill disaster claimed the lives of eleven
people, injured seventeen, and wreaked havoc on the health and
livelihoods of Gulf Coast residents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Nance, Earthea, King, D., Wright, B. and Bullard, R.D.,
Ambient Air Concentrations Exceeded Health-Based Standards for PM2.5
and Benzene during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill,'' Journal of Air
and Waste Management, 2016.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poor oversight of oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico has
resulted in more than 27,000 abandoned wells without regular monitoring
on the ocean floor of federal waters and another 3,200 wells without
any plugging to prevent leaks.\11\ These wells leak methane and other
gases that contribute to the climate crisis. A former BOEM employee
explained that notwithstanding requirements for plugging these wells,
ensuring the requirements are met are ``beyond the scope and capability
of the resources the agency has.'' \12\ Toxic air pollution,
contamination, soil degradation, damage to ecosystems, and risk of
explosions are impacts of abandoned wells that threaten human health
and sustainability. The environmental risks do not go away with wells
that are considered properly plugged. Rusting, re-pressurization, and
failures with the plug itself can give rise to environmental impacts
from plugged wells.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Jeff Donn and Mitch Weiss, ``Gulf Awash in 27,000 Abandoned
Wells,'' NBC News, July 6, 2010, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/
id/wbna38113914; Jeff Donn, ``High Risk in Multitude of Abandoned
Wells,'' Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 21, 2011, available at https://
www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2011/04/21/high-risk-in-multitude-of-
unplugged-wells/29011603007/.
\12\ Hannah Seo, ``Unplugged: Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells Leave the
Ocean Floor Spewing Methane,'' Environmental Health News, December 8,
2020, available at https://www.ehn.org/oil-and-gas-wells-methane-
oceans-2649126354/particle-8.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oil and Gas Leases Do Not Include Climate Targets
The purpose of US climate targets is to protect human life and
stave off planetary destruction from climate change. These targets come
years after mounting damage to human health and environment caused by
exposure to toxic chemicals, which are co-pollutants released with
greenhouse gases from industrial smokestacks and vehicle tailpipes. The
climate targets essentially call for reducing greenhouse gas emissions
by 50-52 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2030. However, meeting
the climate targets is not a mandate for oil, gas or other fossil fuel
companies or the users of fossil fuels. The targets are not included in
the terms of the offshore oil and gas leases that were recently issued
in November 2021. The oil and gas companies that have leased new acres
of the Gulf of Mexico can operate as if the climate crisis does not
exist. Each lease that finds a producing well moves us further away
from, not closer to, meeting the climate targets.
Notwithstanding the damaging effects of oil and gas leases on
Louisiana communities and the environment, the State of Louisiana along
with 12 other state governments won a federal court ruling last year
that blocks the application of US climate targets to offshore oil and
gas leases. The preliminary injunction removes the federal pause on
leasing that is set forth in President Biden's Executive Order 14008,
which calls for an all of government approach to tackling climate
change and delivering environmental justice.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Louisiana v. Biden, 2-21-cv-0078, Western District of
Louisiana, June 15, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The major loss from the court's preliminary injunction is the
important work undertaken by the Department of the Interior, pursuant
to the Executive Order, to assess the wide-ranging impacts of offshore
oil and gas operations. Completing this assessment is central to the
task of meeting US climate targets by informing the direction of the
Interior's leasing program to ensure environmental justice and deliver
equitable climate solutions. There can be no meaningful assessment to
meet climate targets with the continued leasing of millions of more
acres for oil and gas development.
Conclusion
I have discussed above how oil and gas leases are not required to
meet US climate targets and have given rise to the massive
environmental harms that are disproportionately felt by Black and
Indigenous communities in the Gulf Coast Region. While there are
environmental regulations, they have proven to be inadequate to protect
the health and safety of communities from toxic chemicals. Similarly,
climate targets by themselves are inadequate to reduce greenhouse
gases.
Given the state we are now in where there is precious little time
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to stave off the worst effects of
climate change, it is critical that committee members consider
solutions for meeting US climate targets. I strongly recommend the
following:
1. establish compliance with US climate targets for the oil and gas
industry;
2. require health protections for communities harmed by the
extraction, transport, burning, and disposal of fossil
fuels;
3. prohibit racially disproportionate pollution burdens;
4. expand the reach of the Superfund responsible parties to
compensate the clean up and plugging of abandoned wells, as
well as the regular monitoring of all existing wells;
5. stand up an expert federal team for disaster planning,
preparedness and response on oil spills and other
industrial hazards resulting from hurricanes in the Gulf of
Mexico; and
6. hold companies accountable for abandoned wells in the Gulf of
Mexico.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Dr. Beverly Wright, Executive
Director, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Questions Submitted by Representative Lowenthal
Question 1. Dr. Wright, during the hearing you were not given an
adequate chance to respond to the questions and statements leveraged
against you. Would you like to respond to anything said to you by a
Republican Member of Congress during today's hearing?
Answer. First, I live with racism every day and have for as long as
I can remember. It's insulting to try and deny the systemic steps that
have been taken to ensure the communities most impacted by pollution
are communities of color. Cherry-picking data by only looking at white
parishes where a small number of people live is not an accurate
representation of the suffering that has gone on for so long in Cancer
Alley. The facts and data are clear, there has been a disproportionate
impact of pollution on African American communities in Louisiana, and
race is a primary determinate in where polluting facilities are placed.
The states' own demographics show that African Americans are
overrepresented in the pollution corridor. The GIS maps show that 80
percent of African Americans in the state live within three miles of a
cancer-causing facility. This isn't an accident, it's the result of
skewed decision-making and environmental racism.
Questions Submitted by Representative Huffman
Question 1. Dr. Wright, in November, the Biden Administration made
80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico available to the fossil fuel
industry for leasing, and companies ended up purchasing leasing
covering 1.7 million acres. What was your response to this sale, and do
you think an adequate environmental review and analysis was completed
for the lease sale?
Answer. I don't think there was an adequate environmental review,
and since our hearing, a federal judge has reversed the decision. Our
position remains that the entire federal leasing process should be
reviewed to better account for its impact on all communities. Until the
administration has had time to review the system, they must extend the
pause on new leases.
Given the state we are now in where there is precious little time
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to stave off the worst effects of
climate change, it is critical that committee members consider
solutions for meeting U.S. climate targets. I strongly recommend the
following:
1. Require health protections for communities harmed by the
extraction, transport, burning, and disposal of fossil
fuels;
2. prohibit racially disproportionate pollution burdens;
3. expand the reach of the Superfund responsible parties to
compensate the cleanup and plugging of abandoned wells, as
well as the regular monitoring of all existing wells;
4. stand up an expert federal team for disaster planning,
preparedness and response on oil spills and other
industrial hazards resulting from hurricanes in the Gulf of
Mexico;
5. hold companies accountable for abandoned wells in the Gulf of
Mexico; and
6. establish compliance with US climate targets for the oil and gas
industry.
______
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Dr. Wright. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Sarinsky for 5 minutes.
Welcome to the Committee, Mr. Sarinsky.
STATEMENT OF MAX SARINSKY, SENIOR ATTORNEY, INSTITUTE FOR
POLICY INTEGRITY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, NEW YORK,
NEW YORK
Mr. Sarinsky. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chairman
Lowenthal, Ranking Member Stauber, and members of the
Committee. And thank you for this opportunity to testify at
this critical hearing. I am a senior attorney at the Institute
for Policy Integrity, which is a non-partisan think tank
dedicated to improving the quality of government decision
making using law and economics. We are housed at New York
University School of Law, where I also serve as an adjunct
professor.
Federal oil and gas policy should be guided by the best
available science and economics. Unfortunately, however,
previous Interior analyses have typically undervalued the
environmental impacts of fossil fuel leasing and extraction on
public lands in at least three different ways. Interior has
broad discretion to reconsider its oil and gas policies, and in
doing so it should be guided by the best available data and
science.
First, Interior has previously concluded that offshore oil
and gas production reduces total greenhouse gas emissions. But
this conclusion ignores basic economics, has been rejected by
Federal courts, and has now been disclaimed by Interior itself.
The reason why Federal leasing increases greenhouse gas
emissions is, in fact, quite intuitive and simple, because it
increases fossil fuel usage and production and combustion
overall. While some have claimed that fossil fuel production on
Federal lands merely substitutes for production that would
otherwise occur elsewhere, that hypothesis ignores fundamental
economics. As one appellate court stated in rejecting this
assumption, ``Such an assumption is contrary to basic supply
and demand principles.''
In an evaluation this past October for an upcoming lease
sale, Interior corrected for the modeling errors identified by
the courts and concluded that proposed offshore leasing in the
Cook Inlet would result in more than 30 million metric tons of
additional surplus climate pollution. Thus, Interior now
rejects its prior claim that offshore leasing reduces
emissions. And as discussed in my written testimony, moreover,
Interior still continues to underestimate the climate pollution
from offshore leasing due to other continuing modeling
limitations.
Second, even when Interior has acknowledged that Federal
leasing contributes to climate change, it has typically
characterized those emissions as insignificant by noting that
Federal leasing represents a relatively small fraction of all
national or global greenhouse gas emissions. But the
implication of such logic is that nobody should ever do
anything to mitigate the climate crisis, which, as a Federal
court explained in rejecting this very logic, ``would be a
prescription for climate disaster.''
In reality, the Federal oil and gas program is responsible
for millions upon millions of tons of climate pollution each
and every year, which greatly exacerbates the climate crisis
and cannot be ignored. Reducing these emissions would be an
important piece of meeting the Nation's emission reduction
targets.
Third, Interior has typically ignored the considerable
option value of delaying leasing decisions. Developers already
have vast resources of both productive and currently non-
producing fossil fuel leases, such that there is little short-
term need or economic benefit to further leasing at this time.
Against such a backdrop there is considerable value in
curtailing fossil fuel leasing now, and preserving the option
to lease or not lease in the future, particularly given that
continued growth of renewable energy is likely to render
extensive future leasing unnecessary.
Interior should be guided by this information moving
forward. If the government properly considered energy
substitution, the social cost of greenhouse gases, and option
value, fossil fuel leasing would look less attractive and
determinations that Interior currently justifies under its
flawed methodologies would become unjustifiable.
Moreover, if the government properly considered the climate
harms of the fossil fuel program, it would adjust fiscal terms
to eliminate the billions of dollars in annual subsidies that
it provides to the oil and gas industry.
In short, the Federal fossil fuel program greatly increases
greenhouse gas emissions, severely harming both present and
future generations of Americans. Federal land use policy should
no longer be based on contrary conclusions that Federal courts
have rejected time and again. Instead, the Federal Government
should reform oil and gas leasing to account for climate harms
and refocus its land use policy toward facilitating a necessary
transition to a renewable economy.
I thank the Committee for this opportunity and look forward
to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sarinsky follows:]
Prepared Statement of Max Sarinsky, Senior Attorney, Institute for
Policy Integrity; Adjunct Professor, New York University School of Law
Thank you for the opportunity to speak at this important hearing. I
am a senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity (``Policy
Integrity''), a non-partisan think tank dedicated to improving the
quality of government decisionmaking. Policy Integrity is housed at New
York University School of Law, where I am also an adjunct professor.
Policy Integrity is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to
improving the quality of government decisionmaking through advocacy and
scholarship in the fields of administrative law, economics, and public
policy. We have written extensively on the consideration of greenhouse
gas emissions and other environmental impacts in oil, gas, and coal
leasing.
As this committee and the Department of Interior assess the future
of oil and gas leasing on federal waters and lands, they should be
guided by the best available science and economics. Unfortunately,
previous Interior analyses have typically undervalued the environmental
impacts of the federal fossil-fuel programs. Interior has broad
discretion to reconsider its oil and gas policies and practices, and in
doing so, it should be guided by the best available data and science.
First, Interior has previously concluded that offshore oil and gas
production reduces total greenhouse gas emissions. But this conclusion
has been rejected by independent analyses and federal courts, and
should not form the basis for leasing policy. In reality, the federal
oil and gas program is responsible for millions upon millions of tons
of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
Second, even when Interior has acknowledged that federal leasing
contributes to climate change, it has characterized those contributions
as insignificant. But framing large volumes of emissions as a small
portion of total global or national emissions, as Interior has done, is
not a reasonable basis for decisionmaking, and masks the program's
substantial climate harms. Available tools, such as the social cost of
greenhouse gases, could be used to measure the climate costs of the
federal program and account for climate change in program policies.
Third, Interior has typically ignored the considerable ``option
value'' of delaying leasing. Fossil-fuel leasing today affects
extraction for decades to come and causes irreversible climate damage.
Yet developers already have vast reserves, such that there is little
short-term need or economic benefit to further leasing at this time.
Against this backdrop, there is considerable value in curtailing
fossil-fuel leasing now and preserving the option to lease or not lease
in the future, particularly as the continued growth of renewable energy
could render unnecessary extensive future leasing.
Interior should be guided by this information moving forward, and
restore rationality to the oil and gas leasing program. For one, if the
government properly considered energy substitution, the social cost of
greenhouse gases, and option value, fossil-fuel leasing would look less
attractive and determinations that Interior currently justifies under
its flawed methodologies would become unjustifiable. Second, if the
government properly considered the climate harms of the fossil-fuel
program, it would eliminate subsidies to the oil and gas industry by
adjusting fiscal terms.
In short, the federal fossil-fuel program greatly increases global
greenhouse gas emissions, severely harming present and future
generations of Americans. Federal land-use policy should no longer be
based on contrary conclusions that courts have rejected. Instead, the
federal government should reform oil and gas leasing to account for
climate harms, and refocus land-use policy toward facilitating a
necessary transition to a renewable economy.
I. The Department of Interior Has Broad Discretion to Reform the Oil
and Gas Program to Account for Climate Damage
Congress passed three primary statutes granting the Bureau of Land
Management (``BLM'') and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (``BOEM'')
authority to manage onshore and offshore oil and gas leasing. There are
two primary onshore leasing statutes: the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920
(``MLA''),\1\ and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976
(``FLPMA'').\2\ Offshore leasing is subject to the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act (``OCSLA'').\3\ These statutes all grant Interior broad
authority to manage public waters and lands for the public interest,
requiring rational balancing of competing uses.
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\1\ 30 U.S.C. Sec. 181 et seq.
\2\ 43 U.S.C. Sec. 1701 et seq.
\3\ Id. Sec. 1331 et seq.
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OCSLA governs the development of fossil fuel resources in the Outer
Continental Shelf.\4\ The statute requires BOEM to balance the
production of oil and gas with ``protection of the human, marine, and
coastal environments.'' \5\ BOEM is required to consider the
environmental risks of oil and gas development in offshore areas.\6\ In
deciding whether to lease any portion of the Outer Continental Shelf,
BOEM must ensure a ``proper balance between the potential for
environmental damage, the potential for the discovery of oil and gas,
and the potential for adverse impact on the coastal zone.'' \7\ BOEM is
not required to make any particular or amount of parcels available for
fossil-fuel development.
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\4\ Id.
\5\ Id. Sec. 1802.
\6\ Id. Sec. 1344(a)(2)(A), (H).
\7\ Id. Sec. 1344(a)(3).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The provisions in FLPMA are intended to work in tandem with those
in the MLA. FLPMA provides BLM with an overarching framework for
managing federal lands ``on the basis of multiple use and sustained
yield.'' \8\ These multiple uses include, but are not limited to,
``recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish,
and natural scenic, scientific and historical values.'' \9\ Under
FLPMA, BLM must manage public land uses ``in the combination that will
best meet the present and future needs of the American people,'' \10\
and is also not required to make any particular or amount of lands
available for fossil-fuel development.
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\8\ Id. Sec. 1701(a)(7).
\9\ Id. Sec. 1702(c).
\10\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In carrying out its statutory mandates, Interior must balance
positive and adverse impacts of oil and gas development, including
harms to climate change that arise from the program. For example, under
FLPMA, BLM is required to ``weigh long-term benefits to the public
against short-term benefits'' when formulating regional management
plans.\11\ Similarly, under OCSLA, BOEM must weigh the ``economic,
social, and environmental values of the . . . resources contained in
the outer Continental Shelf.'' \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Id. Sec. 1712(c)(7).
\12\ Id. Sec. 1344(a)(1).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As these provisions illustrate, Interior has broad authority to
manage public lands for the public benefit, and the consideration of
environmental values is critical to this consideration.
II. In Assessing the Oil and Gas Program, Regulators Should Be Guided
by the Best Available Science and Reject Implausible or
Discredited Theories
While federal law requires Interior to base its policies on
reasonable information and assumptions, previous Interior analyses have
substantially undervalued the environmental impacts of fossil-fuel
extraction on public lands, often relying on disproven methodologies or
irrational assumptions. Such false narratives should no longer form the
basis for federal policy.
In particular, in recent years Interior has operated under the
following assumptions: (1) energy production on federal property,
particularly offshore, can reduce total greenhouse gas emissions; (2)
any greenhouse gas emissions that do result from federal leasing and
planning determinations are likely insignificant; and (3) there is, at
most, limited option value to curtailing leasing despite the vast
reserve of existing leases. As detailed below, all three of these
assumptions are irrational and discredited by independent analysis.
A. Fossil-Fuel Extraction on Federal Waters and Lands Increases Total
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The notion that fossil-fuel extraction on federal lands does not
affect--or even decreases--total greenhouse gas emissions has been
widely rejected by both federal courts and independent analysis, and
should not form the basis for leasing policy.
At times, the Department of Interior has claimed that fossil-fuel
leasing would have no impact on downstream greenhouse gas emissions, on
the theory that extraction occurring on federal lands perfectly
substitutes for alternative oil and gas development that would
otherwise occur. But courts on numerous occasions have rejected this
``perfect substitution'' assumption as irrational and counter to basic
market dynamics, as an increase in supply is bound to result in an
increase in production and consumption.\13\ In 2017, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rejected a BLM leasing decision that
assumed perfect substitution, finding the assumption ``contrary to
basic supply and demand principles.'' \14\
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\13\ See, e.g., Mid States Coal. for Progress v. Surface Transp.
Bd., 345 F.3d 520, 549 (8th Cir. 2003) (``[T]he proposition that the
demand for [energy] will be unaffected by an increase in availability .
. . is illogical at best.'').
\14\ WildEarth Guardians v. BLM, 870 F.3d 1222, 1236 (10th Cir.
2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In its most recent five-year plan, BOEM did not exactly assume
perfect substitution, but instead used a model (known as MarketSim)
that concluded that extraction in federal waters would decrease total
greenhouse gas emissions. In essence, MarketSim found that oil and gas
extraction in federal waters only modestly increased total extraction
while displacing production in areas that would have yielded greater
emissions to transport the energy to its end destination.\15\ But that
model was based on irrational inputs and assumptions, and courts have
since rejected BOEM's conclusion that offshore extraction reduces
greenhouse gas emissions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ BOEM, OCS Oil and Natural Gas: Potential Lifecycle Greenhouse
Gas Emissions and Social Cost of Carbon 26 (2016); see also Liberty
Development and Production Plan Final Environmental Impact Statement 4-
52 (2018) (``Here, life cycle GHG emissions associated with the No
Action Alternative are estimated to be higher than those associated
with the Proposed Action, despite the model's assumption that a
slightly lower amount of energy would be consumed domestically
overall.'')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held,
BOEM's analysis improperly omitted impacts on foreign oil demand
resulting from domestic oil production.\16\ Specifically, the Court
explained, MarketSim ``fail[s] to include emissions estimates resulting
from foreign oil consumption'' and thereby irrationally ``assumes that
foreign oil consumption will remain static'' when domestic production
increases.\17\ As the Court explained, this ignores the global nature
of the energy market and violates ``basic economics principles'' about
supply and demand.'' \18\ The Court pointed to ``credible scientific
evidence'' demonstrating that ``domestic consumption impacts foreign
oil consumption, and increases in foreign oil consumption can be
translated into estimates of greenhouse gas emissions,'' including one
study concluding that offshore development ``cause[s] an increase in
global oil consumption ten times greater than the increase in domestic
consumption forecasted by BOEM.'' \19\ The U.S. District Court for the
District of Alaska echoed these findings in a subsequent decision
vacating a BLM development plan that relied on the same modeling.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Bernhardt, 982 F.3d 723, 736-
40 (9th Cir. 2020).
\17\ Id.
\18\ Id.
\19\ Id. (citing Peter Erickson, U.S. Again Overlooks Top CO2
Impact of Expanding Oil Supply, but That Might Change, Stockholm Env't
Inst. (Apr. 30, 2016), http://www.sei.org/perspectives/us-co2-impact-
oil-supply; Peter Erickson & Michael Lazarus, Impact of the Keystone XL
Pipeline on Global Oil Markets and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 4 Nature
Climate Change 778, 778-80 (2014); Jason Bordoff & Trevor Houser,
Columbia SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy, Navigating the U.S. Oil
Export Debate 57 (2015)).
\20\ Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic v. BLM, No. 3:20-CV-
00290-SLG, 2021 WL 3667986, at *10-14 (D. Alaska Aug. 18, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fact, in its most recent analysis for Lease Sale 258, published
in October 2021 following the Ninth Circuit and District of Alaska
decisions, BOEM corrected for the modeling error identified by the
courts and concluded that the proposed offshore leasing in the Cook
Inlet would result in more than 30 million metric tons of additional
climate pollution.\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ BOEM, Revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Cook
Inlet Lease Sale 258 at 47-51 (2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But even the agency's updated methodology underestimates the
climate impacts of fossil-fuel leasing, as the MarketSim model still
does not account for structural changes in the global economy that are
likely to reduce long-term oil and gas demand and increase substitution
to renewables. In fact, the model unreasonably assumes near constant
demand for oil and gas for 70 years into the future,\22\ which is
incompatible with domestic and international efforts to mitigate the
impacts of climate change and would produce unsustainable amounts of
warming.\23\ As some scholars have noted, domestic and international
policies are likely to increase renewable generation in future years,
meaning that fossil-fuel production would substitute for cleaner energy
use far more than implied by MarketSim's business-as-usual
assumptions.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ BOEM, Potential Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions, supra note
15, at 20.
\23\ Id. (recognizing that ``[a]s countries, including the U.S.,
address climate change with individual policy targets, this assumption
could no longer hold,'' and that ``as new energy sources become more
economically feasible, they could displace existing sources and/or
alter the composition of energy supply'').
\24\ See, e.g., Brian C. Prest & James H. Stock, Climate Royalty
Surcharges 11 (Nat'l Bureau of Econ. Res. Working Paper No. 28564,
2021) (``[A]s renewable generation increases the electricity demand for
gas could become more elastic.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In short, fossil-fuel extraction on federal lands increases
greenhouse gas emissions. Although past Interior analyses have
minimized this effect or rejected it altogether, its analyses were
based on incomplete or outdated assumptions. Interior's prior
analyses--and, more broadly, the notion that domestic production is
good for the environment--should not form the basis for federal leasing
policy any longer.
B. Emission Increases from Federal Fossil-Fuel Development Result in
Extensive and Irreversible Climate Damage
Even when Interior has acknowledged that the federal fossil-fuel
program contributes to climate change, it has typically characterized
those contributions as insignificant by noting that federal leasing
represents a relatively small fraction of all national or global
emissions. But the implication of such an argument is that nobody
should take steps to mitigate the climate crisis, which as a federal
court explained, would be a ``prescription for climate disaster.'' \25\
In reality, the climate pollution produced by the federal fossil-fuel
program exacerbates the climate crisis, harms present and future
generations of Americans, and cannot be ignored.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ California v. Bernhardt, 472 F. Supp. 3d 573, 623 (N.D. Cal.
2020) (``[F]raming sources as less than 1% of global emissions is
dishonest and a prescription for climate disaster.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The practice of comparing emissions from a particular planning or
leasing determination to far larger totals such as global emissions
misleadingly makes massive amounts of climate harm from federal actions
appear trivial. As one federal court recently recognized, ``[t]he
global nature of climate change and greenhouse-gas emissions means that
any single . . . project likely will make up a negligible percent of .
. . nation-wide greenhouse gas emissions.'' \26\ Yet while agencies
assessing percentage comparisons of greenhouse gas emissions should
recognize this phenomenon and adjust their standards accordingly, they
typically do not. In other words, agencies all too often fail to
recognize, as one federal court explained, that even a seemingly ``very
small portion of a gargantuan source of . . . pollution'' may
``constitute[] a gargantuan source of . . . pollution on its own
terms.'' \27\
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\26\ WildEarth Guardians v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 457 F. Supp. 3d
880, 894 (D. Mont. 2020).
\27\ Sw. Elec. Power Co. v. EPA, 920 F.3d 999, 1032 (5th Cir. 2019)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In one recent assessment, for instance, Interior's Office of
Surface Mining deemed a proposal's carbon dioxide emissions ``small''
because they comprised 0.44% of the annual global total.\28\ But 0.44%
of annual global emissions is actually a massive volume for an
individual agency action. If Interior had used the social cost of
greenhouse gases, which provides a monetary estimate of the harm caused
by an incremental unit of climate pollution, it would have concluded
that this determination resulted in at least $9 billion in annual
climate harm.\29\ As this illustration demonstrates, Interior should
contextualize the impacts of federal fossil-fuel determinations using
the social cost of greenhouse gases, rather than dismissing them
through misleading percentage comparisons to larger denominators.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Bull Mountains Mine No. 1 Federal Mining Plan Modification
Environmental Assessment D-2 (2018).
\29\ Richard L. Revesz & Max Sarinsky, The Social Cost of
Greenhouse Gases: Legal Economic and Institutional Perspective, 39 Yale
Journal of Regulation, manuscript at 19 & n.134 (forthcoming 2022)
(using low-end value of the social cost of greenhouse gases based on a
3% discount rate).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indeed, in the few instances in which Interior has used the social
cost of greenhouse gases, the tool has revealed the substantial climate
harms of the oil and gas program. In its most recent offshore leasing
assessment, for instance, BOEM projected that the resulting climate
pollution (which it underestimated due to poor substitution assumptions
discussed above) would produce over $2 billion in climate damage.\30\
Independent analysis also finds that, even using conservative estimates
of the social cost of greenhouse gases, curtailing federal leasing
could cause $10 billion in climate benefit per year.\31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ BOEM, Revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Cook
Inlet Lease Sale 258 at 51 tbls. 4-14 & 4-15 (2021) (using a 2.5%
discount rate).
\31\ Brian Prest, Supply Side Reforms to Oil and Gas Production on
Federal Lands 32 (RFF Working Paper Working Paper 20-16) (2020).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In short, the federal government should not ignore the substantial
climate impacts of the oil and gas program. Tools such as the social
cost of greenhouse gases are available to assess the severity of those
impacts, and should be widely applied in planning and leasing
determinations.
C. Particularly Given the Vast Stock of Existing Leases, There Is
Considerable Option Value in Restricting Additional Leasing at
This Time
Prior planning and leasing determinations have also been based on a
lease-now approach, and have mostly ignored the possibility that the
government could curtail leasing and wait until further information is
available before determining whether additional leasing is appropriate.
But this value of delay--known in economics as ``option value''--is
extremely high, particularly given the fact that fossil-fuel developers
already have vast stocks of existing leases and thus any potential
economic benefits from additional leasing will not materialize for
years.
Fossil-fuel developers already have vast reserves of both producing
and currently non-producing leases. In the Outer Continental Shelf
alone, producers currently hold nearly 3 million acres of producing
leases and another 8 million acres in non-producing leases.\32\
Onshore, producers now hold over 26 million acres of federal land, half
of which is not yet producing.\33\ This high volume of non-producing
leases is due in large part to the ``long lag time between leasing a
parcel and beginning production from that parcel,'' \34\ as the very
presence of subsurface reserves on a company's balance sheet can
``boost its attractiveness to shareholders and investors, and even
increase its ability to borrow on favorable terms.'' \35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ BOEM, Combined Leasing Report as of Dec. 1, 2021, https://
www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/documents/regions/pacific-ocs-region/
oil-gas/Lease%20stats%2012-1-21.pdf.
\33\ Compare Oil and Gas Statistics, Bureau of Land Mgmt. tbl. 2,
https://www.blm.gov/programs-energy-and-minerals-oil-and-gas-oil-and-
gas-statistics, with id. tbl. 6.
\34\ Congressional Budget Office, Options for Increasing Federal
Income From Crude Oil and Natural Gas on Federal Lands 3 (2016).
\35\ Ctr. for Am. Progress, Oil and Gas Companies Gain by
Stockpiling America's Federal Land 3 (2018); see also Taxpayers for
Common Sense, Gaming the System: How Federal Land Management in Nevada
Fails Taxpayers 4 (2019) (``Certain companies and interests take
advantage of the low acquisition and ownership costs for federal leases
to amass sizable lease holdings.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given the vast reserves held by fossil-fuel developers, the current
need for additional leasing is low and value of delaying leasing
determinations until further information is available--including
information about the growth of renewable energy--is high. This
informational value of delay is known as ``option value,'' and it has
long been considered by agencies, courts, and economists to be a
relevant factor for leasing and mineral decisions.\36\ As the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has explained,
there is a ``tangible present economic benefit to delaying the decision
to drill for fossil fuels to preserve the opportunity to see what new
technologies develop and what new information comes to light.'' \37\
And this option value ``can be quite substantial'' \38\--as it is now
when both renewable energy is becoming more widespread and developers
are likely to wait years to develop new leases.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ BOEM itself has acknowledged the importance of option value in
assessing leasing, yet has only considered oil price uncertainty
without rigorously assessing uncertainties regarding environmental
factors, technological development, and the growth of renewable energy.
BOEM, 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Proposed
Final Program 10-3 to 10-16 (2016).
\37\ Ctr. for Sustainable Econ. v. Jewell, 779 F.3d 588, 610 (D.C.
Cir. 2015).
\38\ Michael Livermore, Patience is an Economic Virtue: Real
Options, Natural Resources, and Offshore Oil, 84 U. Colo. L. Rev. 581,
638-39 (2013).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In short, leasing additional lands to fossil-fuel developers at the
present moment offers limited benefit given the vast reserve of
existing leases, and the value of delaying leasing is high given that
leasing is likely to result in substantial climate costs down the road.
Interior should directly account for this option value in its policies
and practices.
III. Rational Analysis Counsels for Reforming the Oil and Gas Program
As outlined in this testimony, the federal government has relied on
irrational and discredited theories for too long in setting oil and gas
policy. It is past time for the government to rely on the best
available science and economics. Such evidence, if properly assessed,
counsels for several key reforms to the oil and gas program.
First, if the government properly considered energy substitution,
the social cost of greenhouse gases, and option value, fossil-fuel
leasing would look less attractive and determinations that Interior
currently justifies under its flawed methodologies would become
unjustifiable. Second, if the government properly considered the
climate harms of the fossil-fuel program, it would eliminate subsidies
to the oil and gas industry by adjusting fiscal terms.
A. Proper Analysis Counsels for Curtailing Fossil-Fuel Leasing that Is
Socially Undesirable
The substantial climate costs of federal production and the high
option value of delay strongly indicate that Interior's leasing
practices are unjustifiable and that the federal government should
curtail fossil-fuel leasing.
Given the high option value of delay, Interior's lease-now approach
is not socially desirable. Analyses from both government agencies and
independent economists finds that even more ambitious reforms to the
oil and gas program would have negligible impacts in the short
term.\39\ For instance, an analysis from Resources for the Future finds
that a leasing moratorium would not produce any reduction in domestic
oil production for five years or in domestic gas production for nine
years, and that declines would then proceed gradually.\40\ Reductions
in domestic oil and gas production would take decades to fully
materialize, as recent leasing is likely to result in extraction
decades into the future.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ See Laura Zachary, The Estimated Effects of a Leasing Pause: A
Review of the Modeling Consensus and Why a 2020 Study by Timothy J.
Considine Fails to Compute 2-4 (2021) (reviewing literature including
studies from the Energy Information Administration and the Federal
Reserve Bank of Dallas).
\40\ Id. at 3.
\41\ In its most recent environmental analysis, BOEM assumed a 40-
year exploration and development scenario. See BOEM, Revised Draft
Environmental Impact Statement for Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 (2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given this backdrop, there is little economic benefit to engaging
in additional fossil-fuel leasing at the present moment, since leasing
now will have negligible short- to medium-term effects and is not
needed in large volumes to ``meet national energy needs.'' \42\ Leasing
now does, however, have severe long-term climate costs, as detailed
above, since when production does eventually occur it will release
substantial climate pollution. Thus, there is a high value in delaying
further leasing. If, after fossil-fuel developers have mostly exhausted
their reserves, there remains a need for additional energy, then
Interior could engage in leasing at that time. But if other energy
sources--including renewable sources--meet national demand and there is
little need for additional fossil-fuel leasing, then leasing that
occurs now would have unnecessarily exacerbated the climate crisis for
limited benefit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ 43 U.S.C. Sec. 1344(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accordingly, option value strongly suggests the federal government
should curtail fossil-fuel leasing at this time. With respect to the
offshore program, this means that BOEM's upcoming five-year plan should
prioritize renewable-energy generation and conservation. Due to the
vast reserves of existing leases, this will result in a gradual, long-
term reduction in climate pollution from the federal program while
ensuring that America has plentiful energy supplies and allowing time
to for production of clean, renewable fuels to increase.
B. Economic Theory Counsels for Adjusting Lease Terms to Shift
Associated Climate Costs onto Fossil-Fuel Producers
As discussed above, the social cost of greenhouse gases provides a
highly useful tool for assessing the climate impacts of the federal oil
and gas program. In particular, the tool can be highly useful for
adjusting lease terms to ensure that fossil-fuel producers bear the
costs of the climate pollution that they cause. Doing so would correct
a market failure and align federal leasing policy with basic economic
theory.
In economics, the costs of climate change are known as a negative
externality, which is a market failure that results when a cost caused
by a producer is not financially borne by that producer. Negative
externalities are market failures because producers, lacking financial
incentive to do so, do not consider the costs that they impose on third
parties--here, the entire public. As a result, the public provides an
implicit subsidy to the producer because it bears the costs that the
producer imposes. According to a recent study from the International
Monetary Fund, in fact, the United States provided the fossil-fuel
industry with $660 billion in subsidies in 2020, mostly through
implicit subsidies.\43\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ Ian Perry et al., Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right: A
Global and Country Update of Fossil Fuel Subsidies 26 (Int'l Monetary
Fund Working Paper No. 2021/236, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The market failure of negative externalities can be corrected by
``internalizing'' the externality--that is, by shifting the external
cost from third parties onto the producer. For Interior, this means
adjusting lease terms to make the producer pay the social cost of
greenhouse gases caused by production on federal lands. The agency has
broad authority to adjust lease terms: for instance, resource-
management statutes set floors for royalty rates but give the agency
wide latitude to set rates above those minimums.\44\ As one member of
Congress explained before the statute's enactment, the MLA gives
Interior ``practically unlimited authority as to the granting and the
terms and conditions of leases.'' \45\ Given the broad concern for
climate impacts in land-management statutes, discussed above, Interior
undoubtedly has authority to adjust lease terms to internalize
environmental impacts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ See 43 U.S.C. Sec. 1337(a)(1) (setting minimum royalty rate of
12.5 percent of offshore oil and gas revenues); 30 U.S.C.
Sec. 226(b)(1)(A) (setting minimum royalty rate of 12.5 percent of
onshore oil and gas revenues); id. Sec. 207(a) (setting minimum royalty
rate of 12.5 percent of surface coal revenues).
\45\ 51 Cong. Rec. H14,954 (Sept. 10, 1914) (statement by Mr.
Thomson of Illinois).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adjusting lease terms to eliminate subsidies and shift the cost of
climate pollution onto producers could raise billions of dollars in
public revenue while simultaneously reducing climate pollution. One
recent analysis, in fact, found that incorporating the social cost of
greenhouse gases into royalty rates for offshore and onshore oil and
gas would increase royalty revenue by $6 billion annually while
reducing climate pollution by over 40 million metric tons per year.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Prest & Stock, supra note 24, at 17 tbl. 3 (assessing impacts
of a ``welfare-maximizing'' climate surcharge based on a $125 valuation
of the social cost of greenhouse gases).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
For decades, the federal government has inadequately considered the
climate harms that result from oil and gas leasing on public waters and
lands. It is time to restore rationality to the oil and gas program. In
particular, federal policy should be based on credible scientific and
economic analysis, and as detailed above, such analysis counsels for
key reforms including curtailing leasing and adjusting fiscal terms.
I thank the committee for this opportunity and look forward to
answering any questions.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Max Sarinsky, Senior Attorney,
Institute for Policy Integrity
Questions Submitted by Representative Huffman
Question 1. Mr. Sarinsky, can you identify a few of the times that
U.S. courts have taken issue with federal agencies using either perfect
substitution or very high substitution rates to support fossil fuel
projects or additional fossil fuel leasing?
Answer. At least five federal court cases fit this description,
which can be grouped into two categories.
In at least two cases, federal appellate courts have rejected the
assumption of perfect substitution, finding that it violates economic
principles. First, in 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit rejected an analysis from the Surface Transportation Board
assuming that a proposed coal railroad would not affect coal
consumption, explaining that ``the proposition that the demand for coal
will be unaffected by an increase in availability and a decrease in
price, which is the stated goal of the project, is illogical at best.''
\1\ Then, in 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
rejected an analysis from the Bureau of Land Management (``BLM'')
finding that fossil fuel leasing would not affect greenhouse gas
emissions, finding the ``perfect substitution assumption arbitrary and
capricious'' because it is ``contrary to basic supply and demand
principles.'' \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Mid States Coal. for Progress v. Surface Transp. Bd., 345 F.3d
520, 549 (8th Cir. 2003).
\2\ WildEarth Guardians v. BLM, 870 F.3d 1222, 1236 (10th Cir.
2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In three other cases, federal courts have rejected the MarketSim
model that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (``BOEM'') developed
for its review of offshore leasing, which finds very high substitution
rates. First, in 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
held that BOEM's analysis improperly omitted impacts on foreign oil
demand resulting from domestic production, and thus irrationally
assumed that foreign oil consumption will remain static when domestic
production increases.\3\ As the Court explained, this ignores the
global nature of the energy market and violates ``basic economics
principles'' about supply and demand.\4\ Then, in 2021, the U.S.
District Court for the District of Alaska echoed these findings in a
decision vacating a BLM development plan that relied on the same faulty
modeling.\5\ Most recently, just last week, the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia identified the same flaw in BOEM's analysis
and thus vacated an offshore lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Id.
\4\ Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Bernhardt, 982 F.3d 723, 736-
40 (9th Cir. 2020).
\5\ Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic v. BLM, No. 3:20-CV-
00290-SLG, 2021 WL 3667986, at *10-14 (D. Alaska Aug. 18, 2021).
\6\ Friends of the Earth v. Haaland, No. CV 21-2317 (RC), 2022 WL
254526, at *12-15 (D.D.C. Jan. 27, 2022).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions Submitted by Representative Carl
Question 1. You emphasize twice in your testimony's first two
paragraphs that your think-tank (IPI) is non-partisan. Please disclose
for the record the political contributions and affiliations of yourself
and obtain from your present colleagues and disclose that information
for the institute's executive committee and board.
Answer. The redundancy of that statement in my written testimony
was due to an editing oversight for which I apologize. In any event, my
individual contributions to federally registered political committees
is publicly availablethrough the Federal Election Commission (``FEC'')
website.\7\ I have no personal knowledge of contributions from other
Institute for Policy Integrity (``Policy Integrity'') staff or advisory
board members, though I understand their federal campaign donations
should also be a matter of public record on the FEC website.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/
?contributor_name=FEC+-
+Campaign+Finance+Reports+and+Data&contributor_name=max+sarinsky.
Question 2. What is your think-tank's prediction for both U.S. and
global oil demand over by years 2025, 2035, 2040, and 2050? (If IPI has
not made or refuses to make such a prediction, please cite a credible
source for such prediction upon which you base your policy
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
prescriptions.)
Answer. Policy Integrity has not made projections of future U.S. or
global oil demand. While many independent projections exist, some of
the most authoritative projections come from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (``EIA'')--a federal agency that analyzes
and disseminates energy information. In its most recent Annual Energy
Outlook, EIA recognized substantial uncertainty in future oil demand.
For instance, under the ``Low Oil and Gas Supply'' case, EIA projects
that renewable energy would greatly increase its share of U.S.
electricity generation while natural gas would decline substantially,
with renewables soon becoming the dominant source of U.S. electricity
generation.\8\ In some other cases, EIA projects that oil demand will
remain relatively steady over the coming decades.\9\ Of course, the
policies that the United States and other nations enact in the coming
years could greatly determine which future occurs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook
2021 at 15 (2021), https://www.eia.gov/pressroom/presentations/
AEO2021_Release_Presentation.pdf.
\9\ E.g., id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As explained in my written and oral testimony, this considerable
long-term uncertainty creates substantial ``option value'' (i.e., the
economic value of delay) that counsels for curtailing leasing at this
time, when developers hold so many existing leases in reserve and thus
the short-term need or economic benefit from additional leasing is
currently low. If there remains a need for additional energy after
fossil-fuel developers have mostly exhausted their reserves, then
Interior could engage in additional leasing at that time. But if other
energy sources, including renewable sources, meet national demand and
there is little need for additional fossil-fuel leasing, then leasing
that occurs now would have unnecessarily exacerbated the climate crisis
for limited benefit.\10\ In other words, the fact that long-term oil
and gas demand is highly uncertain is itself a strong reason to curtail
leasing at this time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ For a fuller discussion of option value and how it may affect
Interior leasing determinations, see pages 6-8 of my written testimony
previously submitted to this committee.
Question 3. Has any person or agency within the Biden
Administration ever asked IPI or its employees to conduct studies or
informal analysis of any kind to support its policy or regulatory
processes? If so, please provide the committee either physical or
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
electronic copies of such communications.
Answer. No person or agency within the Biden Administration has
asked me to conduct studies or analysis to support its policy or
regulatory processes, either on the subject matter of my testimony or
on anything else. I am not aware of any person or agency within the
Biden Administration asking other Policy Integrity staff to conduct
studies or analysis to support the Administration's policy or
regulatory processes.
Question 4. If so, has IPI or its employees been in any way
compensated for such work product? If so, please provide the committee
either physical or electronic copies of such transactions.
Answer. Please see response to Question 3.
Question 5. Excluding public comments, has IPI directly
communicated with any member of the White House staff, either political
appointee or career staff, on BOEM's Revised Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258? If so, please provide the
committee either physical or electronic copies of such transactions.
Answer. I have not directly communicated with any member of the
White House staff on BOEM's Revised Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 (excluding public comments). I
am not aware of any other Policy Integrity staff having done so.
Question 6. Excluding public comments, has IPI directly
communicated with any member of the Interior Department staff, either
political appointee or career staff, on BOEM's Revised Draft
Environmental Impact Statement for Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258? If so,
please provide the committee either physical or electronic copies of
such transactions.
Answer. I have not directly communicated with any member of the
Interior Department staff on BOEM's Revised Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 (excluding public comments). I
am not aware of any other Policy Integrity staff having done so.
Question 7. Please disclose any instances where IPI has offered,
been requested for, or provided any information in support of the
filings of the parties to Friends of the Earth v. Haaland (DDC) as well
as any and all of the cases you cite in your testimony, and please
provide the committee either physical or electronic copies of such
communications (Including Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Bernhardt,
982 F.3d 723, 736-40 (9th Cir. 2020)).
Answer. Policy Integrity served as co-counsel for petitioner in
Center for Sustainable Economy v. Jewell, 779 F.3d 588 (D.C. Cir.
2015), which was cited in my written testimony. Policy Integrity
submitted an amicus curiae brief supporting petitioners-appellants in
WildEarth Guardians v. BLM, 870 F.3d 1222 (10th Cir. 2017), which was
cited in my written testimony. Policy Integrity also submitted an
amicus curiae brief supporting plaintiffs in California v. Bernhardt,
472 F. Supp. 3d 573 (N.D. Cal. 2020), which was cited in my written
testimony. All three filings predated my employment with Policy
Integrity.
I contemplated filing an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Policy
Integrity in support of plaintiffs in Sovereign Inupiat for a Living
Arctic v. BLM, No. 3:20-CV-00290-SLG, 2021 WL 3667986 (D. Alaska Aug.
18, 2021), which was also cited in my written testimony, but decided
against it. I have otherwise not offered, been requested for, or
provided any information in support of the filings in any of the cases
cited in my written testimony. I am not aware of other Policy Integrity
staff offering, being requested for, or providing any information in
support of the filings in any of the cases cited in my written
testimony, aside from the three cases discussed in the prior paragraph
in which Policy Integrity itself prepared and submitted written
filings.
Question 8. Your testimony cites a working paper from one Brian
Prest of Resources for the Future. Please disclose all communications
between IPI employees and Mr. Prest.
Answer. In March 2021, after the publication of his cited working
papers, a colleague and I exchanged emails with Dr. Prest regarding his
research. I am aware that several of my colleagues have also
communicated with Dr. Prest since the publication of his cited working
papers, but have not been privy to those communications.
Question 9. In the hearing, you indicated that you were aware of a
study that showed restricting oil and gas production in the Gulf of
Mexico would result in a decrease in the total consumption of oil and
gas in the U.S. Please provide that study.
Answer. At the committee hearing, I responded affirmatively to Rep.
Carl's question as to whether any studies show that ``restricting oil
and gas production in federal waters will actually result in decreasing
the total consumption of oil in the U.S.'' The study that I referenced
is presented on pages 43-48 of BOEM's Revised Draft Environmental
Impact Statement for Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258.\11\ As that study
found, increasing domestic oil and gas production in Alaska's Cook
Inlet would result in an increase in both domestic and international
oil and gas consumption, thereby resulting in over $2 billion in
additional climate damage.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ This analysis is available at https://www.boem.gov/sites/
default/files/documents/oil-gas-energy/leasing/LS258-DEIS_0.pdf.
\12\ Id. at 51 tbls. 4-14 & 4-15 (using 2.5% discount rate).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I did not say this during the Committee hearing, BOEM has
actually recognized for years--long before its 2021 analysis discussed
above, and beyond the specific context of the Cook Inlet--that
increasing offshore oil and gas production increases total U.S. fossil-
fuel consumption. In its 2016 analysis for its current five-year
program, BOEM concluded that leasing and extraction under the program
would in part displace reduced consumption, meaning that the five-year
program would increase fossil-fuel consumption.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ BOEM, OCS Oil and Natural Gas: Potential Lifecycle Greenhouse
Gas Emissions and Social Cost of Carbon 18 tbl. 6-3 (2016), https://
www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/oil-and-gas-energy-program/Leasing/
Five-Year-Program/2017-2022/OCS-Report-BOEM-2016-065---OCS-Oil-and-
Natural-Gas---Potential-Lifecycle-GHG-Emissions-and-Social-Cost-of-
Carbon.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
______
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Sarinsky. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Pugliaresi for 5 minutes.
Welcome to the Committee, Mr. Pugliaresi.
[Pause.]
Dr. Lowenthal. Mr. Pugliaresi, I believe you are muted.
Please unmute yourself.
Mr. Pugliaresi. My apologies for that.
STATEMENT OF LUCIAN (LOU) PUGLIARESI, PRESIDENT, ENERGY POLICY
RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC. (EPRINC), WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Pugliaresi. Chairman Lowenthal, Ranking Member Stauber,
members of the Subcommittee, my name is Lucian Pugliaresi. I am
President of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, and I
welcome this opportunity to provide my perspective on the
importance of the Federal Government's oil and gas leasing
program in the Gulf of Mexico.
First slide, please.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. Next slide.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. Great. The United States is the world's
largest oil and gas producer, and the Gulf of Mexico is an
important contributor to this leadership position, providing
between 15 and 18 percent of total U.S. crude production in
recent years.
Next slide, please.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. The Gulf of Mexico yields substantial
revenues to the U.S. Treasury, contributes to American energy
security, and is a prolific and low-cost resource for
sustaining the North American oil and gas production platform.
If we were to discontinue production from this natural
resource, the Federal Government would lose an important source
of income, revenues the Federal Government collects from the
Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production would now be collected by
foreign producers. A portion of this revenue stream now
provides significant funding for coastal restoration projects
on the Gulf Coast.
Next slide.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. As shown in Figure 3, halting Gulf of
Mexico production is likely to be counter-productive in
addressing carbon emissions. Production from Gulf of Mexico
petroleum resources, particularly the new prospects in the
deep-water gulf, have considerably lower emissions per barrel
than most other locations.
Next slide, please.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. I think one of the things we need to keep
in mind is that, at least over the last 10 years, natural gas,
often produced in large quantities as a byproduct of crude oil
production, has been the most important fuel in reducing U.S.
carbon emissions, as it is a cost-effective substitute for the
use of coal in the production of electricity. This explains the
remarkable performance of the United States in lowering carbon
emissions. Our trading partners can take advantage of this as
well, as U.S. gas can be exported as LNG.
Next slide, please.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. This is very important to understand this
slide. As you can see from previous past attempts to accelerate
our use of wind and solar, it is an effort that faces enormous
obstacles. Fully implementing an energy transition over the
next 30 years is neither easy, nor can it be assured. We face
important obstacles and failure modes, so abandoning our legacy
fuels before alternative sources are ready is risky.
Next slide.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. Achieving net-zero in the developed world
will reduce carbon emissions by only a small amount. The
developed world is rich. We can afford a lot of costly
measures. But even if we were to exceed in getting net-zero
throughout the entire OECD, global emissions in 2050 are not
likely to be any more than 20 percent less than in a business-
as-usual case. And the reason for this is that, in the
developing world, dense, ample supplies of energy are going to
be driven by population and economic growth.
Next slide.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. The United States should see the current
energy crisis in Europe as a cautionary tale and learn from it.
If you look at the major utility systems in the countries that
have accelerated its use of intermittent fuels without having
adequate backup or sustainable power sources, these are the
countries and the systems which are experiencing the largest
price increases and the most unstable power supplies.
Next slide.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. The energy transition is going to establish
a lot of environmental challenges and energy security issues,
in addition to the old ones. As you can see from this slide,
the United States is the largest oil and gas producer in the
world. So, the existing policy to try to reduce U.S. oil and
gas production and accelerate the transition will move us from
a position of energy independence to highly dependent on
critical materials and minerals. And we do not yet have an
adequate plan to develop those minerals in the United States.
Finally, next slide.
[Slide.]
Mr. Pugliaresi. Policy measures should be robust against
uncertainty, and this is really quite a serious problem, in my
view. The future is quite uncertain, and even well-known
modelers and experts have widely different views on the future
of our energy requirements. And whatever strategies we
undertake, they need to withstand against these uncertainties
as we move ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pugliaresi follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lucian Pugliaresi, President, Energy Policy
Research Foundation, Inc. (EPRINC)
Chairman Lowenthal, Ranking Member Stauber, and members of the
subcommittee, my name is Lucian Pugliaresi. I am President of the
Energy Policy Research Foundation, Inc. (EPRINC), a non-profit public
policy research organization. EPRINC was founded in 1944 and studies
energy economics and policy issues with special emphasis on oil,
natural gas, and petroleum product markets. I have worked on a broad
range of energy security issues for my entire career, both in and out
of government, beginning with the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo. Over the
last two years EPRINC has undertaken a systematic assessment of the
limitations of computational models that evaluate our energy future.
I welcome this opportunity to provide my perspective on the
importance of the Federal Government's oil and gas leasing program in
the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). The U.S. is the world's largest oil and gas
producer and the GOM is an important contributor to this leadership
position by providing between 15-18% of total U.S. crude oil production
(Figure 1) in recent years. The Gulf of Mexico yields substantial
revenues to the U.S. Treasury, contributes to American energy security,
and is a prolific and low-cost resource for sustaining the North
American oil and gas production platform.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
If we were to discontinue production from this national
resource, the Federal Government would lose an important source of
income and see rising unemployment in the petroleum and related
industries. American vulnerability to expensive and insecure petroleum
imports would rise. Revenues the Federal Government collects from GOM
oil and gas production (Figure 2) would now be collected by foreign
producers as U.S. imports rise to replace the lost production.
Important environmental programs would also suffer. Under the 2006 Gulf
of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA), Gulf producing states receive
37.5% of all qualifying OCS revenues, with 20% of each state's share
dedicated to ``coastal political subdivisions.'' This revenue stream
provides significant funding for coastal restoration projects on the
Gulf Coast.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
As shown in Figure 3, halting GOM production is also likely to
be counterproductive in addressing carbon emissions. Production from
GOM petroleum resources produces lower levels of emissions per barrel
than most other locations.\1\ Nevertheless, President Biden has issued
several Executive Orders aimed at achieving a ``net-zero'' carbon
emissions target for the national economy, in part, by halting new
offshore oil and gas development.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ These findings were published and supported during the Obama
Administration. See U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management, ``OCS Oil and Natural Gas: Potential Lifecycle
Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Social Cost of Carbon,'' November 2016,
https://www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/oil-and-gas-energy-program/
Leasing/Five-Year-Program/2017-2022/OCS-Report-BOEM-2016-065---OCS-Oil-
and-Natural-Gas---Potential-Lifecycle-GHG-Emissions-and-Social-Cost-of-
Carbon.pdf.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
More importantly, initiatives to halt or curtail domestic oil
and gas production present grave economic and social risks to the
United States and represent a misplaced understanding of the difficulty
in executing an energy transition over the next 20-30 years. Natural
gas, often produced in large quantities as a by-product of crude oil
production, has been the most important fuel in reducing U.S. carbon
emissions as it is a cost-effective substitute for the use of coal in
the production of electricity (Figure 4). Before proceeding with any
policies to limit the use of legacy fossil fuels, we need to understand
the full range of uncertainties and the potential implications to our
security and economic well-being. Public support for the transition
will hinge on the availability of reliable and affordable energy which
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
remains the lifeblood of our economy and our national security.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The energy transition requires overcoming complex technical,
scientific and public policy challenges. It is an enormous undertaking,
fraught with setbacks, especially if attempted quickly without a
careful assessment of the full range of economic and social
consequences. I encourage the Congress to consider the following points
as you proceed with legislation to halt or limit production of oil and
gas from the Gulf of Mexico.
1. The Energy System is highly complicated, inter-connected regionally
and globally in ways that are not always apparent. The energy
transition presents a new set of supply and price risks for consumers
and manufacturers. Fully implementing an energy transition over the
next 30 years is neither easy nor can it be assured.
The tasks required in any transition will be enormous, difficult
and expensive--complicated by the fact that other countries around the
world are attempting similar feats with little or no practical
experience. Worldwide, fossil fuels continue to dominate the energy
complex, providing over 80 percent of primary energy requirements
(Figure 5). This will not be our first attempt to accelerate the energy
transition and Figure 6 demonstrates how difficult it remains to
implement ambitious plans to accelerate the deployment of wind and
solar resources to support the energy transition. The deployment of
these technologies has been limited even as the U.S. government has
provided direct financial incentives and mandates to advance wind and
solar power over the last 30 years (over $50 billion in Federal
expenditures in tax incentives and grants between 2005-2015 alone).\2\
Today, these two technologies produce less than 4% of our primary
energy requirements. In the same time period (2005-2015), gross
receipts to the Federal Government from oil and gas leasing exceeded
$110 billion.\3\ Oil and gas continues to garner revenues for the
Federal Government, and as stated above, a considerable portion is
shared with the states. The differences in these two revenue streams
(one from, and other to, the Federal Government) reflect the reality of
the marketplace.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Examination of Federal Financial Assistance in the Renewable
Energy Market, November 2018. https://www.energy.gov/ne/downloads/
report-examination-federal-financial-assistance-renewable-energy-
market.
\3\ Options for Increasing Federal Income from Crude Oil and
Natural Gas on Federal Lands. Congressional Budget Office, April 2016.
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/
reports/51421-oil_and_gas_options-OneCol-3.pdf.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
2. Achieving net zero in the developed world will reduce carbon
emissions by only a small amount, likely no more than 20 percent of
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
expected global emissions.
Reducing carbon emissions is a global challenge. Even if the
developed world achieves net zero, our research concludes that without
a massive commitment from the developing world, the net reduction in
carbon emissions will be relatively small, perhaps no more than 20%
less in 2050 when compared to a business-as-usual scenario (Figure 7).
An important challenge for the developed world, represented by
membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD), is that policies that push for a rapid energy transition will
also likely be accompanied by lower rates of economic growth. This is a
serious challenge for the OECD as any loss of economic expansion will
also reduce public resources for research and development of new and
advanced carbon free energy resources.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
3. Regulatory programs as well as private sector commitments to
accelerate the energy transition--whether it be mandates, targets,
financial and procurement guidelines create uncertainty and financial
risks that limit investment commitments to current legacy fuels, many
of which are likely to remain in demand for years to come.
Legislative, regulatory and policy decisions made today, even if
relatively narrow in scope are creating expectations of rising costs
and delays in extraction of oil and gas resources, and increasing the
risk for capital flows to establish new oil and gas production. For
example, policies by financial institutions that prohibit investments
in the development of oil and gas resources may lead to temporary if
not longer-term supply constraints that will affect energy prices,
manufacturing and U.S. competitiveness.
Many commentators assert that there remains a serious risk that oil
and gas companies are likely to end up owning assets for which there is
no market, but financial data does not support the claim that companies
are holding ``stranded assets'' (Figure 8), nor is it likely that world
demand for oil and gas will decline precipitously in the near future.
Our desire for change cannot obscure the on-the-ground reality of how
important energy is to our economy and the need to assure a robust
supply of reliable and affordable energy.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
4. A portion of the recent escalation in energy prices can be tied
directly to dislocations in energy supplies (largely oil and gas) from
the Covid-19 pandemic. However, government policies, such as the halt
on leasing on federal lands, the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline,
the potential cancellation of line 5 from Canada, rising regulatory
requirements and permitting delays are all threatening North American
oil and gas production. We undermine this strategic asset at our peril
if we abandon these fuels before the energy transition is well
established.
The U.S. and the rest of the world will continue to need oil and
gas throughout the transition. Any policy decision based on the simple
premise that the U.S. can transition simply by cutting off production
of legacy fuels will backfire horribly and erode public support. Other
measures undertaken or under consideration, such as halting crude oil
exports or a release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve without a
genuine supply disruption are likely to be counterproductive.
Recent speculation that some Members of Congress and the Biden
Administration are considering reinstituting a ban on U.S. crude oil
exports is especially worrisome as it would likely raise gasoline
prices and further disrupt supply chains. The U.S. is a large
continental land mass and so minimizing transportation and processing
costs for moving crude oil to market are important. Oil prices are set
in the world market so a refiner in Hawaii would rather purchase crude
from Indonesia than Houston and save on transportation costs. A Gulf
coast refiner whose processing technology is tuned to heavy crude can
gain cost efficiencies by using Mexican or Canadian oil rather than one
with alternative specifications produced in North Dakota. Halting the
export of crudes with specifications suited for foreign refiners would
likely reduce U.S. production and further drive-up crude oil prices and
lead to further increases in gasoline prices.
Crude oil and petroleum product exports allow the entire North
American production platform to minimize transportation and processing
costs. Open access to markets and crude and product transportation
efficiencies permit U.S. refineries to operate at high levels of
capacity utilization and provides opportunities for upstream producers
to maximize crude oil output. The free movement of capital, crude oil
and petroleum products remain critical to sustaining the productive
capacity of the U.S. petroleum industry and the entire North American
oil and natural gas production platform. These efficiencies have led to
rapid expansion of U.S. oil production and remain one of the central
reasons that large volumes of U.S. crude imports also result in large
volumes of higher value-added exports of petroleum products. One of the
reasons the U.S. has achieved energy independence is that the
production platform is efficient. Reinstituting the export ban would
result in further reductions in U.S. production, higher stress on
supply chains, and rising price risk to gasoline supplies.
5. Policy Matters. The U.S. should see the current energy crisis in
Europe as a cautionary tale and learn from it.
The current energy crisis in Europe, characterized by rapidly
escalating natural gas prices, has been driven by constraints in
electricity supplies. The European crisis has its roots in policies
that sought rapid decarbonization without accounting for the associated
supply risks. Germany presents a stark example as the rising demand for
natural gas to support intermittent renewable supplies has contributed
to a more expensive and a less resilient power sector (Figures 9 and
10). Clearly, recovery from the pandemic is a factor, but so are
policies that limit fuel diversity and make power systems less
resilient.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The German Commission on Growth, Structural Change and
Employment, better known and referred at the Coal Commission set up by
the German Government to enquire into the future of the role of coal
(and lignite) in the country's low carbon energy transition released
its strategy document in January 2019. The German transition strategy
followed two previous policy instruments, the German Feed-In Tariff Law
of 2000 and the German Nuclear Plant Shut down Directive of 2012. In
early 2020, German government articulated its first draft of its
Hydrogen Strategy that made a technology choice of hydrogen production
through the electrolysis route over other more economically attractive
technology options.
The German energy transition plan is now directed by these new
policy instruments and despite support for the transition initiative by
several leading figures (including the Head of the IEA, Dr Fatih Birol)
these policy initiatives are delivering higher systemic risk into the
German power sector.
Two risky features are now prevalent in the German power sector:
1. The transition to a low carbon economy in Germany--driven mainly
by policy instruments around highly attractive feed-in
tariffs for renewables, a shut-down of coal and nuclear
plants by 2024 and 2038 respectively and the introduction
of hydrogen by a specifically chosen technology route.
These policy initiatives will not be sufficient to meet
demand for electricity in Germany in 2030. The energy
transition in Germany has been a policy driven exercise
that has been expensive and yet unable to achieve its
stated aims.
2. The only remaining fuel vector for Germany to close the gap in
its electricity demand then remains natural gas/LNG.
These policy instruments, directed at rapidly bringing down carbon
emissions will continue to be expensive, unable to meet its stated
decarbonization targets and drive rising, instead of reduced, demand
for natural gas.
6. Policy initiatives that seek to accelerate the U.S. to a fully
renewable energy complex will have global implications for energy
security.
Much of the world will remain dependent on oil and gas with a
growing dependence on producers from the Middle East and Russia. Recent
trends in upstream oil and gas capital expenditures are especially
worrisome (Figure 11). While the reluctance to increase capital
expenditures among the major oil companies may be tied to concerns on
strengthening their balance sheets, rising development costs, other
forces may be at play as well including government directives
discouraging investment by financial institutions in upstream oil and
gas development. Should this trend continue, we might find ourselves in
the midst of a two-speed transition process. Rapid transition (at least
an attempted rapid transition) in the OECD, but limited progress in the
developing world. China, Russia and the Middle East will gain
positional advantage leaving the U.S. and its allies vulnerable to
strategic threats. We may end up with an energy transition which will
see the U.S. move from our current position of energy independence to
dependence on a broad set of critical minerals from insecure sources,
while at the same time experiencing growing reliance on traditional oil
and gas supplies from insecure and expensive sources.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
7. The transition will establish new environmental challenges and
energy security issues in addition to the old.
Figures 12, 13, and 14 show the challenges facing the U.S. Today,
the U.S. is the largest producer of oil and gas worldwide. This
provides strategic advantages and energy independence. A rapid shift to
reliance on electric vehicles (and batteries), solar, wind and related
renewable energy sources will also require large quantities of copper,
lithium, manganese, cobalt, and molybdenum. While many of these
minerals can be developed through potential mining sites in the U.S.,
these minerals will also require new processing facilities to be
developed into useable materials. Permitting constraints and
environmental reviews will likely make the development of these
resources a long and arduous effort.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
In addition, it is not a trivial effort to construct large
scale wind and solar farms and to accelerate the production of electric
vehicles. Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has
outlined the formidable requirements for replacing the energy output
from a single 100-megawatt natural gas-fired turbine with wind
turbines.
It would require at least 20 wind turbines, each one about the
size of the Washington Monument, occupying some 10 square miles
of land. Building those wind machines consumes enormous
quantities of conventional materials, including concrete,
steel, and fiberglass, along with less common materials,
including `rare earth' elements such as dysprosium . . .. All
forms of green energy require roughly comparable quantities of
materials in order to build machines that capture nature's
flows: sun, wind, and water. Wind farms come close to matching
hydro dams in material consumption, and solar farms outstrip
both. In all three cases, the largest share of the tonnage is
found in conventional materials like concrete, steel, and
glass. Compared with a natural gas power plant, all three
require at least 10 times as many total tons mined, moved, and
converted into machines to deliver the same quantity of
energy.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Mills, M.P. (2020, July 9). Green Energy Reality Check: It's
not as clean as you think. Manhattan Institute. https://www.manhattan-
institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check Page 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Policy measures should be robust against uncertainty.
We are heading into a largely uncharted world full of enormous,
price, energy security risks. We have an extraordinary responsibility
to consider the vast and array of risks and to develop policies that
are robust under the uncertainties that cannot be easily predicted.
Expect failures, cost over-runs and the unexpected. As shown in Figure
15, experienced analysts with long involvement in modeling our future
energy requirements disagree on worldwide requirements over the next 30
years.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__
Questions Submitted for the Record to Lucian Pugliaresi, President,
Energy Policy Research Foundation, Inc. (EPRINC)
Questions Submitted by Representative Stauber
Question 1. Why should the Federal Government offer more leases,
when so many have been issued and development has yet to proceed?
Answer. The federal outer continental shelf (OCS) leasing program
provides specific conditions for winning bidders, including bonus bids,
rental fees and time limits for development of leased properties. In
order to maximize efficient development and the productive capacity of
federal offshore petroleum resources it is important to have a large
inventory of properties available for development. A large inventory of
leases waiting development is not necessarily an indication the
Department of Interior has issued too many leases or that the existing
inventory is excessive. Changes in market conditions, technological
advances, environmental reviews and mitigation programs, potential for
unitization of adjoining properties can alter the profitability,
sometimes substantially, of leased properties and the flow of financial
capital for development. The pace at which offshore resources are
developed does not, and should not, be determined by the date on which
original leases were issued.
A similar example is recent criticism over the large number of
export permits for liquified natural gas (LNG) issued by the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE). To date a large number of LNG export
facilities have been authorized, but many of these have not received a
Final Investment Decision (FID). The large number of undeveloped, but
authorized export permits has been identified as a primary reason that
DOE officials have decided to halt issuing any new permits to so-called
non-free-trade destinations, which represents most of the world's
natural gas consuming countries. However, such a policy fails to
recognize that some pending projects might be superior to already
authorized facilities. For example, proposed construction of new
liquefaction facilities on Mexico's Pacific Coast, supplied by U.S.
produced natural gas, could supply U.S. LNG to important allies and
markets in the Pacific Rim. There are no restrictions on the shipment
of U.S. natural gas to Mexico, but additional permits are required for
natural gas shipped to Mexico that is re-exported as LNG. The best
potential for expanding cost-effective supplies of domestic oil, gas
and LNG require a large inventory of prospects that can command
financial support to proceed.
More importantly, there remains widespread agreement that the U.S.,
the world's current largest producer of natural gas, has substantial
gas reserves and could provide additional supplies to the world market
both as an instrument of global energy security and as a cost-effective
pathway to limit emissions of carbon dioxide as a substitute for coal.
Question 2. During the hearing, there was discussion of subsidies
from the U.S. Government from oil and gas production, citing an IMF
paper. Could you please clarify the assumptions and conclusions of this
working paper?
Answer. There was discussion during the hearing that development of
oil and gas resources from the Outer Continental Shelf did not
accurately account for the large subsidies provided by the government
as described in a recent IMF working paper.\1\ The Committee was left
with the impression that oil and gas development received an annual
subsidy in excess of $600 billion. Two features of the working paper
are worth noting, First, the IMF uses the word ``subsidies'' to include
not just direct tax payer support for fuel use, but an estimate of
environmental costs for the combustion of the fuel. Nearly half of
their ``subsidy'' calculations are related to coal use and are
therefore not relevant to development of oil and gas resources on the
OCS. In fact, to the extent that offshore development provides
additional volumes of natural gas that can substitute for coal
combustion, it would substantially lower the IMF estimates of the
effective ``subsidy.'' In addition, the report makes no adjustment for
revenues collected by federal, state, and local jurisdictions from oil
and gas development of public and private lands. Note that, according
to the U.S. Department of Interior, the federal government alone
collected over $100 billion in oil and gas revenues between 2005-2015.
A further limitation of the paper is that it does not effectively
address uncertainty in calculations from the environmental costs of oil
and gas use, especially given advances in control technologies. Air
pollution costs are especially uncertain given the advances in the U.S.
on control technologies and cleaner fuels. The paper has not been peer
reviewed and should not be relied upon for any important policy
conclusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ David Coady, et al. Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large:
An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates. IMF working paper, May
2019. See https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/
Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-
Level-Estimates-46509.
Question 3. Could you provide more context to the claims made by
the Administration and the Majority that halting OCS production will
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
reduce carbon emissions?
Answer. The claims made by the Administration and the Majority that
halting OCS production will reduce carbon emissions is driven by
computer modeling effort that concludes that halting U.S. domestic
production would yield higher world equilibrium oil prices sufficiently
to lower world demand by enough volume to reduce worldwide GHG
emissions. The model is based on a very simplistic description of the
world oil market. For example, OPEC might decide to pursue a price
target by merely adjusting output for incremental production from non-
OPEC producers and U.S. output would merely shift to foreign producers.
If U.S. policies to limit domestic production were to drive up world
natural gas prices, Asian electric power producers might switch out of
gas to coal or direct crude burn. U.S. policy makers may decide that
high petroleum prices risk energy security or are politically
unacceptable and request OPEC producers to expand output.
None of these are speculative statements, but events that have
occurred in the world oil and gas market in just the last 12 months.
Here the central point is that attempting to calculate a global GHG
emission estimate from a single oil and gas lease sale provides little
useful information against the global uncertainties of future energy
use and emissions. Policy development on the role of domestic oil
production should include an analysis of the broad range of
consequences beyond implications of a simple variable, i.e., GHG
emissions. Asking policy makers to consider a single variable is likely
to be misleading and ignore other important considerations.
Question 4. In terms of environmental justice, how are minorities
and low-income families affected by rising gasoline prices?
Answer. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that poverty rates
for Black and Hispanic households, although declining between 2015-
2019, are still about twice as high as among white households. In 2019,
the share of Blacks in poverty was 1.8 times greater than their share
among the general population. Blacks represented 13.2% of the total
population in the United States, but 23.8% of the poverty population.
The share of Hispanics in poverty was 1.5 times more than their share
in the general population. Hispanics comprised 18.7% of the total
population, but 28.1% of the population in poverty.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ John Creamer, U.S. Bureau of Census. Inequalities Persist
Despite Decline in Poverty for All Major Race and Hispanic Origin
Groups. See https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-
rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. energy policies which seek to curtail the production of legacy
fuels without adequate low-cost substitutes are especially harmful to
low-income and minority communities. While the increase in gasoline
prices increases costs for all drivers, and especially commuters,
workers from households whose income is below the federal poverty level
pay a larger proportion of their income for gas. The most comprehensive
data on this topic is from the American Community Survey undertaken in
2006 published by the Urban Institute.
Low-income commuters on average have slightly shorter commutes
(19.5 minutes) than those with incomes above the poverty level (23
minutes). However, because their incomes are much lower, poor commuters
spend a much higher proportion of their wages on gas (8.6 versus 2.1
percent at $4/gal). As gas prices double, the increase in costs
represents a disproportionate increase in the burden for below-poverty
commuters--from $2/gal, the increase takes 4.3 percent of income from
below-poverty commuters and 1.0 percent from those above poverty.
As shown in the Figure below when the price of gasoline rises from
$2 to $4 per gallon households with income below the poverty line
experience an increase of wages going to gasoline from approximately 4%
to 8%. Any discussion of environmental justice should also include the
consequences of environmental policies that raise long-term gasoline
prices.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Pugliaresi, for your
testimony. I thank the panel, all the panelists, for their
testimony.
I want to remind the Members that Committee Rule 3(d)
imposes a 5-minute limit on questions.
The Chair will now recognize Members for any questions they
may wish to ask the witnesses, and I am going to recognize
myself first for 5 minutes of questions.
Before I begin, I want to thank the Ranking Member for his
very kind words at the beginning, and I hope that this year we
continue our relationship, our respect for each other, and
respect for all the members of the Committee. I think the
strength of Congress is when we may not all agree, but that we
have great respect for each other, and we listen to each other.
All right, I am going to follow up my first question with
Mr. Sarinsky, and I want to follow up on what you have already
talked about, but just to kind of reiterate and to clarify, Mr.
Sarinsky.
You know that in this Committee many of the supporters of
offshore drilling argue that, if we don't drill here in the
United States--they make the argument that drilling would
increase in other countries and emissions would go up. That is
a kind of a logical interpretation of where they are, and it is
understandable. And BOEM's current 5-year leasing plan cites
this very argument as a reason to hold lease sales. So, that
argument is out there.
And the question is, do you agree with BOEM's analysis that
emissions would increase in the absence of new leasing?
Mr. Sarinsky. I do not agree with it. The economists I work
with do not agree with it. And more importantly, Federal courts
have rejected it and Interior has since disclaimed it.
So, if I could provide a little bit of context, at a high
level, Interior's assessment was based off this idea that
almost all extraction that occurred on Federal waters would
occur elsewhere if they were not to occur on Federal waters.
That simply is not how economics works. It violates basic
supply and demand principles. And in reality, while there would
be some substitution effect, what we see is that extraction on
Federal lands leads to a very large increase, overall, in total
combustion and production. So, as a result, you have a very
large increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
So, as I said, the Ninth Circuit last year, in 2020,
rejected, flat out, BOEM's conclusion that the offshore program
reduces greenhouse gas emissions. It found that there were
severe modeling limitations, that was the conclusion. And in
its most recent proposed leasing in the Cook Inlet, which was
released this past fall, BOEM corrected for that particular
error that the court identified and found that that leasing
would result in over 30 million metric tons of additional
surplus pollution. And that still remains an underestimate due
to continuing modeling limitations.
Dr. Lowenthal. So, you are saying that, in part, BOEM's
analysis is flawed, that original, and that it is changing. Can
you explain where BOEM is now, and how it is changing?
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes. BOEM's prior analysis assumes--in the
2016 5-year plan, BOEM's analysis assumes that foreign
consumption would be unaffected by domestic production. That
makes no economic sense. Energy is a global market, so effects
that occur in the United States affect the entire world.
The court, the Ninth Circuit, patently rejected that
conclusion. They said it is irrational. There was a second
court, the District of Alaska, that followed suit, so now two
courts have rejected that conclusion. And since then, BOEM has
updated its modeling to correct for that issue. So, it now
finds that there are substantial increases in foreign
greenhouse gas consumption as a result of domestic fossil fuel
reduction.
And as I said, there are still severe issues with some
modeling that a number of economists have pointed out that, if
those were corrected, would show that there is even further
greenhouse gas emission surplus as a result of U.S. production.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you. I want to turn to Dr. Wright.
Dr. Wright, you participated in the Interior Department's
forum on the Federal oil and gas program, and last June you
published an Op-Ed calling for the Interior Department to
incorporate environmental justice into offshore leasing
reforms.
What were your thoughts on the leasing report the
Department of the Interior released in November?
Dr. Wright. Well, first of all, thank you for that
question.
But the report, to some extent, gave us a little bit of
hope, because it seemed to really speak to trying to find a way
to measure some of the impacts that it would have on
environmental justice communities. What we would like the
Department to do is to develop an analysis, a real working
analysis, to determine the impact that these leases will have
on environmental justice communities.
Right now, the only thing that we have is something that is
more anecdotal, and I could go into a lot of details as it
relates to how the leasing program is really a gateway to
climate change that, in turn, leads to all the negative effects
that we have been dealing with at this point.
We would just like to see more done, a better analysis that
includes environmental justice communities in the decisions
that they are making and also allow us to review the new leases
that they are looking at to be giving out.
Dr. Lowenthal. Can you kind of tie it up? We are a little
bit over time.
Dr. Wright. Yes, so I guess, in general, I just want to say
that we certainly appreciate the fact that the office is now
beginning to think about including environmental justice
communities in their evaluation of new leases. We are, in fact,
though, asking that they develop a real environmental justice
analysis for new leases and look at the impact it is having on
our communities.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Dr. Wright.
[Pause.]
Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair, can you hear me?
You are on mute, my assumption is.
Dr. Lowenthal. Now I can hear you. I think we are both on
the same wavelength. Sometimes it takes a while for us to get
on the same wavelength, but we are there.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Real quick, Mr. Sarinsky, are you saying that in 2016, when
the Obama administration brought their BOEM report out, it was
inaccurate, then?
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes, the modeling was severely flawed, and
Federal courts have rejected it.
Mr. Stauber. So, the Obama administration was wrong?
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes.
Mr. Stauber. OK.
Mr. Pugliaresi, thank you so much for joining us. You
discussed in your testimony how Gulf production means
significantly less emissions. If we were to shut down
production outright in the Gulf, as this Administration
attempted to do, would we see an increase in oil and gas
imports, and therefore an increase in emissions?
Mr. Pugliaresi. Absolutely. We would see a very substantial
increase.
Keep in mind that, between 2010 and 2020--and by the way, I
agree with Mr. Sarinsky that the market model is a horrible
model. But if you step back and you look at the growth in
global petroleum demand between 2010 and 2020, the United
States provided 80 percent of that. In the absence of U.S.
production, oil prices would be substantially higher. Americans
would be suffering large economic losses. And what is happening
now is a picnic, compared to what that would look like.
And I think the key point here is that the notion that you
can't--it is like the drug war, that somehow you can stop
demand by cutting off supply. It is just not correct. And until
we have the fuels of the future in place that provide cost
effective substitutes for the fuels Americans need now, these
strategies of cutting off supply are going to fail, and fail
miserably. And they are also going to undermine public support
for the transition strategy.
Mr. Stauber. Mr. Pugliaresi, thank you for those comments.
And I will just say that really in the northern climates like
Minnesota, when it is really cold out we depend on that energy
that is affordable and reliable.
And I think it is important that we continue to work and
explore for oil and gas in the Gulf, because that is--even
though there are some folks on the other side of the aisle that
say it is not going to increase emissions--it just seems
logical that it will.
And then another argument made by the Majority and this
Administration is that we simply don't need oil and gas
development because our energy sources are transitioning. Would
shutting down offshore production shift demand to alternative
energies like wind or solar?
Mr. Pugliaresi. Absolutely not. For example, the first case
was that you can see from the data that it is the massive
increase in U.S. natural gas that has been the largest
contributor to U.S. reductions in global greenhouse gas
emissions. And we face a lot of obstacles in transitioning to
the fuels of the future, including electric vehicles.
We are going to produce more electric vehicles. We are
going to produce more alternative fuels. But the pace at which
that happens is highly overestimated. And if we try to remove
the legacy fuels now, before the transition fuels are in place,
it is going to cause enormous dislocations to the American
economy and the American people.
Mr. Stauber. How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?
Dr. Lowenthal. You have a little over 1 minute.
Mr. Stauber. OK, and same line of questioning, how would
shutting down offshore production again--like this
Administration attempted to do--impact revenues for
conservation in Louisiana, Alabama, and other parts of the
country?
Mr. Pugliaresi. Yes. As you can see, the Gulf of Mexico
itself provides half of the royalty payments to the Federal
Government, well in excess--anywhere between, year to year,
from $4 to $8 billion. If you lose those revenues, some of
those--many of those revenues--go to Gulf restoration and the
Land and Water Conservation Fund. Where are we going to find
the funds for that? I don't think--it is not thought out at
all.
Mr. Stauber. Well, I thank you very much for your expert
and factual testimony.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. Now I would
like to call upon Mr. McEachin for 5 minutes of questions.
Welcome, Mr. McEachin.
Mr. McEachin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me begin by
echoing the sentiments of the Ranking Member. I have enjoyed
serving with you during my time in Congress. I have learned
from you, and I hope that we will be able to continue our
relationship even after you are gone fishing.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you.
Mr. McEachin. Mr. Chairman, I would like to start off by
asking Dr. Wright.
Dr. Wright, in 2015 the offshore oil and gas industry in
Louisiana employed nearly 55,000 workers. That number has since
dropped by 47 percent, even as they have managed to have
production soar. This is partly because new technology and
automation have allowed the offshore oil and gas industry to do
more with less, so operators have cut jobs to increase profits.
How can the Biden administration support equitable energy
solutions in the Gulf that create new, good-paying jobs that
protect public health and the climate?
[Pause.]
Mr. McEachin. I think you are muted.
Dr. Lowenthal. Dr. Wright, you are still muted. Unmute
yourself. Thank you.
Dr. Wright. Yes, I am so sorry. Thank you for that
question.
I think that the Biden administration can, to some extent,
follow the lead of many of us who are working on the ground,
and that is to find ways to train communities to be able to be
a part of the workforce in renewable energy.
The Deep South Center right now has a program with an
unbelievable record of training young men and women in hazard
remediation dealing with legacy pollution.
The point is that these communities that have been most
affected by climate change and environmental justice issues
related to toxins are also the people who should be involved in
the workforce, as we move forward.
I think that being able to find a way to develop a
workforce that is, first of all, one that creates jobs, but is
also environmentally just and creates safe jobs would be the
way that we should go.
So, the fact that we are losing jobs in Louisiana and
across the Gulf Coast with our transitioning to renewable
energy, but more so because the industry has found a cheaper
way to be profitable. And as usual, the industry does what is
necessary for them to make a profit.
The communities in Louisiana and across the Gulf Coast have
been suffering, and finding ways to develop a training
mechanism so that the new jobs that will come out of renewable
energy projects would also--the benefit would also go to
communities.
Mr. McEachin. Thank you so much for that.
Dr. Dahl, can you speak to some of the most severe effects
of climate change that communities along the Gulf Coast are
experiencing?
And explain how climate change might continue to harm these
populations years, and even decades, from now.
Dr. Dahl. Absolutely, thank you for the question.
Communities along the Gulf Coast are among those that are on
the front lines of climate change. Sea level is rising faster
in parts of Louisiana than it is almost anywhere in the world.
So, we are seeing rates of sea level rise that are already
profoundly affecting communities there.
In speaking with communities, I have heard of people who
live in homes where the house is raised, but they still store
things under the house. But when there is an extra high tide,
they know to expect it, they know they are going to flood, and
they have to remove all of that stuff from under their homes,
sometimes having a pulley to ratchet it up so that it doesn't
get wet.
We have seen what communities call ghost forests in
Louisiana. These were forests that had served as traditional
gathering spaces for Indigenous communities. But because sea
level is now higher, those trees have been inundated with
saltwater to the point that they have died, and those cultural
aspects of cultural heritage are disappearing.
We have also seen the impacts of climate change in the form
of more intense hurricanes affecting the Gulf Coast. As our
climate warms, we expect the intensity of hurricanes to
increase further, which will have impacts for people who live
along the Gulf Coast, which is one of the most hurricane-prone
parts of our country.
Finally, it is important to recognize the importance of
extreme heat in the Gulf Coast. It is one of the hottest
regions of our country, and as we warm our climate, we can
expect the frequency and the intensity of heat waves to
increase. Often this will combine with other climate-related
disasters, like we saw in the wake of Hurricane Ida last year,
where, as people were returning to their homes after evacuating
for the storm, they were met with a deadly heat wave that
ultimately killed more people than the hurricane itself.
So, the Gulf Coast is already experiencing some of the
effects of climate change, and we can expect all of those to
grow more intense and more severe in the future, if we fail to
reduce our emissions.
Mr. McEachin. Thank you very much.
And Mr. Chairman, I am over time, so I yield back.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you. I now recognize Representative
Herrell for 5 minutes of questions.
Ms. Herrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
the witnesses. I just really appreciate having the opportunity
for us to work and listen to each other, and just find
solutions, because this is such an important subject.
I have a question for Dr. Dahl. I want to make sure I have
that right, so I just want to ask this very slowly, so it makes
sense.
We know that the demand for fossil fuels is not going away.
I mean, it is growing and growing and growing. So, if we phase
out fossil fuels, I want to see what is the solution. What are
your thoughts on how do we protect the environment, or climate,
when then we would rely on other nations to produce energy?
If we cut our energy production here in America, but they
have an uptick, say in China or Ukraine or Russia, they don't
fall within the same regulatory confines that we do. How do we
protect the environment consistently, if we cut production
here, and yet see more production from other countries that
don't live within those same requirements?
Because China, for instance, is building 200 power plants a
year. They are really driving the force here. But if we are
going to be honest about climate, we have to look, I think, at
more of a global solution.
Dr. Dahl. Absolutely, climate change is a global problem.
So, the solutions to it have to be global, as well.
In the United States, we know that we have contributed
about 25 percent of all of the historical carbon emissions that
have entered the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.
So, we are responsible for about a quarter of the warming that
has resulted.
Contrast that with the fact that we have just 4 percent of
the world's population, and you can see that we have had a
disproportionate effect on the climate problems that we are
seeing today.
Ms. Herrell. Right. But wait, I hate to interrupt, but then
how do we--by cutting it here in America, how do we--it is a
global problem, and I think our producers around the country
have done a phenomenal job of lowering CO2
emissions. And we are producing energy more cleanly, more
efficiently, more affordably than any other country in the
world. And I understand the populations, what you are--but how
do we really protect the environment if we are not going to
hold the other countries to the same standards?
Because that is where I see the problem is, and that is
what I think the bigger solution needs to come from.
Dr. Dahl. Sure. We will need to see other countries, other
major emitters like China, Australia, the European Union
cutting their emissions, as well, in line with what the science
tells us we need to do. But----
Ms. Herrell. Do you see that happening? Are there
conversations happening, say, with China or other countries
now?
I mean, are they working on that? Are you aware of
anything?
Dr. Dahl. There are ongoing conversations, particularly
through the COP process, Conference of Parties, where they meet
every year and discuss goals that would help us to get to the
goals of the Paris Climate Agreement----
[Audio malfunction.]
Ms. Herrell. Thank you.
Dr. Dahl. Yes.
Ms. Herrell. Thank you very much, because I just want to
ask one more question to Dr. Pugliaresi---- and I am sure I
said that completely wrong.
But just very quickly, talking about the crisis over in
Europe, and where we have been cautioned, especially from the
French Government, who had to ask their largest utility
facility to artificially lower prices, can you expand on the
choices that certain Western European nations have made that
have led to the crisis, and what we should take away from it as
we consider U.S. energy policies?
Mr. Pugliaresi. Yes, there are sort of two problems, I
think, in the European side. One is they went to a very narrow
set of fuel choices. They abandoned--particularly the Germans--
they abandoned nuclear power. They tried to shut down their--
actually, their coal is resurging now--and they limited their
utility system to a very risky set of fuel choices, and natural
gas being one of them, and lots of wind and solar.
And you can see that there was a disruption in Britain,
wind supplies in the North Sea began to slow down, and they
didn't have the traditional baseload fuels.
So, there is a lesson here. We can move to these fuels of
the future, but if they are intermittent, we have to make sure
they reach a certain stability, and they have an adequate
backup, because we don't have the battery technology yet to
support these intermittent fuels. And I think it is a kind of
aspirational attempt to reach an aspirational goal without
having the technology in place yet.
Ms. Herrell. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back and, again, I appreciate the
witness testimony and you putting this meeting together. Thank
you.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you. I now recognize Representative
Levin for 5 minutes of questions.
Welcome, Mike.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you
publicly for your many outstanding years representing Southern
California. It really has been just an honor to serve with you,
and I hope we can continue your legacy of exemplary service for
Southern California, and also the example of statesmanship that
you have set.
I want to thank you for this hearing. I think it is really
important, as we wrestle with the long-standing issues around
existing offshore oil and gas leasing, and consider how
incompatible our Federal oil and gas program is with our
efforts to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
In addition to my concerns about climate impacts, I am also
cognizant of the negative effects of offshore drilling on local
communities. I think many of you know that my district last
year experienced the negative impacts of the Orange County oil
spill. And even months after 25,000 gallons of oil were
discharged into our waters in Southern California, I still see
the devastating impacts that the spill had on our fisheries, on
our local businesses, and the public. And I still worry a great
deal about the longer-term effects of the spill.
Dr. Wright, I will begin with you. Given your background in
environmental justice work in the Gulf, can you share how
communities in the Gulf similarly suffer from both the direct
and the indirect consequences of offshore drilling?
[Audio malfunction.]
Dr. Wright. Directly, the communities in the Gulf Coast
have suffered from offshore drilling, because they live in
close proximity to these particular facilities. That means that
all of the toxic pollution--and just tons of it--are in their
neighborhoods, and they have suffered in terms of their health.
But I wanted to just give you an example of what these
communities deal with. They deal with things like their screens
rusting and falling off their windows every 6 months,
everything dying downwind from petrochemical facilities is--
that could have direct connections to offshore drilling or the
pipelines.
But specifically, I think it is important that I mention
that in Louisiana, in particular, we have been dealing with
these problems for many, many years. And communities have been
seeing oil pods on the sand near their homes for a long time.
We are just now learning how many unplugged facilities actually
exist and are affecting our communities.
The cancer rates are extremely high, because there is an
absolute connection between offshore drilling and petrochemical
facilities, and our communities are fence line to and fighting
for survival.
The fact that we are thinking about leasing more land is
something that boggles our minds, because we already don't know
how to deal with the pollution that we have right now, with the
numbers of pipelines that are affecting us.
I believe that it is hard for us to understand how more of
something that is bad for you is better for all of us, and that
the economic impacts that exist outweigh our health interests
when, in fact, in Louisiana, with some of the highest cancer
rates in the Nation.
So, when you really look at the impact, the good that comes
out of the production of oil in Louisiana creates so much bad
that it does not balance out.
Mr. Levin. Thank you.
Dr. Wright. But in the end, we are talking about saving the
planet. Sorry.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Dr. Wright. I want to make sure to
move on and ask Mr. Sarinsky.
You noted in your testimony, under the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act, BOEM is explicitly required to balance the
production of oil and gas with--and I quote--``protection of
the human, marine, and coastal environments.'' Listening to Dr.
Wright, it doesn't seem that the continued oil and gas leasing
program meets that criteria, that statutory criteria, to ensure
the protection of the human, marine, and coastal environment.
Given these concerns, I was wondering if you could speak to
the legal authorities that the Secretary of the Interior has
when it comes to reforming the offshore oil and gas program.
First, is the Secretary required to hold every lease sale
included in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's final 5-
year leasing program?
Mr. Sarinsky. No, the statute specifically provides that it
doesn't, and numerous prior lease sales have been canceled----
Mr. Levin. So, theoretically, BOEM's next 5-year leasing
plan could have zero sales?
Mr. Sarinsky. I believe so, yes. That would bear reading
the statute, yes.
Mr. Levin. I appreciate that answer. I just want to be
clear. I personally believe that including any new leasing in
BOEM's upcoming 5-year plan would be at odds with the
Administration's stated climate and environmental justice
goals. And that is why I urge the Administration to move
forward on a 5-year leasing plan that does not include new
leasing. I believe it is the way we need to move forward toward
a zero-carbon future.
With that, Mr. Chairman, following your example, I hope we
can all disagree without being disagreeable, following your
lead. With that, I will yield back, and thank you for all you
do.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you. I now recognize the
Representative from Louisiana, Representative Graves, for 5
minutes of questions.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for having this
hearing. Unfortunately, I want to spend the first couple of
minutes actually going back and addressing some of the comments
that were made by the witnesses.
First of all, Dr. Wright, you have suggested that energy
production is racist in Louisiana. I represent south Louisiana,
and I have to tell you, I am actually kind of offended by that.
I think the facts show something a little bit different.
Some of the parishes that are closest to energy production
in Louisiana, parishes like Plaquemines Parish, Lafourche,
Terrebonne, and Cameron Parish--in Cameron Parish, for example,
4 percent of the population is actually Black, 4 percent. In
the case of Plaquemines Parish, on the high end, 21 percent,
which means the remaining 79 percent, they are non-Black. In
Lafourche Parish, it is 15 percent, and in Terrebonne Parish,
it is 19 percent. So, to suggest that this activity is racist
is just--it is not factual and it is very concerning.
Mr. Sarinsky, you said that the law doesn't require leases.
The Western District of Louisiana disagrees with that and has
actually forced them to hold leases. In fact, the law requires
that leases happen ``expeditiously.''
Next, if we are going to stop leasing in the Gulf of Mexico
or otherwise, we have some of the lowest emission rates in the
world, as indicated by testimony by the last witness. All that
does is squeeze a balloon and cause production to happen in
other areas, as we have had career Department officials, career
Department of the Interior officials, testify before the
Committee. All it does, when we stop domestic production, is
increase our dependence upon foreign energy sources with
greater emissions.
Cutting production in the United States increases global
emissions. Shame on us for not recognizing the flawed
approaches of California, what has happened in New England and
the UK, where their strategies that some of you are pushing
have resulted in higher emissions and unaffordable energy,
disproportionately impacting, in some cases, communities of
color and impoverished communities. That is not the solution.
Next, this Department of Energy, under the Biden
administration, has projected that we are going to have an
increase in energy demand. In fact, as I recall, I think a 30
percent increase in natural gas demand alone between now and
2030, I believe. So, if there is going to be this increase in
demand--the IEA says a 50 percent increase in global energy
demand, I mean, why would we not produce it where we can
produce it with the lowest emissions?
Last, Mr. Sarinsky, you indicated that in the assessment by
Interior, they failed to take into consideration the
international impacts by using the fuels in other countries.
OK, that is a good point. So, let's take into consideration
what happens when we stop producing here, and you increase
global emissions. You have a net increase in global emissions.
The facts history shows that is exactly what happens. Shame on
us for not recognizing this evidence that is out there right
now. We have shown strategies that result lower emissions,
lower energy prices, and prosperity for Americans. That is what
we need to be doing.
Ms. Dahl, I represent south Louisiana. That is where I live
and represent. I actually ran the coastal program, the
resilience program for the state. Fascinating, listening to
others come in and describe what is going on.
Yes, we have some of the fastest--you left out a key word--
relative sea rise. That is because we are having some of the
greatest subsidence or sinking rates in the world because of
how the Federal Government, Republican and Democrat
administrations, have mismanaged the Mississippi River system.
Don't leave these things out. These are important facts. We are
going to go out there and pose solutions that don't solve any
problems.
We have to stop focusing on the source of energy, and
instead focus on the emissions. It doesn't matter if we use
natural gas, if we burn heating oil, as they are doing up in
the Northeast right now, or if we do solar. We have to stay
focused on the emissions. Let innovators innovate. We have
proven we can use natural gas at net-zero emissions. For every
ton of emissions we produce in the United States, China has
gone up by four. This doesn't make sense.
Mr. Pugliaresi, I just want to ask you very quickly. If we
stop producing energy in the United States: (1) will we see a
global reduction in emissions? And (2) what is going to happen
with energy? Are we suddenly going to all go to renewable
energy sources?
Mr. Pugliaresi. No, we have to be really concerned about
failure modes of implementing the energy transition.
The United States, which has very high environmental
standards--and, of course, we can always do better--if we
reduce the legacy fuels here before we are ready to transition,
they are just going to be produced somewhere else. And that is
going to be worse for the local environment and for global
emissions.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you. I now recognize--let's see, who
am I waiting for?
Is that Representative McCollum? Representative McCollum, I
recognize you for 5 minutes of questions. Welcome, Betty.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am at a slight
disadvantage here with how I had set up my screen, so I am
doing my own self-timer here, so I can see a clock. Mr. Chair,
there is time to say goodbye later. Right now, my dear friend
Alan, it is a joy to work with you.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. I want to maybe take this on a little bit of
a different direction, because we have some great testimony
here.
Dr. Wright, you have extensive work in working with
communities that are most directly impacted by toxic exposure
and environmental hazards. You pointed that out. And most of
the offshore oil and gas in the United States does come from
the Gulf region, which means these local communities have borne
the cost of our fossil fuel dependence development.
And you pointed out, and you can show scientifically, the
health and environmental burdens of the Gulf, fossil fuels and
the petroleum industry have disproportionately harmed
communities and disproportionately we can show through health
records, when they are fully available, that Black and
Indigenous communities have suffered the most.
But other communities around in the area, including Latino,
Asian, Caucasian, other communities have also been affected by
these health disparities. But it targets, in certain areas
where development has taken place, some communities more
significantly than others, and I thank you for pointing that
out.
I believe that Congress has to take responsibility for
helping all those communities recover, and we can do it in many
different ways. And one of the ways that I think we can do it--
and I have spoken to many members on this Committee about a
piece of legislation that I am working on--is the Mississippi
River and Restoration Resiliency Initiative.
Now, Mr. Stauber and I are home to--well, he has the
headwaters. I am a little farther south. But Minnesota is home
to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. It is a working
river. It is a vibrant river. I grew up in a barge town. It is
a river which supplies drinking water for so many Americans,
including in the large metropolitan area that I represent, St.
Paul, and the adjacent Minneapolis. It is recreation. It is
habitat.
But my bill would also begin to address some of the legacy
issues that you pointed out, Ms. Wright, including funding and
activities for environmental justice for communities from the
headwaters to the Gulf.
How do you think the Federal Government can work in a focus
of justice and equity for all Americans, especially those that
have been impacted by offshore oil and gas drilling, moving
forward?
So, we have a legacy issue, and we are talking about
whether or not we continue that legacy. But I would like to
just take a second and have you talk about some of the legacy
issues you think the Federal Government should be focused on.
I also serve on the Interior and Natural Resources
Committee, where the EPA is located.
Thank you.
Dr. Wright. Thank you for that question.
I do want to say to my fellow Louisianian that in his
report he selected certain communities with the racial
demographics that supported his report. But I also live in
Louisiana, and he is insulted that I was saying that this is
racist, and I want him to know that I am also insulted by
racism that I live with every day.
Now to your question. The legacy pollution that exists for
a lot of our communities has a lot to do with Superfund sites
and all the--before we knew better, the things that we did with
industry. What we are finding is that communities affected by
offshore drilling are in places now where their communities or
their homes are going underwater.
I think Louisiana was the first area to deal with
communities that are now displaced, or environmental refugees.
But we have so many communities living on toxic land. So,
finding ways to relocate these communities, for one thing,
would be very important, and doing it in a way that that land
is then reclaimed for things like a solar farm, or solar panel
fields, which is one of the things that we have been pushing
for in our community, with a 30-year fight to move a community
off of a Superfund site.
There are all kinds of ways that we can take this land that
is now no longer usable for humans, and we would have a hard
time cleaning it up, to get it there, turning it into renewable
energy types of projects like solar fields. The communities
need to be relocated.
And our communities need to be trained. We need to have a
vibrant workforce that trains young men and women of all races,
all ages who are interested in getting us to transition to this
renewable economy, learning how to do solar, how to do wind,
how to do hydro, create really wonderful jobs, and at the same
time clean up our communities. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. And as you can hear, Mr. Chair, my
timer went off, and my time is up. Thank you.
Dr. Lowenthal. Yes, thank you. I now recognize
Representative Tiffany for 5 minutes of questions.
Welcome.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it very
much.
Ms. Dahl, in your testimony, you said we have precious
little time, and we are decades late in making the shift--I am
assuming to alternative energies. And before me here I have an
article from April 28, 1975, Peter Gwynne in Newsweek, ``The
Cooling World,'' where it says there will be a global disaster,
food shortages, unpredictable and crazy weather events, and, of
course, politicians refusing to act in the face of these
undeniable realities. Isn't this just a political effort to
control people's lives, this doomsday, sky-is-falling rhetoric
that we hear?
Dr. Dahl. Thank you for the question. Absolutely not. This
is not political rhetoric. This is science.
And back in the 1970s, there was a brief moment when there
was worry about global cooling. Since then it has become
abundantly clear, through thousands upon thousands of
scientific studies, that we are warming our planet, and that
the results of that warming could become irreversible and
devastating for people around the world.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you very much.
Dr. Dahl. It is very clear.
Mr. Tiffany. And the operative word there is ``could,'' and
we hear ``could,'' ``might,'' ``shall,'' because it is all
based on models, no different than back in the mid-1970s, when
the sky was going to fall, and we were going to have mass
famines by the year 2000.
Mr. Pugliaresi, did China sign on to the Glasgow Accords--I
don't know exactly what they call it, but call it the Paris
Accords--at their most recent summit in Glasgow?
Mr. Pugliaresi. So, I mean, they agreed to take certain
measures. I think there is a general out in the Paris Agreement
in which, if the measures undertaken in attempting to get these
goals results in enormous economic hardship, the nation states
can adjust their plans accordingly.
Mr. Tiffany. So, they have an out, is basically what you
are saying.
Mr. Pugliaresi. They have an out, and they have not given
us firm targets. I can tell you that.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, absolutely. They have not given us firm
targets, there is no doubt about it.
We are seeing these huge price spikes in Europe, where some
alternative energies are failing them over there, as you have
highlighted. So, what alternative source of energy are they
using now to be able to power people's--to give people
electricity?
Mr. Pugliaresi. They are using less energy and higher
prices. It is a very bad outcome.
Mr. Tiffany. And have they switched to coal? Has coal been
their backup for----
Mr. Pugliaresi. Their fascination with getting rid of
nuclear power after Fukushima, they are actually spiking their
coal use in Germany now, particularly very low-quality lignite
coal.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, so here comes, alternative energy is coal
now. Whereas, in the United States, we are smart enough to
produce enough natural gas.
One year ago, today, President Biden signaled to the United
States and the world that we are going to become more dependent
on alternatives, and we are not going to allow an all-of-the-
above approach, that we are going to end fossil fuel use, or
attempt to do it with the shutdown of the Keystone Pipeline.
Investors have heeded those words, and we have seen increased
prices.
And I just say to all the panelists, regardless of where
you come from, why should my constituents be paying twice as
much for their home heating fuel this winter? Why should
gasoline be costing almost a dollar a gallon more?
I mean, I have cited this frequently. Propane costs $.80 a
gallon as a home heating fuel, which a quarter of my
constituents use in northern Wisconsin. They paid that in
August 2020, and in August 2021 they were paying $1.50 a
gallon. And I know, because I dug the bills out. I heat my home
with propane, along with 25 percent of my constituents.
Is that the direction that we want to go here in America?
Because that is exactly what is happening.
And the final point that I would make, I find this really
ironic, this hearing today, when yesterday we were hearing the
bill RAWA, Recovering American Wildlife Act, which was unpaid
for, $1.3 billion a year, $13 billion over 10 years. And that
is the reason I did not vote for the bill, because it was not
paid for. And here we have the opportunity, with things like
offshore leases and being able to produce oil, to be able to
pay for some of those things, and we are saying no, we are not
going to do it. Fossil fuels have been paying the bills, in
many cases, for improvements in the environment, and we should
never forget that.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Representative Tiffany. I now
recognize Representative Porter.
Welcome. Five minutes of questions.
Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. And I have some pollution
going on in a neighbor's yard right now from a gas-powered leaf
blower, so I apologize if you can hear that in the background.
I wanted to start with Dr. Dahl.
Does oil leaked from pipelines stay in the surrounding
environment?
Dr. Dahl. No, it does not. When oil is leaked from drilling
equipment or a pipeline, it goes where the environment is going
to take it. So, if it happens in the ocean, that is going to
depend on things like the ocean currents, where they are going,
the pace with which they are going.
And we know, from major oil districts like the 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill that happened in the Gulf of
Mexico, that the oil disperses over a very large area. In that
case, it was thousands of square miles, and up and down the
entire water column of the Gulf of Mexico.
Ms. Porter. And we saw this, we heard about this. We had a
field hearing, Chairman Lowenthal and I, following the rupture
of a pipeline off the coast of Orange County, and we had
poisonous petroleum tar balls washing up on our shores. And Dr.
David Ballantyne told us exactly what you did, that that
pollution will spread. It could wind up in lots of other areas.
He gave an example of a pipeline leaking off the coast of
Brazil in 2019 that wound up polluting and sending oil off our
coast in Florida.
So, understanding that oil from pipelines that leak in the
Gulf could end up on beaches further away, Dr. Dahl, from a
broader climate perspective, not just a direct pollution
perspective, from a broader climate perspective, does the
source of carbon dioxide emissions matter, or is damage to the
climate the same, whether we are talking about the Gulf of
Mexico or the coast of California?
Dr. Dahl. It does not matter where carbon dioxide is
emitted on the planet. It will affect the entire planet. Carbon
dioxide mixes very quickly into our atmosphere. So, when you
look at the globe, there is not much variation from place to
place.
Now, that is not to say that there aren't cleaner and
dirtier forms of fossil fuels in the sense that some will emit
more carbon dioxide than others. But as a whole, it doesn't
matter where that carbon dioxide is coming from, your emissions
or my emissions or People of China's emissions.
Ms. Porter. Dr. Sarinsky, does the Department of the
Interior subsidize oil and gas drilling?
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes, it does, in quite a number of----
Ms. Porter. Can you tell us how?
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes, absolutely. So, just to give a little
bit of context here, there was an IMF study that found that in
the year 2020 the Federal Government, on the whole, subsidized
fossil fuels by $660 billion. That was just in 1 year.
In terms of the Federal oil and gas leasing program, the
main subsidies are in the form of very beneficial fiscal terms
for oil and gas drilling, where, basically, the harm that is
being caused by oil and gas extraction is being borne by the
public, by and large, rather than by fossil fuel extraction.
Just to give one example, Congress last year passed, I
believe, $4.7 billion to clean up orphaned wells. Those are
damages that were caused by the industry that now the public is
footing the bill, and that could be solved by increasing
bonding requirements, for instance.
Ms. Porter. Dr. Sarinsky, I want to make sure I heard you,
because sometimes these numbers get big. So, I just want to
repeat this back, and please correct me if I am wrong. You just
cited an IMF study suggesting that the U.S. taxpayers are
spending $660 billion a year subsidizing fossil fuels. Did I
get that right?
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes, that is an explicit and implicit
subsidy. But yes, you got that absolutely right.
Ms. Porter. $660 billion?
Mr. Sarinsky. $660 billion.
Ms. Porter. Wow. So, Dr. Dahl, how much money did extreme
weather-related disasters cost taxpayers last year?
Dr. Dahl. The compilation that was done by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just earlier this month
showed that, just in 2021, there was at least $145 billion in
climate and weather-related disasters across the country.
Ms. Porter. So, to summarize, taxpayers are subsidizing, to
an eye-popping number, oil and gas drilling from various
methods, and we are incentivizing fossil fuels at the expense
of clean energy technology. And then taxpayers are spending
billions of dollars cleaning up the damage caused by both
emissions, through things like abandoned wells and by extreme
weather events caused by climate change. Taxpayers are,
literally, being asked to foot both sides of the bill here, to
both help companies extract and then to help companies clean up
from extracting.
That is a lot of money that we could be putting toward
transitioning to clean energy, creating new jobs for the
future, and actually bringing down costs for American families.
This seems like a really unfair deal to me.
I yield back.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you. I now welcome a colleague from--I
believe, the state of Mississippi--or Alabama, Representative
Carl.
Welcome to the Committee, Representative.
Mr. Carl. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member. I
appreciate the opportunity to come and to be a part of this.
Obviously, I am not on this Committee, but I have a lot at
stake, obviously, being in south Alabama.
I want to start with just a quick question of the
witnesses, which--thank you to the witnesses for taking time.
But just a yes or no, because I have a limited amount of time,
and I want to focus on something different. But are any of the
witnesses aware of any evidence that shows restricting oil and
gas production in Federal waters will actually result in
decreasing the total consumption of oil in the United States?
[No response.]
Mr. Carl. So, by not drilling, will it decrease in Federal
waters, will it decrease the consumption in the United States?
Is there any study to back that up?
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes.
Mr. Carl. Who said yes? I am sorry, I can't see who it is.
Mr. Sarinsky. I did.
[Pause.]
Mr. Carl. OK, all right, Max? OK, good.
Mr. Sarinsky. Yes. Do you want me to elaborate on that,
or----
Mr. Carl. Yes. If you will, real quickly, tell me where the
study is at, where I can find it, and where I can pull it up.
Mr. Sarinsky. I mean, Interior's own analysis finds this.
Mr. Carl. I want the study. I want to know exactly where it
is at. I just don't want an opinion. I want----
Mr. Sarinsky. It is Interior's MarketSim model, which was
most recently updated in 2021, and was presented in the Cook
Inlet lease sale. And it finds that fossil fuel extraction
domestically is substituting, in part, for renewable energy
that would be consumed domestically. And----
Mr. Carl. Who put that together?
Mr. Sarinsky. I am sorry, sir?
Mr. Carl. Who put that together? Who put those findings
together?
Mr. Sarinsky. The Department of the Interior at BOEM.
Mr. Carl. OK, so listening to your opening remarks, it kind
of blends into what I am going to here. Basically, what I got
from your opening remarks is higher fuel prices equate into
less driving. So, by shutting the Gulf leases down, we are
going to push that production overseas, which is going to drive
the price up, so equates into less driving. That is what I got
from your opening statement. I would love to see some
documentation to actually back that up.
Dr. Wright, real quick, I am also offended. I will be quite
honest with you. I was in county government for the past 8
years, or prior to this job. We got a lot of money from the
petroleum industry that we used in minority communities. We
built beaches, we built parks, recreation. We did a
tremendous--we got waterways for canoeing, and all of this is
in minority communities.
So, when you start talking in general about--that all
production, or these leases damage minority communities, I
challenge you to come to Alabama and show that to me. I am sure
you can find a spot somewhere. There is no doubt. But where
this oil is coming in is in my county, Mobile County. The south
part of Mobile County probably is 90 percent Caucasian, maybe
10 percent. That 10 percent that actually live there, most of
them work in the petroleum industry, because we have a huge gas
plant right next to us in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
I challenge you to show me--you are talking about the
screens rusting? Well, welcome to the Gulf Coast. Everything
rusts on the Gulf Coast. Stainless steel rusts on the Gulf
Coast. So, that is it. But to insinuate that it is a minority
issue, it is bizarre.
I saw this 10 years ago, when the extreme environmental
groups couldn't push their theories through the local
communities, so they latched on to the NAACP. They actually
showed up at the environmental meetings with jackets on that
said we are the environmentalists for the NAACP. So, I
understand where this is coming from, and they are using this
minority reasoning to push these far extreme theories.
I know you want to say something, but it is my time, so
hang on just a second.
No one wants to get away from petroleum products more than
the Republican Party, and I am tired of being labeled as the
group that dislikes the environment.
The state of Alabama, we are poised, poised, for all the
technology to happen and come about on electric vehicles. I
have four companies in the state of Alabama that produce
automobiles. I have a truck company, and I have a company that
makes buses. We have Auburn University, we have Tuscaloosa
University, and we have NASA up in Huntsville: the triangle, as
I like to call it. We have a huge graphite finding up in Coosa
County, so we are no longer dependent on that graphite coming
from China.
So, no one is going to benefit more from that. But in that
process we can't just shut petroleum off and drive prices up. I
had this same conversation with a Black gentleman at the
airport, on the flight in a few days ago. He says, ``In 3 years
we will be in electric vehicles, and you can't buy gas.'' That
is their plan.
Well, I challenge you to go to the Black community in
Selma, Alabama. I challenge you to go there and tell them that
they are going to have to buy a $60,000 electric car. I
challenge you to tell them that they can't buy any more
petroleum, because I bet you Terri Sewell will tell you you are
wrong. And that is true.
We have to slow down. We have to use common sense. We have
to quit scaring people with the sky is falling, the sky is
falling, the sky is falling. We can work through this,
Republicans and Democrats. We have to start focusing on what
works and put a plan together, together. We can be one on this
issue, we truly can. Some of these environmental groups, please
keep in mind, make a living out of pushing fear. And that is
where we are at.
I apologize if I offended anyone. I am passionate about
this. Again, Dr. Wright, I wish you the best. If you want to
come to south Alabama, I would love to have you. You and I will
ride around and look at some of these issues.
With that, Chairman, I give back my time, thank you.
Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Representative Carl. And again,
welcome to our Committee. We welcome you any time that you
would like to come.
Mr. Carl. Thank you.
Dr. Lowenthal. I want to thank all of the witnesses for
their testimony and the Members for their questions.
Before I end, I want to ask the Ranking Member, is there
any statement, or anything you would like to say at the end? If
not, I am going to close the hearing.
Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair, thank you, I have an article that I
would like to enter into the record. It is a January 19, 2022
article. The title is, ``Eliminating Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas
Leasing Will Hurt U.S. Climate Achievements, a Consumer Group
Says.'' So, Mr. Chair, if you will allow it, I would like to
ask that I can enter that into the official record today.
Dr. Lowenthal. Without objection, it shall be entered.
[The information follows:]
Submission for the Record by Rep. Stauber
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Stauber. Thank you.
Dr. Lowenthal. In closing, I will make a final statement
also, and it is actually the same statement I made at the
beginning of the hearing. I am not saying anything more than--
remember, there has been a stockpiling of over 9 million acres
of non-producing leases off our coastline.
So, the question is, do we need to keep with having so many
leases out there?
And having to meet our climate goals, do we need to sell
another 1.7 million acres? And that was the initial question
and issue that I had raised.
With that, members of the Committee may have some
additional questions for the witnesses. We are going to ask you
to respond to them in writing. Under Committee Rule 3(o),
members of the Committee must submit written witness questions
within 3 business days following the hearing, and the hearing
record will be held open for 10 business days for these
responses.
If there is no further business, without objection, this
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:47 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]
Submissions for the Record by Rep. Lowenthal
January 20, 2022
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
The Honorable Deb Haaland Secretary
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20240
Dear President Biden and Secretary Haaland:
To protect the nation from catastrophic climate impacts, and to
ensure this administration continues to meet its historic commitments
to environmental and racial justice, we urge you to immediately reject
the bids or suspend the offshore leases under Lease Sale 257 in the
Gulf of Mexico, to stop all remaining offshore lease sales planned in
the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, and to issue a new five-year offshore
lease plan that includes no new leases after the current five-year plan
expires this year.
As environmental organizations and activists that represent
millions of members across the United States, including communities in
Gulf states that have been impacted by climate and environmental
disasters as a result of offshore drilling, we are shocked by this
administration's decision to sell 80 million acres of public waters to
ExxonMobil, BP, and other polluters less than a week after COP26.
Burning the oil and gas that the Department of the Interior projected
to be developed as a result of Lease Sale 257 would be the equivalent
of building 130 new coal-powered plants. As such, building even one new
oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico will deepen the climate crisis,
disproportionately imperiling low-income communities and communities of
color in the process.
We are also concerned that the administration has not been
forthcoming with the public about its reasons for moving forward with
Lease Sale 257. We have learned that the administration acknowledged in
its own court filings that the U.S. District Court for the Western
District of Louisiana (WDLA) had not compelled the Department of the
Interior (Interior) to move forward with the sale within a specific
timeframe, as recently reported by The Guardian.
As commander-in-chief, it is imperative that you defend the
nation's interests from the continued fossil fuel extraction driving
the climate emergency by taking the following actions:
1. Follow Federal Law to Stop Lease Sale 257 and Remaining 2022
Offshore Lease Sales
We urge you, first and foremost, to reject the bids or suspend the
leases under Lease Sale 257 and to correct the Trump administration's
flawed National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) analysis that was
used to justify the sale by claiming that the sale would have no impact
on climate change or the environment. We also urge you to cancel the
remaining lease sales planned in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. This
administration has repeatedly cited the WDLA ruling in June 2021
(Louisiana et. al. v. Biden et. al.) as the basis for why the Interior
was obligated to move forward with offshore lease sales. But in that
ruling, the court recognizes that ``there is a huge difference between
the discretion to stop or pause a lease sale because the land has
become ineligible for a reason such as an environmental issue, and,
stopping or pausing a lease sale with no such issues and only as a
result of Executive Order 14008.'' The court's order, therefore, does
not preclude the Interior from following federal law, including NEPA
and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which grant the
Interior Secretary discretion to stop lease sales to allow for proper
and comprehensive environmental review. We urge you to do so before new
leases become effective.
2. Create a New Five-Year Lease Plan with No New Lease Sales
Secondly, as you are also aware, OCSLA requires the Interior
Secretary to create a new five-year plan for offshore lease sales after
the current plan expires this year. In accordance with OCSLA, we urge
you to create a new five-year lease plan that includes no new offshore
lease sales for the next five years. Issuing a new five-year lease plan
with no new leases will have no effect on the fossil fuel industry's
ability to meet the nation's energy needs, nor will it affect jobs. As
the Interior previously acknowledged in January 2021, ``the oil and gas
industry has stockpiled millions of acres of leases on public lands and
waters'' that remain unused and non-producing. In March 2021, White
House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also stated that stopping these lease
sales ``will not affect oil and gas production or jobs for years to
come.''
Creating a new five-year lease plan with no new leases will,
however, give the United States critical time to combat the climate
emergency by not adding new emissions to the crisis while we work to
reduce existing greenhouse gases and transition to clean energy. This
will also improve the administration's position on the world stage when
it comes to climate action ahead of both the World Economic Forum and
COP27 this year. Finally, it will fulfill the President's promise to
end fossil fuel leasing.
We are in an unprecedented crisis and need leadership from your
administration. Just this past month, temperatures in Alaska reached
record-high temperatures of nearly 70 degrees, and scientists now warn
that the ``doomsday'' Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is near collapse,
threatening to accelerate a 10-foot rise in global sea levels that
could decimate coastal cities within the next five years. As recently
outlined by the Department of Defense and the National Intelligence
Council in October 2021, we must immediately reduce emissions to
prevent the impacts of climate change on U.S. food systems,
infrastructure, supply chains, and public health.
The above actions would be in accordance with existing federal law
and in compliance with the ruling issued by WDLA in Louisiana et. al.
that struck down the pause on offshore leasing via executive order.
These actions would also be in alignment with this administration's
commitment to center environmental justice in all decision-making. For
these reasons, we urge you to marshall the full authority of your
office to cancel or suspend Lease Sale 257, stop the remaining leases
in the current five-year offshore leasing plan, and issue a new five-
year leasing plan that includes no new lease sales.
Sincerely,
Andrew Hudson Dineen O'Rourke
Founder Campaign Manager
198 Methods 350 PDX
Laura Neish Karen Bueno
Executive Director Leaders Team Member
350 Bay Area Accelerate Neighborhood Climate
Action
Patricia Hine Erika Thi Patterson
President Campaign Director
350 Eugene Action Center on Race and the
Economy
Sherry Pollack Maayan Cohen
Co-Founder National Campaigns Director
350 Hawaii Action for the Climate Emergency
Shelden Prentice Katie Huffling
Federal Policy Lead Executive Director
350 Seattle Alliance of Nurses for Healthy
Environments
Daniel Villa Sarah Stewart
Volunteer President
350 Tacoma Animals Are Sentient Beings, Inc.
Karen Bearden Heather Cantino
Coordinator Steering Committee Chair
350 Triangle Athens County's Future Action
Network
Emily Southard Ellen E. Barfield
US Team Co-Coordinator Co-Founder and Coordinator
350.org Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter,
Veterans for Peace
Patricia Alessandrini Mary Gutierrez
Secretary Director
Bergen County Green Party Earth Action, Inc.
Ted Glick Elizabeth Dunne
Organizer Director of Legal Advocacy
Beyond Extreme Energy Earth Law Center
Mark Hefflinger Alexandria Villasenor
Communications & Digital
Director Founder & Executive Director
Bold Alliance Earth Uprising International
Marie Venner Leah Redwood
Co-Chair Activist
Businesses for a Livable
Climate Extinction Rebellion San
Francisco Bay Area
Marie Venner and Stefanie
Klass Thomas Meyer
Co-Chairs National Organizing Manager
Call to Action Colorado Food & Water Watch
Mark Meeks Julia Walsh
Minister Director
Capitol Heights
Presbyterian Frack Action
Stefanie Klass Patricia J. Popple
Co-Chair Editor
CatholicNetwork US Frac Sand Sentinel: Project
Outreach
Nikki Reisch Shannon Smith
Director, Climate & Energy
Program Executive Director
Center for International
Environmental Law (CIEL) FracTracker Alliance
Marie Venner and Jim Smith Katharina Maier
Co-Chairs Organizer
CO Businesses for a Livable
Climate Fridays for Future U.S.
Fred Kirsch Hallie Templeton
Director Legal Director
Community for Sustainable
Energy Friends of the Earth
Irene Danysh Codi Norred
Coordinator Executive Director
Community Visions Georgia Interfaith Power and
Light
Donald Alfred Hebbard Sara Shor
President & Founding Member Organizing Director
Compressor Free Franklin GreenFaith
Rose Ann Witt Julia Jackson
Co-Founder Founder
Conejo Climate Coalition Grounded
Clayton Dewey Colette Pichon Battle
Ecosocialist Committee
Chair Executive Director
Denver Democratic
Socialists of America Gulf Coast Center for Law and
Policy
Manna Jo Green Sally Jane Gellert
Environmental Director Member
Hudson River Sloop
Clearwater Occupy Bergen County
Rachel Lehman Courtney Vail
Chair of Healthy
Communities Campaign Director
I-70 Citizens Advisory
Group Oceanic Preservation Society
August Allen Emily Martin
Executive Director National Policy & Programs Mgr.
In the Shadow of the Wolf Our Climate
Dallas Goldtooth Paco Fabian
Campaigner Communications & Campaigns Dir.
Indigenous Environmental
Network Our Revolution
Philip Beck Michael Helms
Co-Founder Senior Advisor, Government
Affairs
Indivisible Ambassadors Oxfam America
Elizabeta Stacishin Ayisha Siddiqa
Climate Envoy Co-Founder
Indivisible Colorado Polluters Out
Basav Sen Cheryl Barnds and Marie Venner
Climate Policy Director Co-Chair & Founder
Institute for Policy
Studies Climate Policy
Program RapidShift Network
Mark J. Palmer Dorothy Slater
Associate Director Senior Climate Researcher
Intl. Marine Mammal Project
of Earth Island Institute Revolving Door Project
Amy Petre Hill Jeff Hart
Founder & Community
Chaplain Co-Founder
Mental Health and Inclusion
Ministries Save EPA
Emmett Hobley Marie Venner
Co-Chair Chair
Montbello Neighborhood
Improvement Association Small Business Alliance
Naeema Muhammad Jennifer Nielsen
Organizing Co-Director Climate Co-Chair
NC Environmental Justice
Network SOMA Action
Anni Hanna Matt Krogh
Director U.S. Oil & Gas Campaign Director
New Mexico Climate Justice Stand.earth
Jerry Rivers Susan Van Dolsen
Environmental Scientist Co-Founder
North American Climate,
Conservation and
Environment Stop the Algonquin Pipeline
Expansion
Kristi Douglas Lauren Naunus
Commerce City Coun. & Co-
Chair Advocacy Director
North Range Concerned
Citizens Sunrise Movement
Maura Stephens Paddy McClelland
Coordinating Committee
Member Co-Founder
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Change Wall of Women
Timothy Edward Duda Rachel Dawn Davis
Founder Public Policy & Justice Organizer
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Zack Burley Chris Calwell
Policy Associate Co-Chair
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Livable Climate
Harmony Commings Osprey Orielle Lake
Co-Founder Executive Director
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Fran Aguirre and Deb James Renee M. Canon
Co-President Executive Director & Co-Founder
Unite North Metro Denver Womxn from the Mountain
______
Our Children's Trust
Eugene, OR
February 3, 2022
Hon. Alan S. Lowenthal, Chairman
Hon. Pete Stauber, Ranking Member
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
Washington, DC
Re: Materials for January 20, 2022 Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral
Resources Hearing on What More Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas
Leasing Means for Achieving U.S. Climate Targets
Dear Chairman Lowenthal and Ranking Member Stauber:
On behalf of Our Children's Trust (``OCT''), a nonprofit law firm
dedicated to securing the legal right to a safe climate system for
youth and future generations, please find enclosed herewith materials
for your consideration relevant to the January 20, 2022 Subcommittee on
Energy and Mineral Resources Hearing on ``What More Gulf of Mexico Oil
and Gas Leasing Means for Achieving U.S. Climate Targets.'' This
submission is designed to emphasize the detrimental effects of the U.S.
Department of the Interior's (``DOI'') Interim Report on the Federal
Oil and Gas Program on youth and future generations of Americans. We
also hope to inspire you with the stories of courageous children and
provide resources critical to developing science-based, technically and
economically feasible solutions to the climate crisis that serve as
alternatives to the years of devastation wrought by the Federal Oil and
Gas Program.
Through youth-led constitutional legal actions, including Juliana
v. United States (``Juliana''), the landmark federal constitutional
climate case filed by twenty-one youth plaintiffs, including eleven
Black, Brown and Indigenous youth, described in Exhibit A, OCT supports
youth seeking to hold their governments accountable for policies and
actions that have caused, and continue to cause, the climate crisis.
Through these actions, youth seek science-based remedies to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions at rates necessary to protect their
fundamental human rights.
It is OCT's understanding that the materials submitted for the
January 20th hearing will inform the Committee's outlook on how to best
shape future climate policy and legislation pertaining to DOI's report
of the Federal Oil and Gas Program and related concerns. The U.S.
government has long known of the dangers of climate change and can no
longer act in a manner that ignores that a climate emergency exists. If
DOI, as trustee of public trust resources, does not take immediate
effective action to cease permitting activities that increase the
Earth's energy imbalance (described below), our children, future
generations, and innumerable species will continue to suffer greater
injury with long-lasting and potentially irreversible consequences.
Continued federal leasing without an adequate assessment of the effects
on our Nation's children and implementation of a national plan to
protect the atmosphere in trust for present and future generations
would be a gross violation of the Constitution and DOI's public trust
responsibilities. Given our mission as the Nation's only law firm
dedicated to representing youth whose constitutional rights are being
infringed by their government's conduct that causes climate change, OCT
has a substantial interest in ensuring that any such legislation,
policies, or programs are consistent with what the best available
science dictates is necessary to stabilize the climate system and
protect the fundamental rights of youth and future generations.
We invite you to consult the materials enclosed herewith, which
demonstrate that climate change is already harming the fundamental
rights of young people in the United States and legislation, policies
and programs which ensure emissions reductions and sequestration of
excess CO2 is necessary for the protection of the
fundamental rights of American children (Note: Carbon removed through
natural sequestration in sinks must be counted separately and used to
draw down the excess CO2 already in the atmosphere from
cumulative U.S. historic emissions, not to provide a negative credit or
offset for ongoing and new U.S. emissions.).
There is simply no scientific basis to continue historical rates of
extraction in light of the already-dangerous accumulations of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to date and readily available and
cost-effective renewable energy sources. Enclosed as Exhibit B are
comments OCT submitted April 15, 2021 on DOI's Interim Report on the
Federal Oil and Gas Program. As part of its fiduciary duties as trustee
to manage and protect our country's vital natural resources, DOI has
the duty of loyalty to administer the trust solely in the interest of
the trust beneficiaries--both present and future generations of
citizens--and that can only be done by recognizing and applying the
best available science as to how to restore Earth's energy imbalance.
With the current atmospheric CO2 concentration over 415 ppm,
the atmosphere has already been substantially impaired--as Dr. Michael
Kuperberg, former director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program
has stated, we are in the ``danger zone.'' How can we achieve global
climate stability if DOI continues to authorize more emissions through
its oil and gas leasing program? You must be able to answer that
question and your answer should guide your conduct going forward. All
analyses of the potential and historical impact of GHG emissions from
changes in the Federal Oil and Gas Program must be evaluated in terms
of whether the emissions are in line with the U.S. government's public
trust and constitutional obligation to reduce emissions to below 350
ppm by 2100. Anything less than this scientifically supported
trajectory will irreparably harm the environment on which our children
rely for their life, liberty, and property and which our posterity are
entitled to inherit.
Enclosed as Exhibit C you will find a document entitled
``Government Climate and Energy Policies Must Target <350 ppm
Atmospheric CO2 by 2100 to Protect Children and Future
Generations.'' This document details the scientific basis underlying,
and prescription for, stabilization of the climate system as necessary
to protect the fundamental human rights of youth and future generations
relative to the climate crisis and explains the scientific conclusion
that allowing warming of up to 1.5+C is not safe, as the IPCC has also
acknowledged.
Climate legislation, policy, and programs which ensure emissions
reductions and sequestration of excess CO2 consistent with
what the best available science dictates is necessary for the
protection of the fundamental rights of young people and future
generations. The information in these Exhibits are additionally
relevant to the House of Representatives' concurrent resolution,
Children's Fundamental Rights and Climate Recovery (H.Con.Res.31),
sponsored by Representative Schakowsky, supporting the Juliana youth
plaintiffs. It recognizes the disproportionate effects of the climate
crisis on children and their fundamental rights which demands renewed
U.S. leadership and development of a national, science-based climate
recovery plan. This resolution, re-introduced on Earth Day 2021, had
the support of 64 members from both chambers.
Should you have any questions regarding the enclosed materials,
please feel free to contact Liz Lee, OCT's government affairs staff
attorney at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Andrea Rodgers
Senior Litigation Attorney
Enclosures:
Exhibit A: Juliana v. United States Summary and Plaintiffs' Profiles
Exhibit B: Our Children's Trust's Comments on U.S. Department of the
Interior's Interim Report on the Federal Oil and Gas Program (April 15,
2021)
Exhibit C: Government Climate and Energy Policies Must Target <350 ppm
Atmospheric CO2 by 2100 to Protect Children and Future
Generations (March 2021)
***
[The Exhibits can be viewed on the Committee Repository at: https://
docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II06/20220120/114338/HHRG-117-II06-20220120-
SD011.pdf]
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