[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 1121, ``PROTECTING AMERICAN
ENERGY PRODUCTION ACT'';
AND H.R. 5616, ``BRIDGE
PRODUCTION ACT OF 2023''
=======================================================================
LEGISLATIVE HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
MINERAL RESOURCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Thursday, September 28, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-64
__________
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
53-642 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Chairman
DOUG LAMBORN, CO, Vice Chairman
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Member
oug Lamborn, CO Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Tom McClintock, CA CNMI
Paul Gosar, AZ Jared Huffman, CA
Garret Graves, LA Ruben Gallego, AZ
Aumua Amata C. Radewagen, AS Joe Neguse, CO
Doug LaMalfa, CA Mike Levin, CA
Daniel Webster, FL Katie Porter, CA
Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM
Russ Fulcher, ID Melanie A. Stansbury, NM
Pete Stauber, MN Mary Sattler Peltola, AK
John R. Curtis, UT Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY
Tom Tiffany, WI Kevin Mullin, CA
Jerry Carl, AL Val T. Hoyle, OR
Matt Rosendale, MT Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Lauren Boebert, CO Seth Magaziner, RI
Cliff Bentz, OR Nydia M. Velazquez, NY
Jen Kiggans, VA Ed Case, HI
Jim Moylan, GU Debbie Dingell, MI
Wesley P. Hunt, TX Susie Lee, NV
Mike Collins, GA
Anna Paulina Luna, FL
John Duarte, CA
Harriet M. Hageman, WY
Vivian Moeglein, Staff Director
Tom Connally, Chief Counsel
Lora Snyder, Democratic Staff Director
http://naturalresources.house.gov
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES
PETE STAUBER, MN, Chairman
WESLEY P. HUNT, TX, Vice Chair
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, NY, Ranking Member
Doug Lamborn, CO Jared Huffman, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA Kevin Mullin, CA
Paul Gosar, AZ Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Garret Graves, LA Seth Magaziner, RI
Daniel Webster, FL Nydia M. Velazquez, NY
Russ Fulcher, ID Debbie Dingell, MI
John R. Curtis, UT Raul M. Grijalva, AZ
Tom Tiffany, WI Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Matt Rosendale, MT Susie Lee, NV
Lauren Boebert, CO Vacancy
Wesley P. Hunt, TX Vacancy
Mike Collins, GA
John Duarte, CA
Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio
-----------
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Thursday, September 28, 2023..................... 1
Statement of Members:
Stauber, Hon. Pete, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Minnesota......................................... 1
Kamlager-Dove, Hon. Sydney, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California.................................... 3
Duncan, Hon. Jeff, a Representative in Congress from the
State of South Carolina, prepared statement of............. 56
Statement of Witnesses:
Tarpley, Tim, President, Energy Workforce & Technology
Council, Houston, Texas.................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Questions submitted for the record....................... 10
Upton, Greg, Executive Director and Associate Professor of
Research at LSU Center for Energy Studies, Baton Rouge,
Louisiana.................................................. 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
Chiasson, Chett, Executive Director, Port Fourchon, Fourchon,
Louisiana.................................................. 16
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
Robinson, Breon, Organizer, Healthy Gulf, Lake Charles,
Louisiana.................................................. 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 21
Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:
Bureau of Land Management, Statement for the Record on H.R.
1121....................................................... 57
Submissions for the Record by Representative Westerman
American Petroleum Institute, Statement for the Record on
H.R. 5616.............................................. 58
Consumer Energy Alliance, ``BRIDGE Production Act Will
Help Lower Energy Costs and Tame Inflation'', September
20, 2023............................................... 58
Submissions for the Record by Representative Stauber
AP News article, ``In intimate moment, Biden vows to `end
fossil fuel' '', September 6, 2019..................... 55
Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Frontier Exploration and
Production Timeline.................................... 24
Submissions for the Record by Representative Graves
National Ocean Industries Association, Study--GHG
Emission Intensity of Crude Oil and Condensate
Production............................................. 53
Submissions for the Record by Representative Kamlager-Dove
New York Times article, `` `Monster Fracks' Are Getting
Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.'', September 25, 2023... 30
Texas Tribune article, ``Landowners fear injection of
fracking waste threatens West Texas aquifers'', March
10, 2023............................................... 35
Oil Change International, ``Dirty Energy Dominance:
Dependent on Denial'', October 2017.................... 47
LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON H.R. 1121, TO PROHIBIT A MORATORIUM ON THE USE
OF HYDRAULIC FRACTURING, ``PROTECTING AMERICAN ENERGY PRODUCTION ACT'';
AND H.R. 5616, TO REQUIRE THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR TO CONDUCT
CERTAIN OFFSHORE LEASE SALES, ``BRINGING RELIABLE INVESTMENT INTO
DOMESTIC GULF ENERGY PRODUCTION ACT OF 2023'' or ``BRIDGE PRODUCTION
ACT OF 2023''
----------
Thursday, September 28, 2023
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:16 p.m. in
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Pete Stauber
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Stauber, Graves, Fulcher, Collins,
Westerman; Huffman, Mullin, Kamlager-Dove, and Dingell.
Also present: Representative Levin.
Mr. Stauber. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral
Resources will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the Subcommittee at any time.
Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at
hearings are limited to the Chairman and the Ranking Minority
Member.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETE STAUBER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Mr. Stauber. Today, the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral
Resources will consider H.R. 1121, ``Protecting American Energy
Production Act'', introduced by Representative Duncan of South
Carolina; and H.R. 5616, ``BRIDGE Production Act'', introduced
by Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana.
I would like to thank each of our witnesses for traveling
to Washington to be here today, and I also thank
Representatives Graves and Duncan for introducing these
important pieces of legislation.
The recent surge in oil prices nearing the $100 a barrel
mark, with projections of $150 per barrel in 2025, has raised
concerns for hardworking Americans, along with our broader
economy. This escalation in crude prices has had a ripple
effect, from truckers charging more for cross-country hauls, to
airlines increasing fares due to jet fuel costs, to
manufacturers grappling with the rising cost of materials
needed for critical medical supplies and essential ingredients
needed for pharmaceuticals.
A gallon of gasoline averaged $3.88 last week, marking a 25
percent increase since the beginning of the year. In my home
state of Minnesota, gas is nearing $4 per gallon. Mind you,
gasoline was $1.87, on average, in the district I represent the
week President Biden was sworn into office. Even so,
congressional Democrats want to ban fracking, prohibit offshore
development, and curtail feasible solutions to high fuel prices
by crushing opportunities to increase supply.
I have the honor of representing northeast Minnesota in
Congress, home to the Iron Range and the largest copper nickel
find in the world. I recognize the importance of developing the
critical resources we are blessed with here in the United
States. From the taconite and critical minerals in my district
to the vast untapped potential of oil and gas reserves on the
Outer Continental Shelf, we must ensure a future where we
strike a balance between economic growth and responsible
extraction.
And here in the United States, we do so with the strictest
safety, environmental, and labor standards. The Gulf of Mexico
region on the OCS not only yields one of the lowest emission
profiles per barrel of oil produced globally, but provides 15
percent of U.S. oil production. The oil produced in the Gulf of
Mexico is 46 percent cleaner than any production elsewhere in
the world. However, the actions and delays by the Biden
administration, including the attempted cancellation of
multiple lease sales and the postponement of the 5-year
offshore oil and gas leasing plan have put our nation's energy
security and economic prosperity at risk.
H.R. 5616, the BRIDGE Production Act, seeks to address
these concerns by mandating four offshore oil and gas sales in
the Gulf, two in 2024 and two in 2025.
H.R. 1121 emphasizes the importance of states maintaining
their role in regulating hydraulic fracturing on state and
private lands, ensuring that any moratorium on hydraulic
fracturing can only be declared with congressional
authorization.
The Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, GOMESA, has been
instrumental in generating significant revenues for Gulf-
producing states. In Fiscal Year 2023 alone, over $353 million
was disbursed to these states. These funds play a crucial role
in supporting initiatives like hurricane preparedness, coastal
restoration, and infrastructure improvements. However, the lack
of a comprehensive 5-year leasing plan and the potential
absence of lease sales in 2024 and 2025 threaten these revenues
and, by extension, the well-being of Gulf Coast communities.
As we mark the 70th anniversary of OCSLA and, next year,
the 70th anniversary of leasing in the Gulf of Mexico, it is
essential to reflect on the historical significance of oil and
gas extraction in this region. The challenges faced in the
1970s due to oil embargoes still resonate today, where oil
output cuts by major producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia
threaten a major market deficit.
As we discuss these critical solutions to attacks on
domestic energy production, I urge my colleagues to prioritize
American jobs, American technology, economic growth, and energy
security. Our nation's abundant natural resources await
responsible development, and it is our duty to harness them for
the betterment of our economy, our communities, and our allies.
I now yield to my colleague, Ranking Member Kamlager-Dove,
for her opening statement.
Ranking Member, you are up for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you Chair Stauber, and thank you
to our witnesses for traveling all the way to Washington, DC.
Today, just 2 days ahead of a government shutdown with
nobody but House Republicans to blame, we are here to discuss
two bills: H.R. 5616 and H.R. 1121, both extreme and misguided
giveaways to the fossil fuel industry. It is a telling
reflection of my colleagues' priorities that they would rather
debate the merits of Big Oil giveaways that will, without a
doubt, harm our communities than address the critical need to
fund essential government services.
In less than 60 hours, funding for disaster response and
recovery, nutrition assistance programs, and small business
loans could all run out, along with many other programs our
constituents rely on. And for my farmers, farmers will be
devastated by the Republican shutdown. There will be no farm or
acreage payments for you. There will be no subsidies for you.
There will be no marketing loans for you. And as a result of
these two bills we are hearing today, there will be no clean
water for you.
In the face of this imminent government shutdown, we are
witnessing a stark illustration of their polluters over people
agenda. Let's walk through just how extreme this legislation
is.
First, H.R. 5616, known as the BRIDGE Production Act, would
force the government to offer almost all of the Gulf of Mexico
to the oil and gas industry, not just once, but four times over
the next 2 years. This bill would strip the American public's
right to up-to-date environmental review and public input for
these sales. It would stop the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management from choosing to balance development and
environmental risks, considering the laws and goals of affected
states, or even whether the oil and gas industry has expressed
interest in drilling an area before offering those waters up
for leasing.
Even if there are valid lawsuits over these lease sales to
protect public health, endangered species, fisheries, or other
resources, this bill would prevent the courts from blocking the
leases. This eliminates an essential mechanism for public
protection and environmental enforcement. We have seen what
happens when these protections are waived. The Deepwater
Horizon disaster killed 11 workers and spilled over 3 million
barrels of oil into the Gulf, poisoning marine life and clean-
up crews for years. The exploded well was given repeated
categorical exemptions from National Environmental Protection
Act reviews.
Our Republican colleagues say it is worth the risk. And
looking at the other bill on the agenda, a pattern is clear.
H.R. 1121 would block the President from pausing or banning
fracking on public lands. Fracking is another form of oil and
gas extraction with very little oversight, even though it
involves blasting open rocks deep underground with water
containing hazardous materials. We still don't fully understand
how this could affect drinking water, but loopholes in the Safe
Drinking Water Act and Federal regulations leave fracking
mostly unregulated.
We know that new wells can consume millions of gallons of
water, often taken from aquifers, and that energy giants are
now drilling for oil and water. This is important to me, given
the Inglewood oil fields are in my urban district, and fracking
is still happening, endangering lives, small businesses,
children, childcare centers. The list goes on and on.
H.R. 1121 is another piece of the industry-first Republican
agenda to take away tools to protect public health and combat
the climate crisis. I will remind everyone that Big Oil does
not need any favors right now.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much.
Before we go to the witnesses, I ask unanimous consent that
my friend and colleague, Mr. Levin from California, be waived
on to the Committee.
We will now move to introduce our witnesses. Each witness
will have 5 minutes to make their opening statements.
Please press the button down on your microphone so that it
glows red, and then you can begin speaking.
Our first witness is Mr. Tim Tarpley, who is the President
of the Energy Workforce & Technology Council in Houston, Texas.
Mr. Tarpley, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF TIM TARPLEY, PRESIDENT, ENERGY WORKFORCE &
TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Mr. Tarpley. Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Kamlager-
Dove, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you
for inviting me to testify here today. My name is Tim Tarpley,
and I am President of the Energy Workforce & Technology
Council, and I am here to testify in support of H.R. 5616 and
H.R. 1121.
The Energy Workforce & Technology Council is the national
trade association for the energy technology and services
sector, representing over 370 companies and employing more than
650,000 energy workers, manufacturers, and innovators in the
energy supply chain.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting
disruption of the world energy supply have made it abundantly
clear to the world the importance of energy security. Germany,
for instance, made a political decision to rely on Russian gas
to power much of their economy. With that source gone, the
country has been forced to return about one-fifth of its energy
supply to coal-fired power generation. We are fortunate here in
the United States. We have the resources that we should never
have to make that choice.
The truth is the United States and the world will need a
lot more oil and gas in the coming decades, even as new forms
of energy come on-line. In fact, the U.S. Energy Information
Administration predicts that worldwide demand for all forms of
energy will increase by 50 percent by 2050. The use of
hydraulic fracturing on land and access to oil and gas
resources offshore are two ways that the United States can meet
this demand.
H.R. 5616 and H.R. 1121 guarantee this access, and ensure
that the rights to domestic resources development are kept from
being interrupted or administratively slowed.
In 1953, Congress passed the Outer Continental Shelf Lands
Act, which states that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
must prepare and maintain forward-looking 5-year plans to
schedule proposed oil and gas lease sales in the U.S. Outer
Continental Shelf. Under the current administration, this has
not occurred. In fact, the most recent 5-year plan expired on
June 30, 2022. This delay is counter to the interests of the
American people, as these resources provide significant
economic benefits to our workforce and economy.
In fact, in 2022, the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and
natural gas industry supported an estimated 372,000 jobs in the
United States. And in 2022 alone, oil and gas activity in the
Gulf of Mexico contributed approximately $30.8 billion to the
U.S. GDP.
Additionally, oil and gas produced in the Gulf is some of
the cleanest produced anywhere. The U.S. Gulf of Mexico boasts
approximately half the carbon intensity of other producing
regions. A significant contributor to this is effective methane
management. The Gulf is also subject to a strong regulatory
oversight framework, and has adequate pipeline infrastructure
to move product to market safely and efficiently.
So, we must ask ourselves: Why do we continue to delay
further production in an area that can provide U.S. energy
security, support the U.S. economy and workers, and also
provide energy cleaner than nearly anywhere else in the world?
Fortunately, we have legislation in front of us today that
will force the Administration to stop bureaucratic delay
tactics and follow the law to hold lease sales and allow
Americans access to the resources that they are legally
entitled to access. H.R. 5616 mandates that the Secretary of
the Interior hold no less than four offshore lease sales on
specified dates that cannot be bureaucratically delayed.
In regards to the second piece of legislation in front of
us today, H.R. 1121, hydraulic fracturing is currently used on
95 percent of new oil and gas wells. When paired with
directional drilling, it is the safest and most effective way
of accessing hydrocarbons in tight shale formations deep
beneath the earth. This technology is responsible for the steep
increase in natural gas production we have experienced in the
United States over the last 25 years. A ban on hydraulic
fracturing would put an end to the abundance of natural gas
that has both improved the environment and aided our allies
abroad.
According to the EIA, the increased use of cleaner-burning
natural gas and power generation is the chief reason U.S.
carbon dioxide emissions are at a 25-year low. And the
abundance of natural gas in the United States has opened the
door to LNG exports, which have allowed us to support our
European allies impacted by the war in Ukraine. H.R. 1121 is a
simple, straightforward bill that prohibits the President from
declaring a moratorium or ban on the use of hydraulic
fracturing unless such a moratorium or ban is authorized by an
Act of Congress.
Both H.R. 1121 and H.R. 5616 are key pieces of legislation
supporting American energy security. By providing the American
people with clear and consistent guarantees that they will be
able to access their resources in a timely and consistent
manner, we will keep energy costs affordable, keep Americans
employed, and support additional investment in our domestic
resources.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tarpley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tim Tarpley, President, Energy Workforce &
Technology Council
on H.R. 1121 and H.R. 5616
Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify here
today. My name is Tim Tarpley. As President of Energy Workforce &
Technology Council, I am here to testify in support of two important
pieces of legislation. H.R. 5616 BRIDGE Production Act of 2023
introduced by Rep. Graves that ensures regulatory roadblocks do not
interfere with the American people's ability to access resources
offshore and H.R. 1121, the Protecting American Energy Production Act
introduced by Rep. Duncan, which would prohibit an administrative ban
on hydraulic fracturing unless authorized by Congress.
Energy Workforce & Technology Council is the national trade
association for the energy technology and services sector, representing
over 370 companies and employing more than 650,000 energy workers,
manufacturers and innovators in the energy supply chain. Our workforce
is in all 50 states, with representation in the vast majority of
congressional districts across the country. Our membership ranges from
large energy services companies with global operations all the way down
to small family-owned well-servicing companies that operate locally
within the U.S. Energy Workforce member companies provide the United
States and the world with energy in the most environmentally safe,
efficient, and responsible way possible, and our sector is leading the
development of technology that will ensure our country maintains energy
security that will power our economy and protect our way of life for
generations to come.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting disruption of the
world energy supply has made it abundantly clear to the world the
importance of energy security. Maintaining energy security requires
long-term investments and commitments to developing reliable energy
sources like oil and gas. Not only is this commitment important to
maintaining access to energy, but developing hydrocarbons in countries
with high environmental standards, like the U.S., allows us to reduce
global emissions without sacrificing reliability. Germany, for
instance, made a political decision to rely on Russian gas to power
much of their economy. With that source now gone, the country has been
forced to return about one-fifth of its energy supply to coal-fired
power generation.\1\ Returning to coal has drastically increased the
cost of power across the country--significantly damaging their
industrialized economy while simultaneously causing emissions to
increase.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ (Roach, 2023)
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In contrast, the United States is blessed with tremendous sources
of domestic energy that, if utilized, can protect us from suffering a
similar energy-reliance disaster as experienced in Europe. In addition
to renewable energy sources, the United States boasts multiple basins
with significant oil and natural gas reserves. As long as we continue
to allow Americans to access these resources, we will never face such a
dilemma.
Producing energy resources is a necessity. The truth is that the
United States and the world will need a lot more oil and gas in the
coming decades, even as new forms of energy come online. In fact, U.S.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that the worldwide
demand for all forms of energy will increase by 50% by 2050.\2\ The
only way to meet this increase in demand without sacrificing the
environmental progress made over the past 25 years is through a
wholehearted commitment to developing the energy resources in the
United States. H.R. 5616 and H.R. 1121 guarantee this access and ensure
that the rights to domestic resource development are kept from being
interrupted or administratively slowed down.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2021)
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
.epsFigure 1. Global Primary Energy Consumption by Energy Source
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2021)
H.R. 5616 BRIDGE ACT
In 1953, Congress passed the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act
(OCSLA), which states that Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM),
within the Department of the Interior, must prepare and maintain
forward-looking five-year plans to schedule proposed oil and gas lease
sales on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.\3\ Unfortunately, under the
current Administration, this has not occurred. In fact, the most recent
five-year plan expired on June 30, 2022, over a year ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ (Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of
Representatives, n.d.)
Delays in restarting the plan have ceased exploratory well
drilling, reduced the industry spending levels, drastically decreased
employment across the offshore energy sector, lessened gross domestic
product (GDP) and government revenues and plummeted oil and natural gas
production across the Gulf of Mexico. Further delays will harm the U.S.
economy, U.S. employment and force the United States and our allies to
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
use oil and gas from less responsible and reliable sources.
Economy and Jobs
In 2022, the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and natural gas industry
supported an estimated 372,000 jobs in the United States. According to
an Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners and National Ocean Industries
Association report, in 2022 alone, activity in the Gulf of Mexico
contributed approximately $30.8 billion to the U.S. GDP.\4\ Looking
ahead, the report indicates the industry is anticipated to maintain a
consistent contribution, averaging about $31.4 billion of GDP per year
over the forecast period from 2022 to 2040. Assuming no further delays,
this revenue source is expected to average an annual projection of over
$7.4 billion from 2022 to 2040.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ (Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners, 2020)
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
.epsFigure 2. Key Findings: Consequences of a 5-year Leasing
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Program Delay (Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners, 2022)
U.S. Gulf of Mexico Energy is Cleaner Than Other Options
According to the 2022 NOIA report, the increase in U.S. Gulf of
Mexico production, if it were to offset foreign crude or condensate,
would significantly reduce carbon intensity. This reduction would
amount to a remarkable 46% decrease in the international average carbon
intensity for the displaced oil. This is equivalent to removing 11.3
CO2e kg/bbl from the current global average of 24.4 CO2e kg/bbl.\5\ The
U.S. Gulf of Mexico stands out as a region with some of the lowest
carbon barrels of oil, particularly when compared to other oil-
producing regions. A significant contributor to this is effective
methane management. U.S. offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico
maintain stringent controls on methane emissions, resulting in notably
lower emissions than those observed in other producing regions. The
Gulf is also subject to a strong regulatory oversight framework and has
adequate pipeline infrastructure to move product to market safely and
efficiently.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ (Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners, 2022)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fact, the U.S. Gulf of Mexico boasts approximately half the
carbon intensity of other producing regions.\6\ What's more, this
environmental performance continues to improve. From 2011 to 2017,
according to the BOEM, carbon emissions from U.S. Gulf operations
decreased by approximately 60%, even as oil production increased by
over 35%.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ (Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners, 2022)
\7\ (Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners, 2022)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, we must ask ourselves why do we continue to delay further
production in an area that can provide U.S. energy security, support
the U.S. economy and workers and provide energy cleaner than anywhere
else in the world? Fortunately, we have legislation in front of us
today that will force the Administration to stop bureaucratic delay
tactics and follow the intent of OCSLA to hold lease sales and allow
Americans access to the resources they are legally entitled to access.
H.R. 5616 BRIDGE Production Act 2023 mandates that the Secretary of
Interior hold no less than four offshore lease sales on specified dates
that cannot be bureaucratically delayed. This mandate should not be
necessary, as we should already have a 5-year lease plan according to
existing law, but unfortunately, we do not. This mandate will bring
regulatory certainty for the energy workforce that relies on the
offshore for their livelihood and will allow for long-term investments
necessary to continue to develop our offshore resources.
Hydraulic Fracturing
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, originated in the
1940s and is currently used on 95% of new oil and gas wells today.\8\
There is a reason this process is utilized so widely in oil and gas
production. When paired with directional drilling, it is the safest and
most effective way of accessing hydrocarbons in tight shale formations
deep beneath the earth.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2016)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This technology is responsible for the steep increase in natural
gas production we've experienced in the U.S. over the last 25 years. A
ban on hydraulic fracturing would put an end to the abundance of
natural gas that has both improved the environment and aided our
allies.
According to the EIA, the increased use of cleaner-burning natural
gas in power generation is the chief reason U.S. carbon dioxide
emissions are at 25-year lows. And the abundance of natural gas in the
U.S. has opened the door for LNG exports, which have allowed us to
support our European allies impacted by the war in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, the debate over hydraulic fracturing has become
politically weaponized, with four states prohibiting fracturing within
their borders and President Biden making several statements before
taking office that suggested he would consider banning hydraulic
fracturing. Fortunately, the Administration has not taken that
catastrophic action, but continued statements from Administration
officials against fracking make it clear they have not given up on that
campaign promise, and our workforce remains concerned they could in the
future.
H.R. 1121 is a simple, straightforward bill that prohibits the
President from declaring a moratorium or ban on the use of hydraulic
fracturing unless such a moratorium or ban is authorized by an Act of
Congress. The bill ensures Americans will continue to have full access
to their resources on both public and private lands through hydraulic
fracturing. Let us be clear about what is at stake here. With 95% of
new onshore wells in the United States requiring hydraulic fracturing,
a moratorium or ban would shut down new production in the United
States. That means dramatically higher gas prices, no new investment,
job losses and loss of United States energy security and the
environmental gains the U.S. has made.
Conclusion
Both H.R. 1121 and H.R. 5616 are key pieces of legislation
supporting American energy security. By providing the American people
with clear and consistent guarantees that they will be able to access
their resources in a timely and consistent manner, we will keep energy
costs affordable, keep Americans employed and support investment in our
domestic resources. This consistency will ensure the energy security of
not only the United States but our friends and allies abroad. America
should never find itself in a situation where our economy, or our
politics for that matter, are held hostage by a foreign nation. We have
been blessed with adequate resources to avoid that fate, and these two
pieces of legislation before us here today help protect that blessing.
I urge your support of these two critical pieces of legislation to
protect American energy security.
References
Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners. (2020). The Economic Impacts of
the Gulf of Mexico Oil and Natural Gas Industry. Washington D.C.:
National Oceanic Industries Association.
Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners. (2022). The Economic Impacts of
a 5-Year Leasing Program Delay for the Gulf of Mexico Oil and Natural
Gas Industry. Washington D.C.: National Ocean Industries Association.
Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of
Representatives. (n.d.). Title 43. Retrieved from United States Code:
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title43/
chapter29&edition=prelim
Roach, S. (2023, January 9). Why is Germany turning back to coal for
energy? Channel Four Television Corporation. Retrieved from https://
www.channel4.com/news/why-is-germany-turning-back-to-coal-for-
energy#::text=Around%20one%20
fifth%20of%20electricity,climate%2Ddamaging%20source%20of%20energy.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2016, March 15). Hydraulic
fracturing accounts for about half of current U.S. crude oil
production. Retrieved from Today In Energy: https://www.eia.gov/
todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25372
U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2020). Annual Energy Outlook
2020 with projections to 2050. Washington D.C.: Office of Energy
Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/aeo
U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2021, October 7). EIA projects
nearly 50% increase in world energy use by 2050, led by growth in
renewables. Retrieved from Today In Energy: https://www.eia.gov/
todayinenergy/detail.php?id=49876#
U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2021, October 2). Press Room.
Retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/
press487.php#::text=EIA%20projects% 20increases%20in%
20global,50%25%20between%202020%20and%202050.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2022, December 14). U.S.
Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 2021. Retrieved from https://
www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Mr. Tim Tarpley, President,
Energy Workforce & Technology Council
Questions Submitted by Representative Stauber
Question 1. The BRIDGE Production Act requires the Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management (BOEM) to utilize the 2017-2022 Record of Decision
for the sales required in the bill, will BOEM still be required to
conduct site-specific National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews,
including Environmental Assessments (EAs) or Environmental Impact
Statements (EISs), to assess the unique environmental conditions and
potential impacts of individual lease sales?
Answer. Once a Programmatic EIS (PEIS) and ROD for a proposed
program are completed, site-specific NEPA reviews are conducted for
individual lease sales or other actions. This review can take the form
of a new EIS, a Supplemental EIS, or an Environmental Assessment (EA)
depending on the potential impacts of the specific action. The site-
specific review will consider the unique environmental conditions and
potential impacts of the specific lease sale or action, so there could
not be leasing without additional EA, potentially EIS, or utilization
of CX (which doesn't exist for site specific, so no option there).
Question 2. Can you elaborate on how the site-specific NEPA reviews
will ensure that environmental safeguards are in place for each
individual lease sale, even after the application of the 2017-2022 ROD?
Answer. There are 5 major steps for the leasing process:
1. BOEM issues a Call for Information and Nominations [(30 Code of
Federal Regulations [CFR] 556.301)]--(Call) in the Federal
Register on an area proposed for leasing. Potential bidders
are invited to submit nominations or indications of
interest in specific OCS blocks within the Call Area. The
Call also solicits comments about geological conditions;
archaeological sites; potential multiple uses of the area
including navigation, recreation, and fisheries;
socioeconomic, biological, and other environmental
information; and asks the public for information on areas
of special concern that should be analyzed.
2. Area Identification (30 CFR 556.302)--Area Identification (Area
ID) is the second major step in BOEM's oil and gas lease
sale process. During Area ID, BOEM uses information and
comments received in response to a Call, and in
consultation with appropriate Federal agencies, develops a
recommendation to the Secretary for the area(s) to be
subject to further leasing consideration and environmental
analyses. The Area ID decision is announced in the Federal
Register.
3. Review under NEPA--BOEM performs a NEPA review for each lease
sale. This typically includes an EIS that considers the
impacts associated with oil and gas activities for a given
region or program area. The NEPA for subsequent lease sales
in the same region or program area may rely on that EIS as
appropriate, after BOEM confirms through a DNA or EA that
EIS supplementation is not required.
4. Government-to-Government Consultations--Under Executive Order
(E.O.) 13175 and the Department of the Interior Policy on
Consultation with Indian Tribes, BOEM is obligated to
engage in government-to-government consultations with
Tribes on any Departmental action with Tribal implications.
This includes federally recognized Tribes with current and
historic interests in coastal areas of Alaska, the Pacific,
the GOM, and the Atlantic. In Alaska, BOEM additionally
consults with Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA)
Corporations. These consultations are conducted on
additional approvals (e.g., plans and permits) as
appropriate throughout the life of an OCS oil and gas
lease.
5. Environmental Consultations--Consultations under various
environmental statutes occur, such as the Endangered
Species Act (ESA) of 1973 (16 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1531 et
seq.) and Section 305(b) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (16 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1801
et seq.). Pursuant to these environmental statutes, BOEM is
required to consult with agencies such as the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (USFWS) 12 Solicitor's M Opinion 36954,
Whether the Department May Issue a Call for Information &
Nominations for Outer Continental Shelf Lease Sale 91, 93
I.D. 125 (1986). USDOI 2024-2029 National OCS Oil and Gas
Leasing Proposed Final Program BOEM OCS Oil & Gas Leasing
Program Development Process 1-22 September 2023 and
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). BOEM also
consults, as appropriate, under Section 106 of the National
Historic Preservation Act (54 U.S.C. Sec. 306108).
6. Proposed Notice of Sale (NOS) (30 CFR 556.304)--The proposed
NOS describes the timing, size, and location of a proposed
oil and gas lease sale. It also provides potential bidders
with information on proposed economic terms and conditions
and any proposed mitigation measures (i.e., lease
stipulations), which are typically designed to reduce
potential conflicts with other ocean uses and to protect
the environment. BOEM publishes a notice of availability of
the proposed NOS in the Federal Register.
7. Coordination with Governors of Affected States (30 CFR 556.304-
307)--Section 19 of the OCS Lands Act (43 U.S.C. Sec. 1345)
requires BOEM to solicit input on the size, timing, and
location of lease sales from governors of affected states.
BOEM sends the proposed NOS to governors of affected states
requesting their recommendations on the proposed size,
timing, and location of the lease sale. The governors have
60 days to submit their recommendations to BOEM. Prior to
holding the lease sale, BOEM sends each governor written
reasons for USDOI's determination to accept or reject that
governor's recommendation.
8. Consistency Determination (30 CFR 556.305(b))--All Federal
activities affecting the coastal zone, including OCS oil
and gas lease sales, must be consistent to the maximum
extent practicable with the enforceable policies of an
affected state's coastal zone management (CZM) program (see
16 U.S.C. Sec. 1456(c)(1) and (2)). BOEM provides coastal
states with a consistency determination on whether the
proposed lease sale is consistent, to the maximum extent
practicable, with the enforceable policies of federally
approved state Coastal Management Plans. That is not done,
however, for Alaska lease sales since the State of Alaska
no longer has a federally approved Coastal Management Plan.
For more information on BOEM's CZM work, see https://
link.edgepilot.com/s/75ed2c3d/r_tC9ED_9Eqts_k0zdsj-
A?u=https://www.boem.gov/CoastalZone-Management-Act/).
9. Issuance of a ROD (EIS-level), Finding of No New Significant
Impact (FONSI; EAlevel) or DNA--Upon completion of the NEPA
review for each individual lease sale, a determination is
made as to the significance, or lack thereof, of potential
environmental impacts. Depending on the type of NEPA review
undertaken for a lease sale, the NEPA review process is
completed through the issuance of a ROD, a FONSI, or a DNA.
10. Final NOS (30 CFR 556.308(a))--BOEM will publish a final NOS at
least 30 days before a lease sale is held. The final NOS
includes information on how to submit bids; the date, time,
and location of the bid opening and reading; the OCS blocks
being offered; and terms and conditions of the lease sale,
including lease stipulations.
11. Holding the Lease Sale (30 CFR 556.516)--BOEM opens the sealed
bids at the place, date, and hour specified in the final
NOS for the sole purpose of publicly announcing and
recording the bids. BOEM does not accept or reject any bids
at that time. USDOI 2024-2029 National OCS Oil and Gas
Leasing Proposed Final Program BOEM OCS Oil & Gas Leasing
Program Development Process 1-23 September 2023
12. Lease Issuance (30 CFR 556.520-522)--Before a lease can be
issued, high bids are subject to evaluation regarding the
receipt of fair market value (FMV) and analysis confirming
that the award of any tract to the highest bidders in the
lease sale would not create or maintain a situation
inconsistent with anti-trust laws. BOEM will issue a lease
following completion of its FMV analysis and the anti-trust
review conducted by the Department of Justice in
consultation with the Trade Commission.
______
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Dr.
Greg Upton, who is the Executive Director and Associate
Professor of Research at LSU Center for Energy Studies in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana.
Dr. Upton, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF GREG UPTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF RESEARCH AT LSU CENTER FOR ENERGY STUDIES, BATON
ROUGE, LOUISIANA
Dr. Upton. Good afternoon, Chairman Stauber and Committee.
Thank you for having me today.
In my testimony, I would like to provide some perspective
into Louisiana's road to decarbonization, how a historically
hydrocarbon-based economy is evolving, and how Federal policies
to restrict supply of those hydrocarbons might impact that
strategy. But first, a few stylized facts.
One, U.S. energy demand has been relatively flat over the
past decade, and this trend is expected to continue. On one
hand, economic growth increases energy demand. On the other,
efficiency reduces energy demand. In net, in the United States,
these two effects are approximately in balance. For example,
U.S. gasoline and electricity demand are within 2 percent of
levels observed 10 years ago today.
Second, U.S. oil production has increased by 83 percent,
natural gas production by 47 percent, and renewable energy
production by 51 percent over the same 10 years. So, domestic
energy demand has been relatively flat, while energy supply has
increased.
One might ask, where have these products gone? The answer
lies in Stylized Fact 3: the United States is an exporter of
hydrocarbon-based products. These products are not only fuels,
but also include chemical products such as fertilizers and
polymers.
In 2022, the United States exported $341 billion in oil and
gas, refined products, and chemicals, with 58 percent of these
products coming from the Gulf Coast region. Excluding
chemicals, 88 percent of oil, gas, and refined products came
from the Gulf Coast. Facilitating and expanding exports has
attracted billions of dollars of capital from all over the
world. It has affected jobs in our region.
Today, interestingly, customers around the world are asking
companies: (1) to credibly document life cycle emissions, and
(2) reduce those emissions. Investors, again, from all over the
world, are increasingly considering the carbon intensity when
deciding where to deploy this capital. So, to attract capital
and sustain demand, hydrocarbon-based manufacturers are
balancing two objectives.
First, companies must remain cost competitive. If they
invest too heavily in reducing emissions, their products could
become too expensive for the global market.
But second, companies also seek competitive emissions
profiles. If the manufacturing sector ignores this call to
decarbonize and exclusively focuses on cost, the sector might
also find itself at a competitive disadvantage.
How is this relevant to the two bills being discussed
today, one bill on the continuation of offshore leasing, the
second on hydraulic fracturing? The answer lies in the
strategies to decarbonize.
Over the next decade, fossil fuels will continue to play an
important role in our energy mix. They currently make up over
80 percent of global energy consumption, and energy consumption
globally is expected to grow. Companies are investing in carbon
capture utilization and storage, hydrogen and ammonia
production, electrification of industrial processes alongside
emissions reductions on the grid, utilizing bio-based
feedstocks, as well as investments in the production of lower-
emission sources of fossil-based hydrocarbons. Companies are
also paying increasing attention to leaks and fugitive
emissions.
Most of these pathways, and thus prior-mentioned
investments, require the availability of fossil fuels. The U.S.
Energy Information Administration's most recent annual energy
outlook's base case scenario is that U.S. fossil fuel
production continues to increase, while energy-related carbon
dioxide emissions are reduced.
In my opinion, policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel
supply within the United States put this decarbonization
strategy at risk, as investments in decarbonizing this
industrial supply chain are likely to slow if firms anticipate
reduced access to these feedstocks.
While reducing domestic supply can reduce global
consumption through the channel of increased prices for
consumers, some of this supply decrease will be offset by oil
and gas production elsewhere, whether domestically or
internationally. Economic theory predicts that it is the
interaction between emissions intensity of different supply
sources and consumption reductions that determine the net
impact of supply restrictive policies on emissions.
That is a mouthful. To put more simply, the net effect of a
supply-reducing policy on emissions is ambiguous. But economic
theory unambiguously predicts increased prices for consumers.
While supply-reducing policies might seem like the logical
way to rapidly reduce emissions, in my opinion this is not an
efficient strategy for achieving politically and economically
sustainable emissions reductions over the coming decade.
Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Upton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gregory B. Upton, Jr, Ph.D., Interim Executive
Director & Associate Research Professor Center for Energy Studies,
Louisiana State University
on H.R. 5616 and H.R. 1121
Good afternoon. My name is Greg Upton. I'm the Interim Executive
Director \1\ of the Louisiana State University Center for Energy
Studies.\2\ Thanks for having me.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ And Associate Research Professor.
\2\ The Louisiana State University Center for Energy Studies (CES)
was created by the Louisiana Legislature in 1982. CES is mandated to
provide energy information and analysis that responds to the needs of
the legislature, public agencies, business and civic groups, as well as
the general public.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my testimony today, I'd like to provide some perspective into
Louisiana's road to decarbonization,\3\ how a historically hydrocarbon
intensive economy is evolving, and then how federal policies to
restrict the supply of fossil-based hydrocarbons, if pursued, might
impact this strategy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ For more on Louisiana's specific decarbonization strategy, see
the Louisiana Climate Action Plan. Climate initiatives Task for
Recommendations to the Governor. February 2022.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But first, a few stylized facts:
One: U.S. energy demand has been relatively flat over the past
decade, and this trend is expected to continue.\4\ On one hand,
economic growth increases energy demand. On the other, efficiency
reduces energy demand. In net, in the U.S. these two effects are
approximately in balance. For example, U.S. gasoline and electricity
demand are within two percent of levels observed ten years ago.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. Annual Energy Outlook
2023. Table 1. Total Energy Supply, Disposition, and Price summary.
Total consumption (in quads) in 2032 is anticipated to be within 1
percent of 2022 total consumption (in quads).
\5\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. Weekly U.S. Product
Supplied of Finished Motor Gasoline Thousands Barrels Per day.
Comparison of average weekly value in 2022 (most recent year of data)
to 2012. 2022 value is 0.62 percent higher than 2012. U.S. Energy
Information Administration. Form EIA-861, ``Annual Electric Power
Industry Report.'', Form EIA-861-S, ``Annual Electric Power Industry
Report (Short Form)'' and Form EIA-923, ``Power Plant Operations
Report.'' Table 2.2. Sales and Direct Use of Electricity to Ultimate
Customers by Sector, by Provider, 2011 through 2021 (Megawatt hours).
2021 total end use (most recent year of data) is 1.6 percent higher
than 2011 value.
Second: But U.S. oil production has increased by 83 percent,\6\
natural gas production by 47 percent,\7\ and renewable energy
production by 51 percent \8\ over the same ten years.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Field Production
of Crude Oil (Thousand Barrels per Day). Sourcekey: MCRFPUS2.
Comparison of 2022 and 2002.
\7\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Natural Gas Gross
Withdrawals (MMcf). Sourcekey: N9010US2. Comparison of 2022 and 2002.
\8\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. energy facts
explained. U.S. Primary energy production by major sources, 1950-2022.
Renewables accounted for 8.9 quadrillion British Thermal Units in 2012
and 13.4 quadrillion British Thermal Units in 2022, an increase of 50.6
percent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, domestic energy demand has been relatively flat, while energy
supply has increased. One might ask, where have these products gone?
The answer lies in Stylized Fact 3: The U.S. is an exporter of
hydrocarbon-based products. These products are not only fuels; but also
include chemical products, such as fertilizers and polymers. In 2022,
the U.S. exported $341 billion \9\ in oil, gas, refined products, and
chemicals, with 58 percent of these products coming from the Gulf Coast
region.\10\ Excluding chemicals, 88 percent of oil, gas and refined
products exports came from the Gulf Coast. Facilitating and expanding
exports has attracted billions of dollars of capital from all over the
world.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ U.S. Census Bureau. USA Tarde Online, State Export Data (Origin
of Movement) by NAICS. Includes: NAICS 211--Oil and Gas; 324--Petroleum
& Coal Products; 325--Chemicals.
\10\ Gulf Coast includes Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Texas.
\11\ LSU Center for Energy Studies. 2023 Gulf Coast Energy Outlook.
This annual outlook identified approximately $180 billion in
investments since 2011, with an addition $175 billion in current
announcements in our region.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So where does decarbonization fit into this?
The 2016 Paris Agreement includes more than 190 countries,
accounting for over 98 percent of global emissions. Today, customers
around the world are asking companies to (1) credibly document life
cycle emissions and (2) reduce emissions. Investors, again from all
over the world, are increasingly considering the carbon intensity when
deciding where to build capital.
To attract capital and sustain demand, hydrocarbon-based
manufacturers are balancing two objectives: First, companies must
remain cost competitive. If they invest too heavily in reducing
emissions, their products could become too expensive for the global
market. But second, companies also seek competitive emissions profiles.
If the manufacturing sector ignores this call to decarbonize, and
exclusively focuses on cost, the sector might also find itself at a
competitive disadvantage.
How is this relevant to the two bills being discussed today, one
bill on the continuation of offshore leasing; \12\ the other on
hydraulic fracturing? \13\ Both bills are in response to potential
federal policies to restrict domestic oil and gas supply.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ H.R. 5616 (Rep. Graves), ``BRIDGE Production Act of 2023.''
\13\ H.R. 1121 (Rep. Duncan), ``Protecting American Energy
Production Act.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The answer lies in the strategies to decarbonize. Over the next
decade, fossil fuels will continue to play an important role in our
energy mix.\14\ They currently make up over 80 percent of global energy
consumption,\15\ and energy consumption globally is expected to grow.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. Annual Energy Outlook.
Table 1. Total Energy Supply Disposition and Price Summary. In 2022,
EIA estimates that fossil fuels, including petroleum and other liquids,
natural gas, and coal made up 80 percent of the total quads of energy.
By 2050, EIA estimates that fossil fuels will make up 66 percent. Over
that time period, petroleum and other liquids consumption will reduce
by 2 percent and natural gas consumption will reduce by 6 percent. Coal
is anticipated to see the largest reduction in consumption; 66 percent
reduction between 2022 and 2050. Note this footnote is referencing
consumption, not production.
\15\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. International. Primary
Energy. World. Comparing coal, natural gas, and petroleum to total
consumption. Quad btus.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Companies are investing in carbon capture, utilization and storage,
hydrogen and ammonia production, electrification of industrial
processes alongside emissions reductions on the grid, utilizing bio-
based feedstocks, as well as investments in the production of lower
emissions sources of fossil-based hydrocarbons. Companies are also
paying increasing attention to leaks and fugitive emissions.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ For a recent review of upstream flaring and methane emissions
see: The Economics of Natural Gas Flaring in US Shale: An Agenda for
Research and Policy. Agerton, Gilbert & Upton. Review of Environmental
Economics and Policy, volume 17, number 2, summer 2023.
Most of these pathways, and thus prior-mentioned investments,
require the availability of fossil fuels. The U.S. Energy Information
Administration's most recent Annual Energy Outlook's base case scenario
is that U.S. fossil fuel production continues to increase,\17\ while
energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are reduced.\18\ In my opinion,
policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel supply in the U.S. put this
decarbonization strategy at risk, as investments in decarbonizing this
industrial supply chain are likely to slow if firms anticipate reduced
access to feedstocks. While reducing domestic supply can reduce global
consumption, through the channel of increased prices for consumers,
some of this supply decrease will be offset by oil and gas production
elsewhere, whether domestically or internationally. Economic theory
predicts that it is the interaction between emissions intensity of
different supply sources and consumption reductions induced by
increased prices that determine the net impact of supply restrictive
policies on emissions.\19\ That's a mouthful. So, put more simply, the
net effect of supply-reducing policies on emissions is ambiguous, but
economic theory unambiguously predicts increased prices for consumers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. Annual Energy Outlook
2023. Table 1. Total Energy Supply Disposition and Price Summary. U.S.
oil production base case scenario grows by 11 percent between 2022 and
2050. U.S. dry natural gas production base case scenario increases by
15 percent over this same time period.
\18\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. Annual Energy Outlook
2023. AEO2023 Narrative. Figure 1.
\19\ Considers an upward sloping supply curve and downward sloping
demand curve on P, Q axes (with P on the vertical axis and Q on the
horizontal axis). Basic economic theory predicts that a policy to shift
supply ``left'' will increase the equilibrium price (P*) and decrease
the equilibrium quantity (Q*). But the reduced quantity in equilibrium
is less than the specific supply that is restricted from the market, as
production will increase elsewhere in response to the price increase.
This is what simplistic economic theory would predict. The specific
magnitude of the effect is an empirical question and could be different
in the short-term and long-term and different based on what specific
supply restricting policies are considered.
While supply restricting policies might seem like the logical way
to rapidly reduce emissions, in my opinion this is not an efficient
strategy for achieving politically and economically sustainable
emissions reductions over the coming decades. Other policies such as
prioritizing lower carbon sources of energy, reducing demand for
emitting activities, and market-based policies might be better choices
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
if the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Thank you for your time.
______
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Mr.
Chett Chiasson, who is the Executive Director for Port
Fourchon, based in Cut Off, Louisiana.
Mr. Chiasson, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF CHETT CHIASSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PORT FOURCHON,
FOURCHON, LOUISIANA
Mr. Chiasson. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of
the Committee. My name is Chett Chiasson, and I am the
Executive Director of the Greater Lafourche Port Commission,
otherwise known as Port Fourchon. I appreciate the opportunity
to appear before you today.
Mr. Chairman, I have more extensive written testimony that
I would like to submit for the record with your approval.
I applaud this Committee for holding this hearing today,
and I endorse H.R. 5616 by Louisiana Congressman and my friend,
Garret Graves.
I also want to recognize the long-standing and continued
efforts of my Congressman, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, on a
host of issues but in this context for the work on H.R. 1 and
his collaboration with Chairman Westerman and other members of
this Committee in getting this legislation passed by the House.
What H.R. 5616 means to me is promoting a level of
certainty in the Federal regulatory process. Port Fourchon is a
governmental entity, a political subdivision of the state of
Louisiana operating autonomously. We have a board of
commissioners consisting of nine elected board members, each
serving 6-year terms. Thus, at all times, we serve not only as
a vital part of our community, but are held accountable to and
by our community for our operations.
An integral part in providing services to our tenants and
supporting the economy of our region and state is a necessity
to plan for the future: developing a yearly budget, forecasting
future expenses and revenues, developing and adjusting as
necessary our 5-year capital improvement program.
Everything we do is impacted by Federal and state policies,
whether it is related to offshore energy production,
environmental protection, or international trade, and a host of
other matters. We actively and effectively work with our state
and Federal representatives on policy matters impacting our
industry. But the most difficult aspect of working within a
framework of Federal, state, and local laws is the uncertainty
of what will occur in the future, even the near future, with
respect to policies.
The issue of lease sales and development of a 5-year plan
for Gulf of Mexico leasing is a perfect example. Offshore
operators, who essentially are our customers' customers, must
plan multiple years in advance for investments in the hundreds
of millions of dollars for projects that will take multiple
years to develop, once permitted, before they ever begin
producing. Our tenants, in turn, must develop future plans to
accommodate their customers' needs, which in turn requires Port
Fourchon to anticipate our customers' future needs, nearly all
of which requires us budgeting for future revenue and
expenditures.
In brief, a bold, 5-year plan with guaranteed lease sales
is the best indicator for us as to where the Gulf of Mexico
energy activity will head in the near future.
Let me switch gears quickly on two other matters. The first
is offshore renewable energy.
The interest in offshore renewables has peaked dramatically
in the past couple of years. There are weeks that I spend as
much time meeting with potential tenants and other industry
groups discussing offshore renewable energy as I do
conventional energy. We currently have two written agreements,
not leases yet, but two agreements with potential tenants who
are actively planning for offshore renewable projects in the
Gulf, not far from Port Fourchon. I like to refer to this next
chapter in the Gulf of Mexico's future as an energy addition,
the addition of renewable energy of America's energy portfolio.
This subject does and will continue to be debated as to
whether or when we transition away from the use of fossil fuels
in this country and throughout the world. I, for one, do not
see the discontinuation of fossil fuels in my lifetime, if at
all. I say that more as a consumer of products and services
than I do as someone in the energy industry. But what I do see,
what I am actively engaged in at this very moment, is securing
the addition of renewable energy in the Gulf of Mexico in my
lifetime. But that also requires reliable governmental planning
at the Federal and state level, and a coordination of planning
for continued conventional and renewable energy.
As happy as I was to see BOEM develop wind energy areas and
recently conduct their first lease sale for wind in the Gulf, I
was disappointed in the areas that BOEM selected for the sale,
which I believe had an impact on the low number of bids
received. That is an entirely different topic, and goes beyond
the scope of this hearing or my testimony, but we are actively
working with BOEM on that issue, and I remain encouraged over
the prospect of the addition of renewable energy in the Gulf of
Mexico's energy portfolio that it supplies to this country.
However, the common thread to all of this is steady,
reliable, multi-year Federal leasing policies for all available
energy activities.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, while my written testimony discusses
this in more detail, I want to briefly mention the current
Rice's whale issue. This, too, is an example of where Federal
policy significantly impacts commercial operations in the Gulf.
I would like to stress that the efficiency of commercial
maritime operations, as well as safety of vessels and mariners
operating in the Gulf, must at all times be given great
consideration.
This concludes my oral remarks. Again, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today, and would be pleased to
answer any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chiasson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chett C. Chiasson, MPA, Executive Director,
Greater Lafourche Port Commission, Galliano, Louisiana
on H.R. 5616 and H.R. 1121
Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My name is
Chett Chiasson, and I am the Executive Director of the Greater
Lafourche Port Commission, otherwise known as Port Fourchon. I
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today.
While I appear today on behalf of Port Fourchon, I also serve on
the Louisiana Governor's Advisory Commission for Coastal Activities,
the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Finance
Corporation, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's Renewable Energy
Task Force, the Executive Board of Restore or Retreat, a regional non-
profit coastal restoration advocacy group. I am also on the Board of
Directors of the American Association of Port Authorities (Vice Chair),
the Board of Directors of the Gulf Ports Association (Vice President),
a member of the Ports Association of Louisiana, National Ocean
Industries Association, and Business Network for Offshore Wind. I hold
a B.A. and Masters Degree in Public Administration from Louisiana State
University.
Port Fourchon is located on the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of
Bayou Lafourche, and is the only Louisiana port directly on the Gulf of
Mexico. Although 675 million barrels of domestically produced and
imported crude oil per year are transported via pipelines through or
near the Port, Port Fourchon does not itself handle any bulk oil and
gas. Rather, we are an intermodal offshore services and supply port.
More than 250 companies utilize Port Fourchon in servicing offshore
energy activities in the Gulf of Mexico, carrying equipment, supplies
and personnel to offshore locations. In terms of service, Port
Fourchon's tenants provide services to more than 90 percent of all
deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and roughly 45% of all shallow
water rigs in the Gulf. Eighty percent of all Gulf oil now comes from
deepwater Gulf of Mexico operations. In total, Port Fourchon plays a
key role in providing nearly 20% of the nation's oil supply--or one in
every five barrels of oil in the country is serviced by Port Fourchon.
Translating that to economic impact, offshore oil and gas
activities produce 345,000 U.S. jobs, $28.6 billion in Gross Domestic
Product impact, and more than $5 billion annually in government
revenues. Gulf of Mexico energy activities will produce $353 million in
Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) funding, and $1 billion in
funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The local impact of our Port operations to South Louisiana is
significant. Port Fourchon is responsible for over 8000 direct jobs in
the Houma-Thibodaux MSA. Eight out of the top ten taxpayers in
Lafourche Parish are either a tenant of the Port or otherwise operate
in the offshore energy sector. The economic activity from Gulf of
Mexico energy operations supports not just jobs, but provides
substantial funding to Lafourche Parish and neighboring Parishes, and
other local governmental entities, providing services like after school
programs, economic development assistance, public works projects, and
emergency preparedness. Offshore energy serves as an economic base for
our levee and water districts, and emergency responders. Offshore
energy production is vital to all of these services that impact our
daily lives, where we live, work and raise our families. Simply put,
offshore energy is the underpinning of our economy and quality of life.
I applaud the Committee for holding this hearing today, and I
endorse the underlying concepts in H.R. 5616 and H.R. 1121. What these
bills mean to me is promoting a level of certainty in the federal
regulatory process, and with respect to H.R. 5616, provide certainty
with the pending 2023-2028 National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil
and Gas Leasing Program. Being a governmental entity, Port Fourchon at
all times serves not only as a vital part of our community, but we are
held accountable to and by our community for our operations. An
integral part in providing services to our tenants and supporting the
economy of our region and state is the necessity to plan for the
future--developing a yearly budget, forecasting future expenses and
revenues, developing and adjusting as necessary our 5 year Capital
Improvement Program. Everything we do is impacted by federal and state
policies, whether it's related to offshore energy production,
environmental protection, international trade and a host of other
matters. We actively and I believe effectively work with our state and
federal representatives on policy matters impacting our industry--we
try to contribute to policy decisions at these levels as much as
possible. But the most difficult aspect of working within a framework
of federal, state and local laws is the uncertainty of what will occur
in the future--even the near future, with respect to these policies. We
as a Nation cannot predict with any level of certainty the next natural
disaster, the next pandemic, or the next international conflict. All of
these, of course, impact all of our daily lives today. But we as a
Nation should be able to develop governmental policies in a reliable
and timely fashion, particularly those policies that impact investment
by local governments and the private sector.
The issue of lease sales and the development of the next 5-year
plan for Gulf of Mexico leasing is a perfect example. Offshore
operators, who essentially are the customers of our customers, must
plan multiple years in advance for investments in the hundreds of
millions of dollars, for projects that will take multiple years to
develop once permitted, before they ever begin producing. Our tenants,
in turn, must develop future plans to accommodate their customer's
needs, which in turn requires Port Fourchon to anticipate our
customers' future needs, nearly all of which requires us budgeting for
future revenues and expenditures. In brief, a BOEM 5 year plan, with
guaranteed lease sales, is the best indicator for us as to where the
Gulf of Mexico energy activity will head in the near future.
A recent study conducted by the American Petroleum Institute (API)
and the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) forecasted the
economic impact from a lapse of a 5-Year Program. The report states:
With a 5-year offshore leasing program, the Gulf of Mexico
is projected to produce an average of 2.6 million barrels
of oil and natural gas from 2022-2040. A delay in the
program could mean nearly 500,000 barrels per day less over
that time period.
In 2036, the lost Gulf of Mexico production could mean
885,000 fewer barrels of oil and natural gas per day--a 33%
decrease from where the Country would be with a 5-year
offshore leasing plan in place.
370,000 American jobs are supported by Gulf of Mexico
offshore production. Nearly 60,000 of those could be lost
without a 5-year offshore leasing program.
Direct jobs supporting the offshore oil and gas industry
pay on average nearly $70,000. That's 29% higher than the
national average salary.
On average, $1.5 billion per year in government revenue
could be lost with reduced offshore production. That's
revenue that could be used for public education,
infrastructure, conservation projects, coastal restoration
and hurricane protection programs.
Let me switch my testimony to other matters. The first is offshore
renewable energy. The interest in offshore renewable energy has peaked
dramatically in the past couple of years. There are weeks that I spend
as much time meeting with potential tenants and other industry groups
discussing offshore renewable energy as I do conventional energy. We
currently have two written agreements with potential tenants who are
actively planning for offshore renewable projects in the Gulf, not far
from Port Fourchon. I like to refer to this next chapter in the Gulf of
Mexico's future as ``energy addition''--the addition of renewable
energy to America's energy portfolio.
The Gulf of Mexico's involvement in renewable energy is not new.
More than ten years ago, offshore service companies located at Port
Fourchon began building vessels designed to participate in offshore
wind turbine installation in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coast.
Currently, Edison Chouest Offshore has vessels under construction
designed to participate in offshore renewable development. Indeed, it
is the expertise that has been developed in the offshore oil and gas
industry over the past 70 years--with technology that continues to be
developed every year, which serves as the foundation for the growing
offshore renewable energy industry.
The relationship and dependency between offshore conventional
energy and renewable energy is now even more prominent under the
recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA.) This law requires an
oil and gas lease sale to be held within one year of conducting an
offshore wind lease. Lease Sale 261, just conducted yesterday
(September 27), was the last oil and gas lease sale under the current
5-year plan. Thus, under the IRA, without a new 5-year plan and lease
sales conducted under that plan, offshore wind leases can only be
issued through September 2024.
The subject as to whether or when we transition away from the use
of fossil fuels in this country and throughout the world continues to
be debated. I for one do not see the discontinuation of fossil fuels
use in my lifetime, if at all. I say that more as a consumer of
products and services than I do as someone in the energy industry. But
what I do see, what I am actively engaged in at this very moment, is
securing the addition of renewable energy in the Gulf of Mexico--in my
lifetime. But that also requires reliable governmental planning at the
federal and state level, and a coordination of planning for continued
conventional and renewable energy. As happy as I was to see BOEM
develop Wind Energy Areas and recently conduct their first lease sale
for wind in the Gulf of Mexico, I was disappointed in the areas that
BOEM selected for the sale, which I believe had an impact on the low
number of bids received. That's an entirely different topic and goes
beyond the scope of this hearing or my testimony, but we are actively
working with BOEM on that issue, and I remain encouraged over the
prospect of the addition of renewable energy in the Gulf of Mexico's
energy portfolio that it supplies to this country. However, the common
thread to all of this is steady, reliable, multi-year federal leasing
policies for all available energy activities.
Finally I want to briefly mention the current Rice's Whale issue.
This too is an example of where federal policy significantly impacts
commercial operations in the Gulf of Mexico. This issue is part of
litigation and a separate rulemaking involving a host of industry and
NGO participants, but I would like to stress that the efficiency of
commercial maritime operations, as well as safety of vessels and
mariners operating in the Gulf, must at all times be given great
consideration. Moreover, the inclusion and input of those commercial
companies operating in the maritime domain must be actively solicited.
Port Fourchon operates seven days a week, 24 hours a day. At Port
Fourchon, approximately 270 vessels will utilize our Port on any given
day. In order for the supply chain to efficiently serve offshore energy
activities, these vessels must operate around the clock. The
restrictions stated in the Stipulated Stay agreement puts offshore
service activities and mariners' safety at risk, as well as efficient
operations of commercial maritime activities. The proposed measures,
including designating new off-limit areas for vessel activity, imposing
speed restrictions, and limiting nighttime and low-visibility transit,
will significantly hinder the industry's capacity to conduct offshore
energy exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. Moreover,
while on the one hand I am at a loss as to why the Notice to Lessees
(NTL) related only to oil and gas activities, on the other hand, I
presume if these measures were to become final, it would impact
offshore renewable energy development as well as commercial fishing and
tourism.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and I
would be pleased to respond to any questions the Committee may have.
Thank you.
______
Mr. Stauber. Thank you for your testimony. I will now
introduce our next witness, Ms. Breon Robinson, who is the
Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas Organizer for Healthy
Gulf in New Orleans, Louisiana.
You are recognized for 5 minutes, Ms. Robinson.
STATEMENT OF BREON ROBINSON, ORGANIZER, HEALTHY GULF, LAKE
CHARLES, LOUISIANA
Ms. Robinson. Thank you all for the opportunity to appear
before you today to discuss offshore drilling in the Gulf of
Mexico.
While I am here to speak against the leasing and drilling
that is looking to potentially be done, I look forward to also
discussing the beauty and uniqueness of the Gulf Coast, the
coast and its people that are on the verge of extinction due to
oil and gas buildout.
My name is Breon Robinson, and I live in Lake Charles,
Louisiana, which is part of Calcasieu Parish in the southwest
Louisiana region. I am a fourth-generation resident of the
North Lake Charles/Goosport community, and currently I am a
student at Louisiana State University's Manship School of
Communications, majoring in political communication. Aside from
that, I have been an active member in my community, working on
a variety of issues ranging from civic engagement to
environmental justice.
Growing up in the heart of sportsman's paradise, I have
grown to love this beautiful place. From the food, the unique
scenery, to our Cajun and Creole culture, there will never be
any other place like home. Memories from my childhood get me
excited, where I often like to imagine the next generation of
my bloodline who will inhabit this land. But then those dreams
soon get pushed away to our harsh reality with this mass
incline of oil and gas buildout that is plaguing my state. From
there it makes me think, will there even be a Louisiana in 50
years?
When I was approached with this opportunity, I sought after
it with the goal of bringing what Louisiana means to me to this
Committee. Coming with me is good, but also the bad; the
devastation, but also the resilience, living in a community
that is surrounded by huge oil and gas, yet 3 years after
Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Winter Storm Uri, a historic 100-year
flood, tornadoes, and many more, we are still fighting to even
receive the most basic necessities needed to survive.
For decades, we have been promised by these oil and gas
companies that allowing them into our communities would bring a
better economy, well-paying jobs, and an overall better way of
living. Yet decades later, our community is dealing with
homelessness like never before, and those jobs are being thrown
to outsiders who will come and go after their assignment is
done.
Before industry, our people thrived off the environment
through seafood and lumber. We were one with Mother Earth. As I
begin to read more into H.R. 5616, it began to frustrate me
that a politician who was elected and paid by our tax dollars
would be OK without having community input on this bill.
As I have witnessed the buildout, I have also witnessed the
devastating decline of life in community from oil and gas.
Although this offshore leasing and drilling will not be
directly in front of our faces, it will affect us as if it is.
In this bill proposal they are looking to offer four large
leases for sale in the Gulf of Mexico. And if this was to pass
and happen, these sales will not have to go through NEPA or any
environmental reviews.
As I stated earlier, our community thrived in the seafood
industry. Now, there is a new generation of fishermen who are
looking to still thrive in this same industry, although they
are now having to co-exist and share the waters and land with
industries who are not looking to do that fairly. Between the
devastation that is happening onshore and what is looking to
occur offshore, this will be a hard hit for our coast, which,
by the way, is one of the natural protections from hurricanes,
hurricanes that have now intensified in the last 20 years,
thanks to climate change.
I believe Louisiana and the Gulf Coast have the potential
to be great away from oil and gas. We brag about being top of
the list for things like partying, drinking, and sports, yet we
forget we are still very far behind as far as education,
housing, and health care. Millions of generations of
Louisianans are dying off due to pollution and are migrating to
other states, so we are not having people wanting to stay due
to these issues.
I love Louisiana just as much as any other person living
here, and I will continue to fight to keep Louisiana clean and
beautiful for the next generations to come. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Breon Robinson
Chair Westerman, Ranking Member Grijalva, and Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. While I am here to
speak against the leasing and drilling that is looking to potentially
be done, I look forward to also discussing the beauty and uniqueness of
the Gulf Coast--a coast and its people, that are also on the verge of
extinction due to oil and gas buildout.
My name is Breon Robinson, and I live in Lake Charles, LA, which is
part of Calcasieu Parish and the Southwest Louisiana region. I am a
fourth-generation resident of the North Lake Charles/Goosport
community. Currently, I am a student at Louisiana State University's
Manship School of Communications, majoring in Political Communication.
Aside from that, I have been an active member in my community, working
on a variety of issues ranging from civic engagement to environmental
justice.
Growing up in the heart of Sportsman's Paradise, I have grown to
love this beautiful place. From the food, the unique scenery, to our
Cajun/Creole culture, there will never be any place like home. Memories
from my childhood get me excited, where I often like to imagine the
next generation of my bloodline who will inhabit this land. But then,
those dreams soon get pushed away to our harsh reality with this mass
incline of oil and gas buildout that is plaguing my state. From there
it makes me think, will there even be a Louisiana in the next 50 years?
When I was approached with this opportunity, I sought after it with
the goal of bringing what Louisiana means to me to this House
Committee. Coming with me is good, but also the bad. The devastation,
but also the resilience. Living in a community that is surrounded by
huge oil and gas buildout, yet 3 years after Hurricanes Laura and
Delta, Winter Storm Uri, a historic 100-year flood, tornadoes and more,
we are still fighting to receive the most basic necessities needed to
survive. For decades, we have been promised by these oil and gas
companies that allowing them into our communities would bring a
``better'' economy, ``well-paying jobs'' and just an overall better way
of living. Yet, decades later, our community is dealing with
homelessness like never before, and those jobs are being thrown to
outsiders who will come and go after their assignment is done. Before
industry, our community thrived off the environment through seafood and
lumber. We were one with Mother Earth.
As I began to read more into the Bridge Protection Act of 2023, it
began to frustrate me that a politician who is elected and paid by us,
would be ok without having community input on this bill. As I have
witnessed the buildout, I have also witnessed the devastating decline
of life and community from oil and gas. Although this offshore leasing
and drilling will not be directly in our faces, it will affect us as if
it is. In this bill proposal, they are looking to offer four large
leases for sale in the Gulf of Mexico, and if this was to pass and
happen, these sales would not have to go through NEPA or any
environmental reviews.
As I stated earlier, our community thrived in the seafood industry.
Now, there is a new generation of fishermen who are still looking to
thrive in the seafood industry, although they are now having to co-
exist and share the water and land with industries who are not looking
to do that fairly.
Between the devastation that is happening onshore and what is
looking to occur offshore, this will be a hard hit for our coast, which
by the way is one of our natural protections from hurricanes--
hurricanes that have now intensified in the last 20 years thanks to
climate change.
I believe Louisiana and the Gulf Coast have the potential to be
great away from oil and gas. We brag about being top of the list for
partying, drinking and sports, yet we forget we are still dragging at
the bottom of education, housing and healthcare. If we continue to put
profit over people, New Orleans might become Atlantis by 2050. Or we
will continue to see a mass decline of generations of Louisianans dying
off due to air pollution and/or migrating off to other states. I love
Louisiana just as much as any other person living here and I will
continue to fight to keep Louisiana clean and beautiful for the next
generations to come.
______
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much for your testimony. I want
to thank all the witnesses for being here today and their
testimony.
The Chair will now recognize Members for 5 minutes of
questions, and I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tarpley, Ms. Robinson suggested that the oil and gas
sector has not significantly improved the economy or the
quality of life in the Gulf region, with jobs often going to
non-local workers who leave upon completion of their
assignments. Could you provide an overview of the current
workforce landscape in Louisiana and the broader Gulf region?
And are the jobs in the oil and gas sector comparatively
well-paying?
Mr. Tarpley. Thank you for that question. Going through the
current employment in the Gulf for the Gulf states, I think, is
important.
Right now, Texas is 154,000, Louisiana is 104,000, Alabama
is 29,000, and Mississippi is 22,000. And then the rest of the
United States all added up together is 57,000. These are very
well-paid jobs. Depending on skill level, it could be anywhere
between a $50,000-a-year job up to $150,000 a year. The entry
level jobs, many of them, don't require a college education.
These jobs open up the middle class to many folks in Texas and
Louisiana and these other states. Also, industry-wide, 28
percent of those jobs are filled by minorities and, in fact, 18
percent are filled by Hispanics.
So, I would disagree with the perception that this has not
helped these economies. I think this is a huge part of the
economies of these states.
Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chiasson, how does the oil and gas
industry in the Gulf of Mexico leverage lease sales to
strengthen the local economy and enhance the quality of life?
Mr. Chiasson. Thank you for that question. Everything that
happens in terms of, even prior to leasing, from seismic work
and into leasing and then exploration and production and all of
those things have an impact on what I do every day in my port.
And it has a direct impact on the economy of my community.
And what we need to understand is that all of that energy
that is provided to this country is beneficial to the country.
But at the same time, the state of Louisiana has a
constitutional amendment that every dollar that comes back to
the state from GOMESA is spent on protection and restoration of
our communities in terms of levees, and marsh restoration, and
the like.
Mr. Stauber. Do you have a comparison between the average
paycheck at Port Fourchon and elsewhere in the state?
Mr. Chiasson. The average household income of the state of
Louisiana is about $58,000. And the average in our area and
offshore workers is about $70,000.
Mr. Stauber. Could you elaborate on how Port Fourchon
navigates its operational demands while ensuring the well-being
of the surrounding communities?
Mr. Chiasson. Yes. Our whole mindset in Port Fourchon is
about holistic resiliency. Everything we do when it comes to
providing the services for the oil and gas industry, at the
same time we are looking at how resilient can we be in our
communities, what kind of infrastructure do we need to build
for that resiliency, and every speck of sand that we dredge,
material we dredge in Port Fourchon for our slip development or
our channels, we utilize beneficially either to create marsh in
the surrounding area for protection, as well as for industrial
development.
[Chart.]
Mr. Stauber. The chart behind me illustrates the timeline
for oil and gas development in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico,
along with the associated costs for oil and gas operator. As
you can see, between the time an operator begins pre-leasing
evaluation, obtains a lease, and performs exploration activity
it can take a decade or more before first production. Over this
decade, upwards of $1 billion can be spent. Is that accurate?
Mr. Chiasson. Absolutely.
Mr. Stauber. So, I would just ask that the impact, the
incredible impact these investments have in your community, can
you expand on the long-term effects the Biden administration's
failure to carry out leasing will have for years to come?
Mr. Chiasson. I think it is interesting that you ask about
long-term effects because I think we are seeing effects
immediately, right now, based on the lack of leasing and not
the delivery of a 5-year plan that we can see today. It has an
impact on all the products, goods, and services. Higher prices
for everything.
So, what we are seeing today, if we don't continue to have
a 5-year plan and have leases, this current rate of products,
goods, and services will continue for the long term.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you, and I ask unanimous consent that
this chart is entered into the record.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Stauber. Dr. Upton, in your opening statement and
written testimony you discussed the dynamics of supply-reducing
policies and subsequent economic impacts. Can you quickly
expand on the direct correlation between diminishing domestic
supply of oil and gas and the inevitable escalation of consumer
costs?
Dr. Upton. Yes, sir. So, economic theory is pretty clear on
this, is that, you know, there are different policies that
might be aimed at impacting prices for consumers of energy. And
one of those policies would be a supply-reducing policy.
An example of that would be discontinuing offshore leasing,
would be banning some kind of technology like hydraulic
fracturing. And what that is going to do is it is going to
reduce the supply that goes to the market. And in response to
that, what you will get is you will get less product to the
market and you will get a higher price for consumers.
So, the economic theory definitely suggests that these
supply-reducing policies increases prices for consumers.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you. My time is up, and the next person
to question is Representative Levin from California.
You are up for 5 minutes.
Mr. Levin. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Stauber.
I have long advocated for protecting the Pacific Coast from
offshore drilling. I am fortunate to represent one of the most
beautiful congressional districts in the United States. We have
incredible resources, but none is more important than 50 miles
of coastline. Fishing, tourism, and recreation in my district
and, frankly, all along California's coastline, support jobs
and economic activity.
And we have seen the risks posed by offshore drilling
firsthand. More than 4 million gallons of oil have been
released in the Pacific Ocean as a result of the massive 1969
Santa Barbara spill, and also the Refugio Beach spill of 2015,
the Huntington Beach spill of 2021, and other leaks from oil
rig and pipeline activity affecting more than 935 square miles
of ocean. And I am grateful that the current Administration
indicated they would not include any new leasing off the
California coast in the next 5-year plan.
But just because California isn't in this 5-year plan
doesn't mean a future administration couldn't include it in the
future. So, to ensure that permanent protection for my
constituents, I introduced something called the Southern
California Coast and Ocean Protection Act, which would prevent
the Department of the Interior from ever issuing oil and gas
leases off our coast. This is a type of legislation I think we
should be considering today.
We should be looking at protecting our coasts, not pushing
policies that have the potential to do further damage.
With that, I will turn to my questions. Ms. Robinson, I
will begin with you.
My advocacy for protecting our coasts from new offshore
drilling stems from two simple truths: first, the climate
crisis is a national and global imperative; and second, every
community deserves access to a healthy and clean environment.
It seems like some of my friends across the aisle seem to
ignore the climate crisis and the many negative environmental
impacts that offshore oil drilling has on our communities. Can
you share for me how you have seen communities suffer from both
indirect and direct consequences of offshore drilling?
Ms. Robinson. I live maybe 10 minutes from Westlake. And in
Westlake is a Black, free people of color-founded community
called Mossville. Mossville had probably over 1,000 people that
were living there until 30, 40 years ago, when industry decided
to take that land from those people and build up their oil and
gas industries there. So, I will definitely say that is one big
issue and one big thing I have been able to witness in my 25
years of life.
I will definitely say, too, living through, I guess you
would say, five or six natural disasters in the last 3 years,
that is definitely another thing that is something I have
witnessed that has happened due to this buildout, due to what
has happened with climate change.
Mr. Levin. I will tell you that in no way is this partisan
in my district. I have scores of community meetings, and we
have done over 100 town halls. In many of them I ask, ``Is
there anybody here that actually wants to see drilling off the
coast of Southern California?'' And I think one time one hand
went up, and it was somebody who worked for one of the oil
companies. So, it is not just one party or another.
Mr. Tarpley, let me ask you a question. If the BRIDGE
Production Act from my good friend, Mr. Graves, were to become
law, it seems to me it would short circuit NEPA and lock us
into decades of oil and gas production that I don't think we
need.
And I also want to clear something up that I think is
important. I have sometimes heard that new oil and gas leases
will impact today's gas prices, and, in fact, you implied that.
And there is data that simply contradicts that. The non-
partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, for example, came out with
a report recently that said gas prices depend on many factors,
predominantly the global price of oil and consumer demand, not
Federal leasing policies, specifically not Federal leasing
policies.
I would posit that clean energy is cheap energy, and until
we transition to a clean energy economy, we are going to be at
the whims of this global oil market.
That said, I am concerned about this bill's potential
elimination of the Secretary's discretion to ensure a fair
market value for American taxpayers. So, Mr. Tarpley, I am just
curious, do you believe Americans should receive a fair market
value for any offshore oil and gas leasing?
Mr. Tarpley. Well, to the first part of your question----
Mr. Levin. It is a yes or no. It is a simple question.
Mr. Tarpley. Yes.
Mr. Levin. Yes, they should. So, we agree. Ensuring fair
market value seems like the bare minimum that we ought to have
for taxpayers. This bill waives that requirement. It takes away
all Secretarial discretion, and it is imposing oil and gas
leasing with blunt force.
It also mandates outdated, arbitrarily low royalty rates,
no fees on potent methane pollution, and that just doesn't make
sense. I don't think it makes sense for taxpayers, I don't
think it makes sense for the climate.
And I will yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much.
The next Representative, Mike Collins from Georgia, you are
up for 5 minutes.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tarpley, I am a little bit of a slow writer, so I
wanted to catch up on some of your opening statement. You said
demand will increase. Could you go back over that, and how much
it will increase?
Mr. Tarpley. Sure, I am happy to do that. The Energy
Information Administration predicts that the worldwide demand
for all forms of energy will increase by 50 percent by 2050.
And included in my written testimony is that graph, and it
shows all forms of energy demand is increasing, including oil
and gas, and including renewables.
Mr. Collins. All right. I appreciate that. You also said
natural gas is at a 25-year low. Is that what you were
reporting?
That is OK. I may have wrote that down wrong. I just like
to take a few notes.
But what I wanted to get at was you also talked about the
BRIDGE Production Act and how it will ensure regulatory
roadblocks don't interfere with the access to the oil and gas
reserves in the Gulf. And I am a small businessman, as well,
and I am very familiar, being in the trucking industry, of how
excessive government regulations can stifle the economic
growth.
So, my question is, what are some of the regulatory
roadblocks now that you are facing?
Mr. Tarpley. Well, I think in regards to the BRIDGE Act,
the biggest concern is uncertainty. It is very hard to bring
investment into the offshore industry. As the graph up there
showed, it is a 10-year buildout for a lot of these projects.
And when you have continued bureaucratic delays, and schedules
get pushed back, lease sales get canceled, it is very difficult
for companies to find the capital to invest in these kind of
projects. They are very capital intensive, and when there is
this much regulatory uncertainty, that makes it even more
difficult.
It also makes it very difficult on the workforce, because
the workforce has to look at their prospects for employment.
And when there isn't even a 5-year lease plan enacted, they
have to ask themselves, OK, is this a long-term career path for
me? So, it discourages people from joining the industry.
So, it really hits the industry in those two ways, both in
the workforce and in investment.
Mr. Collins. Right. Mr. Chiasson, I know you had talked
extensively about that in your opening remarks. I didn't know
if you wanted to add on to that a little bit.
Mr. Chiasson. Yes, sir. Thank you. I think, just to add to
what he said, we are competing on a global scale for investment
in our country. And when we have a regulatory framework that is
uncertain, then it is hard for a multi-national corporation to
make decisions to invest in the United States when it comes to
producing energy.
Mr. Collins. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back. That is all I had.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much.
Representative Dingell from Michigan, you are up for 5
minutes.
Mrs. Dingell. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Many of you know that my husband was the person that wrote
the original NEPA Act, and it was really important to him. And
I also know that it is 50 years later, and we need to update
it. It continues to be one of our nation's strongest tools in
ensuring communities across the country have meaningful input
on major Federal actions. But NEPA's basic policy is to ensure
that all branches of government give proper consideration to
the impacts a project will have on the environment before
Federal action is taken.
And as we look at the worsening climate crisis, we have to
make sure that the voices of the most impacted communities are
heard. And I do have some concerns about some of the bills we
are considering today that weaken our nation's long-standing
environmental laws like NEPA. And how do you protect the
communities, but make sure that we are doing what we need to
do? And I have continuously said to my colleagues I want to
work with them.
But unfortunately, H.R. 5616 entirely waives NEPA for four
offshore oil and gas lease sales, and does not allow for any
community input. NEPA is the strongest tool our communities
have in protecting themselves and their environment.
And on top of this, the bill also bars the right to
judicial relief if the Federal Government gets it wrong. And it
is vital that affected communities have access to the courts
for legal violations. So, barring judicial review completely
erodes the right for industries' benefits.
I want to work with my colleagues. I know we need to, but
we have to ensure that it is done in a way that protects our
climate, our environment, and our nation's frontline
communities.
So, Ms. Robinson, why is the ability for your community to
provide input and the right to judicial review so vital to your
community?
Ms. Robinson. It is vital because it opens the eyes to you
guys, those who are representing us here, to see is it right
for these people to continue to go through this, or isn't.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you.
Dr. Upton, do you think development should consider and
balance environmental impacts and comply with environmental
laws like the Endangered Species Act?
Dr. Upton. Yes, ma'am. I think, with all governmental
policies, there is a balance of costs and benefits. And one of
those would be oil and gas production. And, absolutely,
balancing costs and benefits would be a wise thing to do as a
policy-maker.
Mrs. Dingell. Unfortunately, I don't see balance in this
bill.
And Ms. Robinson, before I end, is there anything else you
want to add?
Ms. Robinson. One thing I would love to add is for those
who are for this bill, I want you guys to come to Lake Charles,
come to Mossville, come to Saint James and Saint John Parishes,
come to southern Louisiana, and see what is going on.
And then, from there, maybe it will make you think, OK,
let's not. Or maybe it will make you think let's try to rewrite
this to where it does give community input as a vital source,
and it does allow those community members who feel like maybe
this is not what is supposed to be happening, give them that
legal aid to be able to push forward, to press legal things
against you guys.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you for those words.
I really do want to work with my colleagues because we have
to have some change. But I don't think corporations should just
be able to do what they want. I think it needs to be a balanced
system.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Next up, Representative
Fulcher.
Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
Congressmen Duncan and Graves for bringing forward the
legislation.
I want to just make a brief statement, then I have a
question for Mr. Upton here. My home state of Idaho, where once
again the fuel prices have taken an uptick, and when I am out
and about doing interaction with my constituents, that is right
at the top of the list, it seems like, every time. Our average
price, I think, in Idaho as of Monday was $3.91. And our
friends in California are probably able to drive all the way to
Idaho and gas up and go back and still be ahead, though, given
the prices they face. But still, for us, that is high.
And the national average as of Monday was $3.88, and that
is a 25 percent increase from the start of the year. And that
just ripples through everything. Everything is impacted by
that. And I think that the nationwide average, if you go back
to January 2021, $2.39, that is up 65 percent. It just impacts
everybody's budget. So, we are struggling with that, and we are
not unique struggling with that.
Dr. Upton, I did get a chance to go through your opening
statement. But just from your perspective, when you look at
that landscape, not just in Idaho but across the country, and
then you consider the potential of offshore sales and the
leasing scenario there, from your perspective how might
offshore sales impact the availability of crude oil and
contribute to the stability of prices over the long haul?
Dr. Upton. Yes, thanks for the question. There are several
policies that you could consider that would really impact
prices for consumers and, in particular, to bring down prices
for your consumers.
The first would be expanding energy production in the
United States. So, of course, one way to do that is through oil
and gas, but other ways is through renewable energy. So,
shifting the supply out, if you will, expanding energy access,
that is going to put downward pressure on prices.
The other policy tool that you have, and it is less germane
to the discussion today, would be policies to reduce demand for
energy. Think of efficiency improvements and those kind of
things. And, again, that is going to reduce the demand, which
will put downward pressure on prices. I am not advocating that
any individual policy would be welfare improving, but these are
the concepts.
And then the third policy is really consistency. Within
economics there is a common theme that people don't like
uncertainty. We don't like uncertainty in our personal lives,
companies don't like uncertainty, and uncertainty is
particularly important when you are making large, upfront
investments that are going to pay off over a long-time period.
And most of that uncertainty, candidly, is policymakers.
You are not going to be able to control what the cost of
products are, you are not going to be able to control the
probability that a project is successful, or the price when
that product comes to market. But the one thing that you can
control is regulatory and policy uncertainty.
So, to the extent that you can make regulation and policy
certain moving forward, that doesn't mean to get rid of all
environmental protections or not have a process, but to have
consistency and certainty in that process that will also
benefit your consumers in the long run in terms of both the
volatility of prices as well as the level of prices that they
see.
Mr. Fulcher. OK. So, of those three options that you put
forth, Congressman Graves' bill would at least be under the
category of the very first option you said, which was the
expanding and I would argue just reclaiming or holding stable
the supply within offshore sales leases.
To that end, I want to go back to that particular issue.
Under that expanding category of offshore sales, how could that
enhance our energy resilience?
Can that enhance our energy resilience and help states like
mine in Idaho to maintain a consistent pricing schedule?
Dr. Upton. Yes, absolutely. So, you think about the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, and the response to that that we had, and
it is kind of incredible to see after that price run-up how
quickly markets came back into balance. And the reason markets
were able to come back in balance and bring those prices down
so quickly is because of economic actors' ability to respond to
that price.
So, the more options that we have within the economy in
order to produce energy, that is going to give more
flexibility, and it is going to, in the long run, impact our
energy security, impact the prices we pay as consumers. So, it
is absolutely tied together.
Mr. Fulcher. Thank you for that.
Mr. Chairman, I have run out of time. I just want to close
by stating, in our state the economy has been relatively
strong, and that is a good thing. There is economic growth. We
have actually seen an uptick in the demand for crude, but the
efficiency has also increased, as well.
But I appreciate your comments.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Representative Kamlager-Dove, you are up for 5
minutes.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And for the
record, as Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, I have to
oppose these two bills. I forgot to say that before.
I would also ask unanimous consent to enter into the record
two articles: a September 25, 2023 New York Times article,
``Monster Fracks are Getting Far Bigger and Far Thirstier'';
and the March 10, 2023 Texas Tribune article, ``Landowners fear
injection of fracking waste threatens West Texas aquifers.''
Mr. Stauber. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
`Monster Fracks' Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
Giant new oil and gas wells that require astonishing volumes of water
to fracture bedrock are threatening America's fragile aquifers.
New York Times, September 25, 2023, Produced by Claire O'Neill, Matt
McCann and Umi Syam
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/25/climate/fracking-oil-
gas-wells-water.html
*****
Along a parched stretch of La Salle County, Texas, workers last year
dug some 700 feet deep into the ground, seeking freshwater. Millions of
gallons of it.
The water wouldn't supply homes or irrigate farms. It was being used by
the petroleum giant BP to frack for fossil fuels. The water would be
mixed with sand and toxic chemicals and pumped right back underground--
forcing oil and gas from the bedrock.
It was a reminder that to strike oil in America, you need water. Plenty
of it.
Today, the insatiable search for oil and gas has become the latest
threat to the country's endangered aquifers, a critical national
resource that is already being drained at alarming rates by industrial
farming and cities in search of drinking water.
The amount of water consumed by the oil industry, revealed in a New
York Times investigation, has soared to record levels. Fracking wells
have increased their water usage sevenfold since 2011 as operators have
adopted new techniques to first drill downward and then horizontally
for thousands of feet. The process extracts more fossil fuels but
requires enormous amounts of water.
Together, oil and gas operators reported using about 1.5 trillion
gallons of water since 2011, much of it from aquifers, the Times found.
Fracking a single oil or gas well can now use as much as 40 million
gallons of water or more.
These mega fracking projects, called ``monster fracks'' by researchers,
have become the industry norm. They barely existed a decade ago. Now
they account for almost two out of every three fracking wells in Texas,
the Times analysis found.
``They're the newcomers, a new sector that burst onto the scene and is
heavily reliant on the aquifers,'' said Peter Knappett, an associate
professor in hydrogeology at Texas A&M University, referring to
fracking companies. ``And they could be pumping for several decades
from aquifers that are already over-exploited and already experiencing
long-term declines.''
Fracking, which is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, has transformed
the global energy landscape, turning America into the world's largest
oil and gas producer, surpassing Saudi Arabia. Supporters say it has
strengthened America's national security and created valuable jobs.
But fracking has long been controversial. The process of cracking the
bedrock by injecting chemical-laced water into the ground can lead to
spills and leaks and can affect the local geology, sometimes
contributing to earthquakes. Critics of fracking say it is an irony
that so much water is being diverted to produce fossil fuels, given
that the burning of fossil fuels is causing climate change, further
straining freshwater resources.
The Times documented the surging water usage by examining an industry
database in which energy companies report the chemicals they pump into
the ground while fracking. But the database also includes details on
their water usage, revealing the dramatic growth.
The problem is particularly acute in Texas, where the state's
groundwater supply is expected to drop one-third by 2070. As the planet
warms, scientists have predicted that Texas will face higher
temperatures and more frequent and intense droughts, along with a
decline in groundwater recharge. Some experts have warned that water
issues could even constrain oil and gas production.
In the western portion of the Eagle Ford, one of the state's major oil-
producing regions, aquifer levels have fallen by up to 58 feet a year,
a 2020 study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found,
and fracking's water demands could result in further regional declines
of up to 26 feet.
Since 2011, BP has dug at least 137 groundwater wells in Texas for its
oil and gas operations and reported using 9.1 billion gallons of water
nationally during the past decade. EOG, one of the country's largest
frackers, consumed more than 73 billion gallons of water for fracking
at the same time. Apache Corporation, Southwestern Energy, Chevron,
Ovintiv and other major operators also have intensified water usage,
the Times analysis found.
Oil companies require no permits to drill their own groundwater wells
and there is no consistent requirement that groundwater used for
fracking be reported or monitored. As drought has gripped Texas and the
surrounding region, many communities have instituted water restrictions
for residents even as fracking has been allowed to continue unabated.
Pockets of public resistance are emerging. In New Mexico, a coalition
of tribes and environmental groups is suing the state, saying that
fracking companies are using up precious water resources and that the
state has failed to protect the interests of residents. In Colorado,
residents are fighting a proposed fracking project they fear would not
just use up local freshwater resources, but risk contaminating a
reservoir their community depends on.
Holly Hopkins, an executive at the American Petroleum Institute, an
industry group, said the industry was ``focused on meeting the growing
demand for affordable, reliable energy while minimizing impacts on the
environment.'' Its members, she said, were ``continuing to develop
innovative methods to reuse and recycle'' water used for fracking.
In a statement, Apache said 80 percent of the water it used for
fracking was either non-fresh or recycled from previous fracks. BP said
it was ``executing several pilot projects to recycle water'' that would
``minimize freshwater usage.''
Chevron said that water was vital to its operations and that it aimed
to use water efficiently and responsibly, saying that it used brackish
or recycled water for fracking. Southwestern and Ovintiv did not
respond to requests for comment.
In La Salle County--where workers were drilling the water well last
year that would supply BP--the local aquifers have already been
strained by decades of pumping to feed crops and cattle. The local
groundwater district, Wintergarden, estimates that fracking's water
needs could surpass those of irrigation by 2030 (though the oil
industry's notorious boom-and-bust cycles could change that).
Despite the new demand, Wintergarden has little say over the use of
water for fracking.
According to its rules, when ``moderate'' or ``severe'' droughts occur,
people should stop washing their cars and restaurants should refrain
from serving glasses of water unless a customer asks. But only during
``exceptional'' droughts do the rules extend to fracking, and even then
they merely discourage it.
Similarly in Laredo, a city on the Mexican border that recently imposed
water restrictions, residents may water their lawns only three days a
week, and only at night. Laredo, which in recent years has become
fracking territory, is facing an impending water shortage: By 2040,
it's expected to exhaust the available supply of municipal water from
the Rio Grande allocated to the city every year. Still, even during
severe drought, fracking is excluded from city or state restrictions.
``This is Texas. If you're using water for oil and gas, it's considered
exempt,'' said Ronald T. Green, a hydrologist who advises Wintergarden.
So when fracking plans collide with drought, Dr. Green said, ``you just
have to hope that if they're a good, community-oriented company, they
might decide not to frack that well till next year.''
It's happening, of course, because there is money to be made in oil.
And for those with access to water, it can be easy money.
Bruce Frasier grows onions in Dimmit, one of the three counties that
make up the Wintergarden water district. But he also sells groundwater
to a local fracking company for 50 cents a barrel. Given the growing
size of fracks, ``If you've got the water to sell, you're making a
fortune,'' Mr. Frasier said.
Wintergarden. Evergreen. Big Springs.
The place names that dot Texas's parched plains hark back to a time
more than a century ago when groundwater was plentiful.
``Back in those days, you could just dig, and the water would flow,''
said Bill Martin, a rancher and farmer who heads the Wintergarden
Groundwater Conservation District, as he walked his land during a
recent heat wave, his boots kicking up dust under a scorching sun.
But that water, sometimes called fossil water because scientists
estimate that it pooled underground as long as 30,000 years ago,
started to dry up as farms irrigated vast tracts of land. Farms that
couldn't afford to drill ever deeper started to plant less or shut
down.
Today, much of America's oil and gas comes from parched land like this.
And now, fracking companies are the ones scrambling for water. A 2016
Ceres report found that nearly 60 percent of the 110,000 wells fracked
between 2011 and 2016 were in regions with high or extremely high water
stress, including basins in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and California.
This is partly because of the increasing complexity and size of fracked
wells. For example one technique, horizontal drilling, involves wells
that stretch thousands of feet sideways, not just downward. In the
Permian Basin, average well length grew to more than 10,000 feet in the
first nine months of 2022, compared with less than 4,000 feet in 2010,
federal data shows.
It is because water is so fundamental to fracking that the longer wells
typically require far more water.
``As the easier-to-extract areas are tapped to their full potential,
you need to use more and more desperate measures,'' said A.J. Kondash,
an environmental scientist at RTI International, a nonprofit research
organization, who has studied fracking's water use.
The problem is actually two-fold. Fracking companies are pulling more
water out of the ground, and then, after the fracking process, they
must treat or dispose of millions of gallons of contaminated water,
removing it from the natural water cycle.
Some companies are making strides in reusing that fracking wastewater
to drill for more oil and gas, but it's a small percentage. In the
sprawling Permian Basin in Texas, the largest oil field in the country,
just 15 percent of water used for fracking is recycled water, according
to state estimates.
The Times based its water-use analysis on data from FracFocus, a
registry of chemicals used in fracking that is operated by two national
associations of state agencies, the Groundwater Protection Council and
the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. In 27 states, companies
report the data to FracFocus.
That data revealed surging water use even though the numbers, which are
self-reported by industry, are sometimes incomplete.
Dan Yates, executive director of the Groundwater Protection Council,
pointed out that the two agencies that run FracFocus have no regulatory
authority. The onus is on individual states, he said, to make sure
operators disclose timely and accurate data.
Rystad Energy, an energy research company, estimated that about 6 to 9
percent of fracked wells don't get reported to FracFocus.
Of course, water use by energy industries isn't limited to fracking.
Water is important in oil refining and the cooling of power plants, and
also plays a role in the mining of lithium and other minerals essential
in the transition to cleaner energy.
Oil companies say the industry uses substantial amounts of brackish
water not suitable for drinking, though there is little systematic
fracking of how much. They also say that drilling fewer, longer wells
reduces environmental disruption at ground level.
Industry groups also stress that oil and gas production uses a small
fraction of the water required by other activities, like irrigated
agriculture.
But researchers at Colorado State University who compared water used
for fracking in oil- and gas-producing states between 2011 and 2020
found that, under arid conditions, frackers could use more water than
irrigation. In La Salle for instance, under arid conditions, fracking
used more water than irrigation and local homes and businesses
combined. Fracking activity, they found, responded to oil prices, and
seemed largely unresponsive to droughts or water restrictions.
Compounding the problem, about a quarter of Texas operates under rules
that let landowners pump as much water on their property as they like,
regardless of consequences to neighbors.
``In Texas, if you own the surface, you own everything to the center of
the earth,'' said Mr. Martin of the Wintergarden water district.
The letter from an oil company arrived for Mario Atencio's family in
2013, promising riches in exchange for a lease to drill near their home
in northwestern New Mexico.
Then, Enduring Resources, the Denver-based oil and gas company that
ultimately acquired the lease, started to drill.
Workers dug a water well near the area where his family raises
livestock, tapping into the groundwater that had long sustained the
grazing land the Atencios use to raise goats and sheep. ``They came in
and they put in water pipelines. Huge pools filled with water,'' Mr.
Atencio said. ``We thought, `Is this our water? How much water are they
tapping?' ''
Mr. Atencio, a leader in the local Navajo Nation Chapter, is now part
of the coalition of tribes and environmental organizations that in May
sued New Mexico alleging that the state had failed to protect its
residents from the harms of fracking.
A substantial portion of their complaint focuses on the strain that oil
and gas development places on freshwater in New Mexico, one of the
nation's most water-stressed states.
``We're facing some of the worst years of drought in the last 1,200
years,'' said Julia Bernal of the Pueblo Action Alliance, an Indigenous
organization that is a party to the lawsuit. Yet energy companies were
building water pipelines to serve fracking sites, she said. ``There are
a lot of families that live in the region that don't have access to
running water.''
New Mexico said it ``vigorously disagrees'' with the lawsuit's
allegations and was proud of its work regulating oil and gas. Enduring
Resources didn't respond to requests for comment.
Across the country, investments like these in water for oil and gas--
wells, pipelines and even water distribution companies--are extensive
and spreading.
In Colorado, the energy exploration companies Anadarko and Noble Energy
have invested tens of millions of dollars in freshwater pipelines and
have created companies to sell and distribute water for fracking. In
2020, Chevron acquired Noble Energy, together with its water business,
in a transaction worth more than $13 billion.
When Kevin Chan moved to Colorado from California last year, to a
neighborhood on the banks of the Aurora Reservoir, he said he was
surprised to learn that more than 150 horizontal fracked wells were
planned in the region around the reservoir. The wells would potentially
require a total of 3.9 billion gallons of freshwater from a local water
district and other sources, according to the energy company behind the
project, Denver-based Civitas.
Concerned about the water use and risk of oil spills, he formed a
community group, Save the Aurora Reservoir, to oppose the plan. In
moving to Colorado, ``I was drawn to the proximity to the mountains,
being able to go snowboarding,'' Mr. Chan said. ``I didn't expect to go
up against a multibillion dollar industry.''
Rich Coolidge, a spokesman for Civitas, said several thousand feet of
rock separated the Aurora reservoir from oil and gas production. He
said the company was working with local water providers that sell
surplus supply, but declined to give details.
Some local governments are starting to take action. In 2020, New Mexico
halted sales of water supplies to oil and gas companies fracking on
state land. This year, Colorado passed a bill requiring frackers to
greatly increase their reuse of fracking wastewater. In May, Texas
passed a bill designed to find more uses for fracking wastewater.
But cleaning up that wastewater, which contains hazardous chemicals, is
costly and energy-intensive. Even if frackers were able to re-use their
treated wastewater for all their production, the industry estimates it
would still generate hundreds of millions of gallons of excess every
day. And the diversion of fracking wastewater to other uses, whether
for agriculture or to mist roadways in order to keep down the dust,
remains contentious because of safety concerns.
So, in states like Texas, it remains cheaper to use groundwater.
Mr. Martin, the rancher and farmer who heads the Wintergarden water
district, doesn't fault energy companies for that. He himself irrigates
his cantaloupe fields using groundwater.
Still, as he contemplated a future of ever-dwindling aquifers, he
struck a somber tone. ``If the water goes away, the whole community
goes away,'' he said.
______
Landowners fear injection of fracking waste threatens West Texas
aquifers
Operators pump a sea of ``produced water'' underground for disposal.
Intensifying tremors raise fears that the deep toxic waste pits could
intermingle with water used for farming and drinking.
Texas Tribune, March 10, 2023 by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News,
and Pu Ying Huang, Texas Tribune
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/10/texas-permian-basin-fracking-
wastewater-pollution-oil/
*****
A fracked well in West Texas can produce five times as much wastewater
as oil. Every day, fleets of tanker trucks haul hundreds of millions of
gallons of this toxic brine to loosely regulated disposal facilities
that line the rural highways.
There, companies inject it deep underground into rock formations, where
they hope it will stay forever.
The situation troubles David Shifflett, a farmer who irrigates his
crops and draws his drinking water from the ground, which has started
to heave and bulge in recent years. One tremor left a broad hump and a
half-mile crevice in his land, not far from his water wells, raising
fears among him and other landowners that underground storage spaces
could fracture and leak their toxic contents into aquifers and wells.
``They're pumping so much pressure in there,'' said Shifflett, a
towering, gray-haired man from a long line of farmers. ``The oil
companies are going to ruin our water.''
The fracking boom kicked off here more than a decade ago. The steady
crescendo of earthquakes began a few years after. At first, Shifflett
said, they sounded like shotguns in a distant field. Then they grew: a
magnitude 3.5 quake in 2016 and a magnitude 5.0 quake in 2020. One of
the quakes that hit late last year, a magnitude 5.4, felt like a truck
hit the house.
Decades of research have linked injection wells to earthquakes, but
much less is known about how the combination can affect groundwater.
Although injection wells are intended to hold their contents forever
and protect aquifers from contamination, oozing wells and bubbling
lakes of gassy brine in a nearby part of West Texas show that things
underground don't always go according to plan.
Shifflett, 74, has nothing against oil. He votes Republican, hangs a
cross above his door and leans an old rifle on his living room wall.
Oil companies are doing their jobs, he said. For this situation, he
blames the government--specifically, Texas' oil field regulator, the
Railroad Commission, which issues permits for fracking wastewater
injection wells.
``If they ruin the water out here, there won't be anyone left. This
will be a desert with no inhabitants,'' he said from his dining room
table. ``It's only a matter of time.''
Injection disposal of toxic waste is a common practice for refineries
and chemical plants. What sets the Permian Basin apart is the volume.
As oil production surged here in recent years higher than in any other
U.S. oil field, the amount of wastewater rose in step.
Every barrel of Permian oil comes up with several barrels of mucky
fluid called ``produced water''--mostly hypersalty water that has
stewed for millions of years underground with hydrocarbons, mixed with
the proprietary chemical cocktails injected by drillers to fracture
shale. Millions of barrels surface every day. Some of the fluid is
reused in fracking, but most is injected underground for disposal.
According to one 2020 study by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the
University of Texas at Austin, the amount of produced water from the
Permian Basin was over six times greater than that from other major
U.S. shale plays combined. Such massive amounts of wastewater, the
study said, ``raise questions about. whether subsurface disposal
capacity can accommodate these volumes.''
In Reeves County, Texas Railroad Commission records show 377 injection
well permits issued within the last five years, among more than 1,000
dating to the 1960s. One permit from this January, for example, allows
an operator to inject up 35,000 barrels, orl.5 million gallons, per day
at up to 1,950 pounds per square inch of pressure.
Underground pollution
Although this landscape is dry, a veritable sea lies beneath, contained
by hundreds of feet of sediments and caverns. The water is too salty to
drink without treatment, but Shifflett said it gives a unique sweetness
to the pecans and peppers he has grown alongside hay, wheat and
sunflowers on his 2,000 acres.
He and other landowners have tried for years to convince the Texas
Railroad Commission that the boom in wastewater injection threatens
their aquifers. For now, there's no definitive proof that it's true.
''A link between injection wells and induced seismicity is well
established. The link between injection wells and groundwater qualities
is lesser known,'' said Zacariah Hildenbrand, a research professor at
the University of Texas at El Paso who has studied groundwater in
fracking areas of Texas. ``It's an absolutely phenomenal research
question.''
Last month, at the Permian Basin Water in Energy Conference in Midland,
environmental attorney Adam Friedman gave a presentation warning of
potential liabilities if injection disposal wells contaminate
groundwater.
``There are no examples of this that I'm aware of; it's just that the
logical relationship of injecting these fluids is that there's the
potential for upward migration,'' said Friedman, a partner at McElroy,
Sullivan, Miller & Weber LLP. ``I just would have to think that it has
to be happening.''
Even if injection isn't polluting active water wells today, he said,
water wells in 15 years may find contaminants in deeper aquifers that
aren't used today.
The Texas Oil and Gas Association declined to comment for this report.
Several injection well developers did not respond to queries.
Subterranean pollution in the oil patch is hard to track. A century of
booms and busts in West Texas have left many areas with groundwater
pollution of undetermined origin.
For Shifflett, waiting for certain proof of groundwater contamination
means waiting until it's too late. He hasn't had any problems yet. But
just up State Highway 17, his neighbor Ashley Giesbrecht has noticed
troubling signs.
Several years ago, Giesbrecht said, 50 acres of wheat and 80 acres of
barley surrounding a certain well turned brown and died. He doesn't
know why. The rest of his fields are producing slightly less than he
thinks they should. He cultivates 925 acres with groundwater pumped
through 32 wells drilled to various depths.
``They seem to have gotten a little bit saltier, but I'm not going to
say it was the oil field. Could have been a coincidence,'' he said from
a leather recliner in the corner of his living room. ``I can't really
verify everything.''
Giesbrecht, 43, came to farm Reeves County from Georgia in 2009, lured
by cheap land. Soon after, the fracking boom arrived here. Within 10
years, it would make the Permian Basin the second-largest oil producer
in the world. A steady torrent of people, companies and heavy machines
roared into agricultural communities to drill wells, take the oil and
pump the waste back underground.
Since then, Giesbrecht has made money selling his well water to oil
companies. He's not sure if farming has a future here.
``The oil field's kind of notorious for messing up the groundwater,''
he said. ``My idea is to sell enough water to where I could save up and
buy somewhere else if they do ruin the water.''
Thousands of holes
Drillers have made thousands of holes in the ground. They all run
through the aquifers and then continue thousands of feet down to
hydrocarbon deposits and pressurized waste pits. The holes are cased in
cement and steel, which corrode over time. If a big earthquake hits,
there's no telling what could break.
``You punch enough holes in it, the whole country's going to fall
apart,'' said Greg Perrin, general manager of the Reeves County
Groundwater Conservation District. ``I know it's not a good thing
coming.''
He said disposal companies injected 121,000 acre-feet of water, or 39.4
billion gallons, beneath Reeves County in 2021, the last year with
available data. That's a column of water with a 1-acre base nearly 23
miles tall, shoved underground. An acre-foot equals about 326,000
gallons, or enough to cover an acre of land in 1 foot of water.
The pace hasn't slowed since then, he said.
``Every week there are five to six new applications for injection wells
in our paper,'' said Teresa Winkles, 63, an administrative assistant at
the groundwater district. ``You've got all this pressure under there.
It's got to go somewhere.''
In theory, injection wells fill confined formations, and their contents
never escape. When they reach capacity, they are plugged with cement
and sealed off forever. Ensuring it all happens according to plan falls
to the Texas Railroad Commission.
In an email, a spokesperson for the agency, R.J. de Silva, said that
the commission ``takes all precautions to ensure the safety of
residents and the environment'' and that injection wells were designed
to keep their contents separate from freshwater.
De Silva said the commission knew of one issue in the mid-2000s when
produced water turned up in groundwater near an injection well in
Winkler County and that the issue was resolved.
``Injection wells are cemented and monitored with pressure gauges to
ensure that they are isolating freshwater,'' de Silva said. ''Any wells
that are known to be leaking must cease operations and repair the
well.''
De Silva pointed to the commission's Rule 3.46, which requires
applicants for injection well permits to ``demonstrate that fluids will
be confined.''
The rule says that ``conditions exist that may increase the risk that
fluids will not be confined''--among them, ``seismic events.'' It also
requires that any nearby abandoned wells ``have been plugged in a
manner that will prevent the movement of fluids from the disposal zone
into freshwater strata.''
According to Katie Smye, a researcher who studies injection wells at
the UT-Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology, new wells are typically
built to satisfactory standards. It's the thousands of old wells
drilled before wastewater injection that concern her.
``They were not drilled or cased to withstand the pressures we are now
seeing,'' she said.
Injection increases pressure in formations used for disposal, she said.
That pressure can affect the old wells that pass through those
formations, creating pathways between the wastewater and the freshwater
aquifers.
In the history of the Permian Basin, she said, some 60 billion barrels
of produced water have been disposed of, about half since 2010. Several
hundred billion more will still need to be dealt with as Permian oil
production continues, she said.
``This is what causes potential concerns for injection capacity and
breaching of that injection capacity constraint,'' Smye said.
``Oil field apocalypse''
Some 50 miles east of Reeves County, evidence abounds that things
underground aren't working according to the state's rule. Eruptions of
wastewater are occurring where they shouldn't be, well casings are
falling apart and fluids once injected into oil wells are appearing in
the groundwater.
In Crane, Ward and Pecos counties, the scrappy ruins of midcentury oil
boomtowns contrast with the busy fracking hubs of today. A rush on
conventional oil came and went decades ago, but the holes and the water
that it left in the ground remain.
Back then, drillers injected produced water back into oil pockets to
squeeze out remaining crude, then plugged and capped their wells.
Records from the Railroad Commission show 3,784 permits for injection
in Crane County, most of them in the 1980s and 1990s, with 719 active
injection wells today.
Now, abandoned wells ooze crude onto the surface. Busted casings gurgle
up brine mixed with hydrogen sulfide gas in toxic pools on the surface.
One old well formed a sinkhole that ate a highway.
The largest, Lake Boehmer in neighboring Pecos County, started forming
20 years ago and now covers 60 acres as salty, odorous water continues
to gush up from underground. The Railroad Commission said Lake Boehmer
falls beyond its jurisdiction because the original oil well permit was
transferred to a water well permit in 1951, without producing any
hydrocarbons after the transfer.
``This is kind of like the oil field apocalypse,'' said Schuyler Wight,
a fourth-generation West Texas rancher whose land has at least nine
wells leaking oil onto the surface. ``They've got everything pressured
up so much.''
People here haven't drunk the groundwater for decades, Wright said. But
only in the last few years have some wells started to blow sky-high.
One of them, a Chevron well, started spraying fluid into the air on the
Antina Cattle Co. ranch in 2021. The landowner, Ashley Watt, sued
Chevron and three other companies in December, accusing them of
negligence, fraud and violation of Texas' natural resource code for,
among other things, causing groundwater pollution.
In addition to monetary damages, the lawsuit asks Chevron and the other
defendants to clean up the site so the groundwater, surface water and
land are ``returned to the condition prior to any pollution or
contamination.''
Analysis of the groundwater near the well, conducted for Chevron by
consulting firm GHD, discovered radioactive contaminants and linked
them to ``produced water.'' Sarah Stogner, an oil and gas attorney who
represents Watt, said the tests were requested by the Railroad
Commission and shared with her by Chevron lawyers. Chevron did not
respond to a request for comment.
``The contaminants found in our freshwater aquifer are a result of
produced water,'' said Stogner, who ran for a seat on the Railroad
Commission last year on a platform of abandoned well cleanup and
groundwater protection but lost to an incumbent in the Republican
primary.
In January 2022, another well in Crane County erupted in a 100-foot
geyser, KOSA News in Midland reported, and the Railroad Commission told
residents during a public meeting that it didn't know what caused the
pressure.
Watt, alarmed by the surface activity, wondered what was happening
below ground. Her land holds 250 wells, most of them decommissioned,
plugged and capped 6 feet underground. She commissioned excavations to
check their condition; of 56 wells unearthed late last year, at least
50 were leaking.
Some ooze oil and water out of pea-sized holes in the visibly corroded
casing. Others gurgle gas bubbles up through pools of dark water.
Beside others, permanent wet spots in the ground suggest nearby leaks
below the excavation.
``That's going into the groundwater,'' said Hawk Dunlap, an
international oil field firefighter, as he stood over a bubbling black
puddle in a pit he excavated.
Dunlap, a fourth-generation oil worker and sixth-generation Texan, has
traveled the world working on oil field disasters. Unlike the tall
plumes of chemical fires that attract much attention, the problems of
West Texas water are all underground, out of sight and easy to ignore.
``This is the worst I've ever seen. I've been in 102 countries. I have
never seen anything like this. And there is nothing in my mind that can
fix it,'' he said. ``You go around the world telling everybody how
great Texas is, then come home and see this. It's rather
embarrassing.''
Earthquakes and springs
West Texas is vast, and people live far apart from one another. Water
travels slowly underground, seeping through saturated sand or
meandering through a deep labyrinth of caverns. Many distinct water-
bearing formations are layered underground. Some spots are isolated
systems. Contamination in one place doesn't mean contamination
everywhere.
In the far south of Reeves County, near the foothills of the Davis
Mountains, natural springs still gush clean water that nourishes
surrounding farms and towns. Toyahvale sits amid a cluster of five
towns. Neta Rhyne moved here in 1979 when her husband became
superintendent of the state park surrounding the largest of the natural
water sources--San Solomon Springs. Now she owns a shop across the
street and loves the critters of the quiet desert.
She said this region's largest earthquake in memory, a magnitude 5.7 in
1995, before fracking, happened 40 miles southeast of here and turned
San Solomon Springs murky for a week. Seismicity affects the
subterranean caverns that feed the springs, she said, and she worries
what earthquakes and wastewater injection could do.
That's why she's concerned about what could happen if the rapid pace of
wastewater injection continues.
``It's billions and billions of gallons a day that they're pumping into
the ground,'' she said. ``It will eventually find a path into our
freshwater.''
Scientists have known for decades that this practice can cause movement
in the earth. Geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey used an
injection well to create earthquakes in Colorado in 1968. After the
fracking boom reignited interest, a 2015 study in the journal Science
said ``wastewater injection wells induce earthquakes.''
Earthquakes caused by human activity--also known as ``induced
seismicity''--can happen when fluids injected deep underground enter
and ``lubricate'' existing faults, causing them to slip, according to
Kevin Urbanczyk, a hydrogeologist and professor at Sul Ross State
University in the nearby town of Alpine.
Fault slips can change the formations that contain injected wastewater.
``The idea with those deep well injections is they're going into
confined aquifers,'' Urbanczyk said from his desk, heaped in geological
texts and diagrams. ``If you induce seismicity, you can change the
confining layer.''
Earthquakes also threaten the casings on thousands of holes that run
through the aquifers to the waste pits and hydrocarbons beneath.
``It could break that casing just like it breaks roads and concrete
paths,'' said Jeff Bennett, a hydrogeologist who worked 15 years with
the National Park Service in West Texas.
If well casing breaks, it can open pathways connecting freshwater
aquifers to underground waste pits.
Protesting permits
That's why Rhyne has protested every permit application for an
injection well in her area for the last seven years--she guesses about
100.
The first time was 2016. She saw the application notice in her local
paper and mailed a notice of protest. Later, a lawyer called to set a
court date in Austin, almost 400 miles away.
It was only a pre-hearing to determine if Rhyne had legal standing as
an ``affected person'' to bring a complaint against the disposal well
developer, whose legal team was waiting for Rhyne in Austin.
``They had all their fancy lawyers and their briefcases,'' Rhyne
recalled. ``I lost, of course. They got their permits.''
In 2020, Rhyne wrote in a legal brief to the Railroad Commission that
San Solomon Springs was damaged by the 1995 earthquake 40 miles away.
Accordingly, she wrote, an injection well proposed 20 miles from the
springs could threaten her livelihood.
``Acceptance of this argument would necessarily deem every resident or
business owner within at least a 40 mile radius of every proposed
injection well as an `affected person,' '' a lawyer for the well
developer wrote in response. ``Rhyne must be dismissed as a protestant
in this matter.''
In May 2021, the commission dismissed the complaint.
Rhyne said the Railroad Commission has never granted her legal standing
as an ``affected person'' to bring her complaint to a formal hearing.
(A 2021 report by the watchdog group Commission Shift found that
wastewater disposal companies were top contributors to railroad
commissioners' campaigns.)
Shifflett, the Reeves County farmer, spent years asking the Railroad
Commission to slow down this trajectory. He has his correspondence with
the commission and filings from developers to prove it.
``This proposed well is not that far from our water zones,'' he wrote
in one letter of protest from 2015. ``How many salt water disposals is
enough? There are quite a few all around this location within just a
few miles. Do we need a disposal on every corner?''
In the years that followed, dozens more disposal wells appeared in his
area, and with them came the earthquakes. He keeps copies of the Pecos
Enterprise that reported some of the big ones.
In 2017, a quake left a 14 inch bulge on his land and opened a crevice
5 feet deep and a half mile long. It wrecked his irrigation system.
Shifflett complained to the Railroad Commission that this was caused by
injection wells. But the commission, Shifflett said, told him drought
probably caused the deformations in his land.
``They said it was all drought,'' Shifflett recalled. ``I said I never
seen a drought make an 18-inch-wide crack 5 feet deep into the
ground.''
At a hearing in Austin, Shifflett presented the commission a March 2018
study by a geophysicist with Southern Methodist University in Dallas,
which identified surface deformations for a radius of 2 kilometers
centered on a particular West Texas injection well.
The study, said a university blog post, ``suggests the area's unstable
ground is associated with decades of oil activity and its effect on
rocks below the surface of the earth.''
An attorney for the well developer NGL Water Solutions Permian asked
the commission to reject the study as flawed and irrelevant.
``Shifflett admitted on the record at the prehearing conference that he
is not a scientist, and that he can't explain the technical report,''
wrote the attorney, George C. Neal, in an October 2018 response to
Shifflett's complaint, which the commission later dismissed.
Shifflett traveled seven times to address authorities in Austin, but
he, like Rhyne, was never granted legal standing to bring forth a
challenge. Eventually, he said, the commission threatened to charge him
to continue filing complaints.
``They said if you come back again you'll need to pay like the oil
companies do,'' he said. ``Needless to say, I didn't go back. It didn't
do any good anyway.''
______
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Ms. Robinson, I heard you, and I want
you to know that, with or without a government shutdown, I am
coming to your town, and I am bringing folks with me because we
want to see it with our own eyes.
And the way I, Congressional Research Service, and the
lawyers we have spoken to read this, all NEPA analysis is
waived for the four new lease sales that would be required in
this bill. That means that there would be no environmental
analysis or public comment. It also waives the requirements for
the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to consider balancing
environmental damage, size, impact, and timing. None of that
analysis will be included here, although when we had a hearing
yesterday it seemed like they wanted all that. So, go figure.
Ms. Robinson, I want to thank you for your testimony. What
does it mean to you that you have some elected officials here
from your state who are saying that rushing to oil and gas
drilling is more important than hearing from the community on
the impacts of that drilling?
Ms. Robinson. Honestly, it is not surprising. Living in
Louisiana, being active in Louisiana, being an active voter in
Louisiana, showing up to meetings in Louisiana, living through
many things in Louisiana where government officials could have
shown up and spoke up for us, I am not surprised.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. H.R. 5616 waives judicial review so no
one can sue to stop a lease sale, even if it is done illegally,
even if there are illegal impacts on public health, even if the
drilling could harm endangered species.
You have talked about the vibrancy of your community and of
Louisiana. Can you discuss what the Gulf Coast region could
look like years from now if states and the Federal Government
work together to reduce fossil fuel pollution and achieve
environmental and climate goals while creating good-paying
jobs?
Because I am certain you do not believe it is binary. You
can have both. You can have clean air and clean water, and you
can have good-paying jobs.
Ms. Robinson. Yes. So, there have been talks, there has
been research that New Orleans could be under water. It could
become Atlantis in 2050. Everyone loves New Orleans. Everyone
loves Mardi Gras. But just imagine in the next 30 to 50 to 100
years, there is nothing, there is nothing left. That is what
Louisiana could become if we continue this overall oil and gas
buildout.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. As you were talking and as I was reading
your testimony, I actually was thinking back to Hurricane
Katrina and Black people fending for their lives, sitting on
the top of roofs, begging for help, begging for this Federal
Government to see them, to acknowledge them.
And instead, what I also saw were a whole bunch of folks
holed up in the Superdome, trapped like animals, like
criminals, completely ignored by this government. And we have
an obligation to rectify that, along with making sure that
Deepwater doesn't happen again to anyone else, to workers who
are working on those rigs, to fishermen who depend on clean
water for their livelihood, and for communities who live
adjacent to those communities.
I appreciate you reminding us how important all voices are
in our communities. Could you just give me for a few seconds--
because I do want to just say one thing in closing--about
Cancer Alley in relationship to this?
Ms. Robinson. Cancer Alley is in southeast Louisiana. We
are dealing with pretty much the same things in southwest
Louisiana where this buildout with air pollution is killing
generations of people, young and old. Not even is it just only
killing people, but it is giving people these underlying
illnesses or different diseases.
My mentor, her daughter, acquired a skin disease because of
this pollution in sulfur. Her son had a seizure behind the
wheel because of the pollution in Westlake. So, these things
are affecting us in so many ways, not only in Cancer Alley, but
also in southwest Louisiana.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Ms. Robinson.
I just want to end, Mr. Chair, with a quote from a Texan
farmer: ``The oil companies are going to ruin our water. If
they ruin the water out here, there won't be anyone left.''
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Now we go to the Chairman
of the Full Committee, Representative Westerman.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Chairman Stauber. Thank you to
the witnesses for being here today.
When I walked in and was hearing some of the questioning, I
was checking to make sure I was in the right hearing because I
first walked in and thought we were having a hearing to do away
with NEPA, to just take it off of the books. That is what it
sounded like was happening. And then I just heard this being
compared to the hearing we had yesterday, where we were talking
about NEPA. And it is one of these situations where sometimes
we seem to know so much about what just isn't so.
Mr. Tarpley, is there anything in this bill that does away
with NEPA?
Mr. Tarpley. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think we got kind of
lost in the discussion there. This bill wouldn't be necessary
if we had the 5-year plan in place that the law requires. And
if the American people had access to these resources through
the 5-year plan, as the law requires them to, this bill
wouldn't be necessary.
Mr. Westerman. Has there been a NEPA analysis done on, I
think, Sale 267? Or I may have the number wrong, but has there
been previous analysis done?
Mr. Tarpley. There has been previous analysis done.
Mr. Westerman. Tell me if I am mistaken, but isn't the goal
just to hopefully have somewhat of a level playing field?
Mr. Upton talked about risk and certainty, which, as long
as you can create uncertainty and risk, you incentivize people
not to invest. And that is what a lot of the policies of this
Administration, I wouldn't say policies, the actions of this
Administration are, are to create uncertainty, to make the risk
seem larger or unknown to drive investment away.
I just went back and was re-reading Mr. Graves' bill. There
is no waiving of NEPA. There is no short-cutting environmental
protections.
Mr. Huffman. Would the gentleman yield for a question that
will correct his misunderstanding of the bill?
Mr. Westerman. No, this is my time. You will get some time
in a moment.
Mr. Huffman. I just wondered if you wanted to be corrected
with a question.
Mr. Westerman. I am asking the witnesses questions because
I have heard the rhetoric on your side of the dais so far.
Ms. Robinson, do you believe NEPA is a bedrock
environmental law? Should it be followed?
Ms. Robinson. Of course.
Mr. Westerman. Should we ever waive it to build stuff in
national parks?
Ms. Robinson. No, you shouldn't waive it at all. You should
give those agencies that are supposed to make sure things are
being done in a certain way, you should give them that access
to do that, but then also you should also still give community
input, whether you are building a community park or offshore
drilling.
Mr. Westerman. I agree with what you just said. Do you
think Mr. Graves' bill waives NEPA?
Ms. Robinson. From what I read, I do believe that. I do
believe it is not looking to acquire NEPA in any of their
guidance or any other agency that is trying to give
environmental reviews before anybody leases off the Gulf.
Mr. Westerman. If I were to tell you that the Council of
Environmental Quality that works in the White House just
recently waived environmental laws, waived NEPA, waived the
Endangered Species Act so they could build structures on a
national park, would you think I was talking about something
that happened in reality, or would you think I was making that
up?
Ms. Robinson. I am thinking you are talking about that in
reality.
Mr. Westerman. Because it did happen just a couple of weeks
ago, and that is not what is happening here. We are trying to
create a level playing field and force the Administration to do
the job that Congress has mandated that they do through the
law. And I think it is disingenuous to talk about doing away
with environmental laws.
Mr. Chiasson, can you talk a little bit about the amount of
money that gets spent and the effort that goes in to actually
fulfill the NEPA process, and then what it is like to hit a
roadblock because somebody in the Administration is moving the
goalpost, or saying, ``That wasn't enough,'' or ``You forgot
this''?
And how does that feel when you are trying to do a job and
you never can figure out what the deliverables are because they
change?
Mr. Chiasson. Yes, as a port authority, when you are trying
to do development in a water and a marsh type of environment,
we have to go through a NEPA process very, very extensively,
and it costs a lot of money.
But that is not the issue. The issue is the goalposts
always moving. And we need to make sure that we have the laws
written out, and what we have to follow, and what we have to
achieve, and let us achieve those.
Mr. Westerman. Have you ever built anything where the NEPA
process got waived?
Mr. Chiasson. No.
Mr. Westerman. I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will now recognize
Mr. Mullin for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would yield to my
colleague, Mr. Huffman, for a point of clarification.
Mr. Huffman. I thank the gentleman very much. Folks, I hate
to say this, but we just heard some first order gaslighting
about what this bill says and does. I guess it assumes nobody
is going to read the bill.
But at page 3, from lines 11 through 19, it is right there
in black-letter text that these new mandatory lease sales that
would have to happen under this bill shall be deemed compliant
with NEPA based on a 2017 to 2022 programmatic EIS Record of
Decision that was done years ago. It is over. There will be no
new NEPA process for these new lease sales. And because that
was programmatic, there will be no site specific NEPA at all.
Zip. Nothing. And that is a waiver of NEPA by any, any
reasonable interpretation.
Mr. Westerman. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Huffman. I will give you a chance to correct what you
said, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Westerman. You said there will be no site-specific
NEPA.
Mr. Huffman. No site-specific NEPA, because the
programmatic NEPA from the prior lease sales is deemed to
comply with NEPA in its totality. It is right there in the
bill. No site-specific, not even any new programmatic. No NEPA
at all.
Mr. Westerman. Mr. Tarpley, Mr. Upton--well, it is your
time. I was going to ask them that question, but I shouldn't do
that on your time.
Mr. Huffman. Just read it.
Mr. Westerman. Now, I believe they still have to do a site-
specific analysis.
Mr. Huffman. No, there is no NEPA at all for these lease
sales.
Mr. Westerman. No, there has been NEPA done in the past,
and the Administration failed to act on the projects when the--
--
Mr. Huffman. Let me read you the language of the bill at
line 15: ``shall be sufficient for purposes of complying with
the National Environmental Policy Act.''
Mr. Westerman. What shall be?
Mr. Huffman. For the lease sales under this section,
meaning the programmatic that was already done and closed shall
be sufficient for all purposes for these lease sales. It is the
only way to read it.
Mr. Westerman. But listen to what you said. And it starts
at line 12. The final programmatic environmental impact
statement and Record of Decision shall apply. There was NEPA
done on this project.
Mr. Huffman. On a prior set of lease sales, on a prior
plan. There will be no new NEPA. It is done. That Record of
Decision is closed and done.
Mr. Westerman. And how many times are we going to have to
do NEPA?
Mr. Huffman. And now we are going to mandate at least four
new lease sales with no new NEPA whatsoever.
Mr. Westerman. Because the Administration didn't do the
lease sales when this NEPA was done.
Mr. Huffman. It is a waiver of NEPA.
Mr. Westerman. So, now they say the clock ran out, and
guess what? You get to go do the NEPA all over again, so we can
run the clock out again and come back and say, ``Go do the NEPA
all over again.''
Mr. Huffman. No.
Mr. Westerman. Enough has to be enough.
Mr. Stauber. Mr. Mullin, go ahead.
Mr. Mullin. I am glad I was a witness to that exchange, as
a freshman in this Committee. It got my blood pumping a little
bit.
With the remaining time, let me just ask a question
specific to my district and ports. I am proud to represent the
Port of Redwood City in beautiful San Mateo County, California.
So, the question is simply for Mr. Chiasson.
The impact on the Port of Redwood City and ports around the
country with regard to a looming government shutdown, can you
talk about the economic impact of that, and then the impact on
jobs and the broader economy?
Mr. Chiasson. In terms of what?
Mr. Mullin. How a shutdown would affect day-to-day
operations of those ports, and what your feeling is about
impacts on the broader economy.
Mr. Chiasson. Specifically for Port Fourchon, the
government shutdown doesn't have much of an impact on me. We
are going to continue to do and provide the services necessary
to provide energy for this country, no matter what happens,
whenever it happens. It is essential that we do that.
Mr. Mullin. And do you think there is a broader impact on
the economy with the government shutdown?
Mr. Chiasson. I think there is potential to have some
broader impacts when it comes to, if there is any impact to CBP
or anything like that, yes.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Graves
from Louisiana for 5 minutes.
Mr. Graves. Thank you. I want to thank all the witnesses
for being here today. I appreciate it.
Mr. Chiasson, your port board, how do they get their jobs?
Mr. Chiasson. They are an elected port commission by our
community.
Mr. Graves. Would you consider that sort of reflecting the
objectives, priorities, or the views of your community?
Mr. Chiasson. Absolutely.
Mr. Graves. Do you support this bill?
Mr. Chiasson. Yes.
Mr. Graves. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, just a question about a hearing. A hearing is
designed to do what? Why do we have these hearings?
Mr. Stauber. Well, to discuss the pros and cons of any
bill.
Mr. Graves. Thank you. So, another way of saying we are
getting input, is that correct?
Mr. Stauber. That is correct.
Mr. Graves. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am always
fascinated by my friends here and some of the things that are
said. I am beginning to think that the comments that are made
are on purpose, just to force us to spend all of our time going
back and correcting the record said another way,
misunderstanding about how things work.
Dr. Upton, I heard folks talking about fair market value,
and I know you spent a lot of time in your testimony talking
about economics. The Inflation Reduction Act, have you spent
any time looking at that?
Dr. Upton. Yes, sir, I have.
Mr. Graves. Does that do anything to distort economics of
energy?
Dr. Upton. Yes, sure. The Inflation Reduction Act has a lot
of, I would say, supply-side policies.
Mr. Graves. Said another way, it subsidizes certain energy
technologies to make them more attractive.
Dr. Upton. That is absolutely accurate.
Mr. Graves. So, in the case of a technology that has been
around for, I don't know, 40 or 50 years, it kind of seems like
at some point, if it can't stand on its own two feet, maybe we
should look elsewhere or do something else. Is that a fair
assessment?
Dr. Upton. Well, I guess you would have to weigh the
environmental----
Mr. Graves. Overall pros and cons?
Dr. Upton. That is right, the overall pros and cons. In the
example of energy, of course, there are negative externalities.
So, you would want to value that externality and then compare
that to the size of the subsidy.
Mr. Graves. But again, there is a tipping of the scale
there as a result of subsidies that are in the bill in terms of
disrupting economics that would otherwise just be balanced
based upon natural factors. Is that fair?
Dr. Upton. Absolutely, yes.
Mr. Graves. OK. And then the other thing I heard folks
saying that fair market value was not contemplated whenever
offshore energy production would occur. Well, you have two
different types of revenue--well, actually three different
types of revenue generated from a lease sale. One of them is
rental payments, which we will just put on the shelf for just a
minute. But one of them is bonus bids. Isn't that like an
auction?
Do you view an auction as being maybe a way to determine
fair market value of an item?
Dr. Upton. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Graves. I mean, I think Sotheby's has figured out that
that seems to work, right?
Dr. Upton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Graves. And then you also have royalty rates. And
royalty rates, if I remember correctly, those were actually set
by--let me think. What was that knuckle-dragging
Administration? Oh, wait a minute. That was the Obama
administration that set those. I mean, look, seriously. And, of
course, I said that in jest, suggesting that my friends were
indicating that there was some Republican administration that
had set those figures.
And then one other point to make here. The Environmental
Impact Statement that was done, as the Chairman of the Full
Committee noted, that EIS was done on this very area. It was
done on this very area for this very type of activity. And
because this is the most produced offshore area in America, it
is redoing what was redone, what was redone, what was redone,
what was redone.
But I am glad that my friends are concerned about the
environment. I am. I am very glad that my friends are concerned
about the environment because, when you look at the Energy
Information Agency under the Biden administration, it clearly
shows that there is a projected increase in oil and gas demand
globally over the next few decades. So, then you look at where
you get the lowest carbon intensity--because I know my friends
share my objective about carbon intensity--and guess where you
get some of the lowest carbon intensity barrels in the world?
Mr. Huffman. UAE.
Mr. Graves. That was close. Actually, Gulf of Mexico. So,
if you have an objective--and, look, I know that my friend has
an objective of employing people and creating economic activity
in the UAE, but I would like to see economic activity, I see
your campaign signs every time I go there but I would like to
create economic activity, employment in the United States, and
specifically down in the areas where our communities live and
work, where we have higher wages. So, I think it is really
important that we do that production in the Gulf of Mexico.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my friends for continuing
to throw out all of these statements that, unfortunately,
aren't supported by fact, and I appreciate the opportunity to
correct the record. And I can't wait for the opportunity to
continue correcting the record as we continue through this bill
hearing and markup.
I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Mr. Graves.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. I would like to ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record this 2017 study by Oil Change
International, which shows the U.S. Government directly
subsidizes fossil fuels at $20.5 billion annually.
Mr. Stauber. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The full document is available for viewing at:
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II06/20230928/116323/HHRG-
118-II06-20230928-SD009.pdf
------
Mr. Stauber. Representative Huffman, you are up for 5
minutes.
Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Was anyone here yesterday? It was an interesting and almost
surreal experience because in the Natural Resources Committee
my colleagues across the aisle, who have spent the last 9
months attacking our bedrock environmental laws in every way
one could think up, were advocating for more aggressive
enforcement of environmental laws under NEPA, and other
environmental laws in order to prevent migrants from occupying
a shelter on a piece of National Park Service land.
Mr. Graves. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Huffman. No, I will not.
So, in some ways it is reassuring to be back here in the
more normal context of my Republican colleagues back at it,
attacking and waiving and undermining our environmental laws.
And this is the most naked one I think I have seen yet, a
mandated lease sale with no environmental process whatsoever
associated with it, and also some waivers of taxpayer
protection and other reforms. This is pretty brazen stuff.
But look, I have had a lot of back-and-forth with my
colleague from Louisiana over the years. We get along. It is
sometimes lighthearted. So, I could probably give all of his
arguments and he could give a lot of mine. There are some
greatest hits that we hear all the time. The gentleman who
knows better does real careful parsing and snipping of
baselines and data sets to try to suggest that----
Mr. Graves. Are you referring to me or you?
Mr. Huffman [continuing]. The Trump administration was
great for climate, that he actually caused emissions to go down
during his 4-year term, never mind that the Obama policies and
market conditions had set certain things in motion, and then
the world economy went to sleep during COVID. The gentleman is
happy to snip that piece of data, and suggest Trump was great
for climate, despite the wrecking ball he took to climate
policy and climate action, and then turn around and suggest
that because President Biden presided over an incredible
economic recovery and emissions began to go up, that somehow
the Biden administration has been bad.
You can play with numbers all you want. I can argue that in
the last NBA season Steph Curry and I combined for an average
of 15 points per game.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Huffman. And if I were like my friend from Louisiana, I
could even pound the table and say it is a fact, it is true,
because it is. But it is total BS.
And maybe the biggest whopper of all is this one we are
hearing now about all of this new oil and gas production--the
poor beleaguered fossil fuel industry that is rolling in record
profits, it is enjoying record production--that we have to do
all of this new stuff as a climate action because somehow our
fossil fuel production is cleaner than the other guys.
I am not kidding when I talk about the UAE because I have
met with oil executives and leaders from the UAE who dispute
the claim that our dirty fossil fuels are cleaner than theirs.
They say they are powering their refineries with solar energy,
and they have done much more to reduce methane loss. They say
they have the prettiest horse in the glue factory. But, of
course, our oil and gas industry disputes that. Heck, in Norway
they are getting ready to power their oil and gas extraction
with a bunch of offshore floating wind platforms. Maybe they
have the prettiest horse in the glue factory.
Why are we even talking about winning this race to the
bottom, when all of the science and everything we know about
this climate crisis tells us all of this is non-responsive to
the crisis? We have to stop using fossil fuel. We have to
disengage and phase out.
And I am old enough to remember something incredibly
similar to this gaslighting our fossil fuel is cleaner BS that
we are hearing. A few decades ago, when the tobacco industry
was killing a lot of people just like the fossil fuel industry,
and they were rolling in profits, and all of a sudden the
science started resolving all doubt about the cancers they were
causing and the other health effects they were causing. So,
they rolled out filtered cigarettes. And they started getting
doctors and other people to say how much safer, how much
healthier these filtered cigarettes were. They knew better.
They knew that it did nothing to reduce all the death, and
cancer, and everything else. But they said it anyway, because
there was a lot of money to be made. And here we are again.
Ms. Robinson, I just want to ask you, when you hear the
cold comfort of oil and gas talking heads saying our fossil
fuel is cleaner than someone else's, does that make the tumors
any smaller in Cancer Alley? Does it make it any easier to deal
with the death and the health effects that your region is
suffering from?
Ms. Robinson. It does not.
Mr. Huffman. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. I thank you very much. And at the Chair's
discretion, we are going to allow round two of discussions. And
my good friend from Louisiana, Mr. Graves, is up.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank my
friend from California. And I want to be very clear, he is my
friend. He is my friend. I go to dinner with him, I have hosted
him in Louisiana. I am still waiting for that invite to
California that I know after 5 years is coming. But he is a
friend of mine, we just violently disagree.
And I want to be clear, Mr. Chairman. Whenever I noted that
emissions from the Gulf of Mexico have some of the lowest
intensity in the world, that is just the Gulf of Mexico. That
is not paired with Mr. Huffman's points in the basketball game.
So, that was clearly an apples-to-Volkswagen comparison that
was noted earlier.
So, Mr. Chairman, I am glad that my friends are so
concerned about economics, because we watched recently where
the Federal Government, BLM, actually reduced royalty rates for
solar projects in California, once again ignoring economics or
fair market value.
I am glad that my friends are so concerned about NEPA, and
I am waiting for their objection, and I would be happy to yield
to any of them to explain their objection that they lodged
whenever this Administration did a categorical exclusion for EV
charging stations.
Now, let me be very clear, because there seems to be a lot
of confusion. The hearing yesterday had to do with waiving NEPA
for an activity that had never occurred, or never been studied
on National Park Service land. Whereas, what this bill does is
it allows you to tee off of an existing NEPA analysis on the
exact same activity in the exact same geographical area, and an
activity that has occurred more in this region than probably
any other offshore area of the world. I know at one point
within the last 20 years, approximately three-fourths of all of
the offshore energy structures in the world were in the Gulf of
Mexico. This isn't any novel idea. This occurs in this area.
I want to be very clear that what you see happening here is
this is an argument of convenience for, I am afraid, people in
this room that folks are trying to distort facts and trying to
shove their arguments into places where they clearly don't fit.
We have heard arguments about economics that are clearly
disrupted. You use an auction. You have heard arguments about
the environment. There is study after study that show lowest
carbon-intensity barrel. The Biden administration's own
projections on oil and gas show that you are going to have
global demand increases, particularly in developing nations.
Mr. Chairman, when you look globally, I believe it is the
International Energy Agency's Chairman who said that the
greatest reductions in energy emissions in world history
occurred because of what the United States did, and that was
largely attributable to natural gas. Why in the world would we
not move in that direction?
And let me give you one last example, Mr. Chairman. If you
were to take 1 year, 1 year of LNG that was sent, liquefied
natural gas or natural gas that was supplied to Europe,
supplied to the European Union from Russia, from Vladimir
Putin, and replaced it with U.S. LNG, you would have somewhere
around a 215 million-ton reduction in emissions.
And let's make note that would be for free, and to economic
benefit to the United States, to the detriment of Vladimir
Putin--my friends instead, across the aisle, would rather see
taxpayers actually spend money funding this. It is completely
non-sensical.
Mr. Chiasson, I guess based upon some of the testimony that
I have heard today you live in south Louisiana, do you not?
Mr. Chiasson. Absolutely. Yes, I do.
Mr. Graves. And Mr. Chiasson, you were born and raised
there, your family is there, you have kids. Would you do things
that you know are actually to the detriment of your community
and to your family?
Mr. Chiasson. No.
Mr. Graves. And Mr. Chiasson, I have known you most of your
life. You are an expert on energy. In fact, an expert on
offshore energy. Your port is capable of supplying 90 percent
of the offshore energy sector. You are one of the nation's
experts in this area.
I mean, isn't it somewhat absurd that people are alleging
that you would shoot yourself, or your community and your
family in the foot?
Mr. Chiasson. Absolutely. I would contend that what you see
in Port Fourchon, just in our port itself, the water in Port
Fourchon is cleaner than the Mississippi River. If you come and
fish on a platform offshore, the water is clear, blue, and very
nice. And that fish is not causing me any problems at all.
Mr. Graves. That is right, the top fisheries production in
the continental United States in this exact same area.
Mr. Chairman, look, in closing I just want to say that my
friends that are concerned about the environment, concerned
about communities, as a result of shutting down energy
production like this Administration is doing, we are going to
see nearly a 30 percent reduction in investment for GOMESA,
which, as you know, is for coastal wetlands restoration, for
hurricane protection, leaving our communities vulnerable as a
result.
And for my friends that care about national parks, it is
going to be a 30 percent reduction in funds from offshore
energy revenues to go to the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Facts hurt, I guess.
I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you.
Representative Kamlager-Dove, you are up for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think what taxpayers want to see is the government stay
open, and Congress do its job to make sure that all of our
agencies are fully operational so that when we do have a
natural disaster FEMA is on the line to take their call.
I do want to refute some statements that were made earlier.
CEQ didn't waive NEPA. They used emergency alternative
arrangements.
Also, the CEQ regulations, specifically, 40 CFR 1506.12,
don't you love staff when they help you make sure that you get
the regulations correct? Those regulations and guidance provide
for alternative arrangements for NEPA compliance in emergency
situations. Agencies are not to delay immediate actions
necessary to secure lives and safety of citizens or to protect
valuable resources.
And another correction. I have not heard Biden yet say that
he is shutting down energy production. It is a fallacy being
distracted by what we really should be doing, which is on
voting on bills to keep the government open instead of this. I
think that is a higher priority.
And to complement what my colleagues have said, let's not
mix up truths. Let's not share fallacies. Let's not shut the
government down, and let's get some of this information
straight about what the regulations do and what has been done
in the past.
Thank you. And with that, I yield back.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. I will now recognize
myself for 5 minutes, and I will give my time to Representative
Graves.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I can't
even begin to tell you my concern about the lack of
understanding of how NEPA works.
My friend, the Ranking Member, was just saying that there
is no comparison to what I mentioned on the categorical
exclusion for EV charging stations. So, let's explain what a
categorical exclusion is.
And I hope you are in the anteroom so you can hear me.
A categorical exclusion is granted whenever you have
carried out sufficient reviews for a like activity. You then
can effectively say, ``We have studied the heck out of this. We
understand the environmental repercussions. Therefore, we are
going to effectively allow for that understanding to suffice,''
and that is how a categorical exclusion works.
Let me see if I can give you another analogy. We have
already done Environmental Impact Statements for energy
production in the Gulf of Mexico time, and time, and time
again. And since this Administration has violated the law and
not carried out their 5-year plan as required, then we are
going to use the previous one.
Now, what has distinguished from that is what we talked
about yesterday, where on the National Park Service an activity
that has never been subjected to an Environmental Impact
Statement, it was just waived. This isn't even remotely
comparable to that. And it is very concerning that we would
have people who are here in charge of this policy that
apparently don't have that appropriate understanding, based
upon the comments that I heard. That is my belief, that there
is a clear misunderstanding here. Very, very concerning.
My friends sit here and talk about emissions reduction, but
yet when you bring emissions reduction strategies that are
proven, and I will read you the statistic. ``The magnitude of
expected greenhouse gas reduction is even larger when
increasing the production and use of the Gulf of Mexico's
largest crude category in place of similar crudes from outside
of the U.S. and Canada.'' You know what the difference is? A 50
percent reduction. This is math.
You have the Biden administration's EIA that says that
global demand for oil and gas are going to go up. You have the
source that is up to a 50 percent reduction compared to other
supplies in terms of emissions. And we are saying, yes, we are
going to go to UAE. Are you kidding me?
And all this is being done to advance an agenda that is not
based upon math, it is not based upon science. It is based upon
facts.
Ms. Robinson, I have to be very candid. I am sorry that you
were brought here and, in my opinion, subjected to all this
because somebody is trying to get you to tout an agenda that is
just simply not informed by fact.
I represent south Louisiana, I was born and raised there,
and I have three kids there. I love the community. I love the
community and I would never do anything to harm. I have fought
for more funds for resilience. I have restored more acres of
coastal wetlands than anybody else, spent billions of dollars
fighting for it. I have been threatened to fight for that
community, to protect the community, to protect the ecological
productivity of that region.
And I am just going to apologize to you because facts,
data, and science are simply not on the side of the argument
that is being made right now. I fully support reductions in
emissions, but we have to use strategies that actually make
sense and are based upon math and science, not out here in this
emotional realm that, unfortunately, this place has migrated
to.
The reality is that you have already seen a projected 31
percent reduction in investment in the Gulf of Mexico. The
reality is that all of my friends across the aisle that were
here last Congress voted for mandatory production on lease
sales in the Gulf of Mexico. They seem to have left that out.
I am going to say it again. All of my friends over here
that were in Congress last session voted for a bill that
mandated oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, period.
I don't know why they left that out. That is a fact.
And this Administration, by the way, hasn't complied with
the law that says explicitly that the lease sale is supposed to
happen right now, and it is not happening because they are
ignoring the law because that is what they do when it is
convenient.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to submit some information for the
record. I ask that the ICF study showing emissions reduction
from production in the Gulf of Mexico be included in the
record, and I also plan to submit some questions for the record
for our witnesses.
I want to thank you very much for being here today.
Mr. Stauber. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Stauber. I want to thank the witnesses. But before I
wrap up my comments here, the Ranking Member had said she had
never heard the President talk about fossil fuels and ending
fossil fuels. I am going to enter into the record a September
6, 2019 article in the Associated Press written by Steve
Peoples, where he was in Newcastle, New Hampshire with the
President when then-candidate Biden looked a young lady in the
eye and said, and I quote, ``I want you to look at my eyes. I
guarantee you, I guarantee you, we are going to end fossil
fuels.'' And that was by candidate Biden.
[The information follows:]
In intimate moment, Biden vows to `end fossil fuel'
AP News, September 6, 2019 by Steve Peoples
https://apnews.com/united-states-presidential-election-
9dfb1e4c381043bab6fd0fa6de ce3974
*****
NEW CASTLE, N.H. (AP)--Joe Biden is looking voters in the eye and
promising to ``end fossil fuel.''
The former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate made
the comment Friday after a New Hampshire environmental activist
challenged him for accepting donations from the co-founder of liquified
natural gas firm.
Biden denied the donor's association to the fossil fuel industry before
calling the young woman ``kiddo'' and taking her hand. He said, ``I
want you to look at my eyes. I guarantee you. I guarantee you. We're
going to end fossil fuel.''
The activist, 24-year-old Rebecca Beaulieu, later said she appreciated
that Biden took her question seriously, but that he was not satisfied
with Biden's plan to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050.
She also said she found Biden's use of ``kiddo'' patronizing.
______
Mr. Stauber. I want to thank the witnesses for their
valuable testimony and the Members for their questions.
The members of the Subcommittee may have some additional
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond in
writing. Under Committee Rule 3, members of the Committee must
submit questions to the Committee Clerk by 5 p.m. on Tuesday,
October 3. The hearing record will be held open for 10 business
days for these responses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:53 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Jeff Duncan, a Representative in
Congress from the State of South Carolina
H.R. 1121, the Protecting the American Energy Production Act, is
straightforward: It prohibits the President from declaring a moratorium
on the use of hydraulic fracturing, unless Congress authorizes the
moratorium. It also expresses the sense of Congress that states should
maintain primacy for the regulation of oil and gas production on state
and private lands.
Natural gas is affordable, reliable, safe, clean, and abundant. It
keeps the lights on when the wind is not blowing, and the sun is not
shining. It can be used as feed stock to create fertilizer that
nourishes the food we eat. It can be transported safely across state
lines through pipelines and can be exported across the ocean to fuel
our allies abroad in times of need.
The American people need natural gas, and the President should not
be able to singlehandedly prohibit fracking without the consent of
Congress. This Administration has been extremely hostile to fossil
fuels in the midst of an energy crisis.
Also, Under current law, each State has primary regulatory
authority over oil and natural gas production. This was made clear in
the bipartisan Energy Policy Act of 2005. State regulatory bodies are
best informed to regulate operations in their own state, this bill
reaffirms that.
We are already beginning to see the consequences of poor energy
policy. Blackouts are becoming normalized in states like California
that have become increasingly reliant on ``renewable'' energy while
shutting down access to reliable baseload power.
Of course, wind and solar is cheaper when the taxpayer is
subsidizing the cost. Unfortunately for the ratepayer, this is a poor
investment. The reality is that not all energy is the same. Wind or
solar energy are simply not as valuable as the energy stored in natural
gas. We need an ``all-of-the-above'' energy matrix that is diversified,
and ensures we have baseload generation. This includes natural gas.
Factories and hospitals do not close on a cloudy day, and where
``renewables'' fail, natural gas can be reliably ramped up to meet
demand. We do not need to go backwards. Grids do not have to be
unreliable, and in 21st century, Americans should not have to settle
with blackouts. We need to build out our natural gas infrastructure in
order to achieve American energy dominance, and it begins with our
ability to extract it through fracking.
The Shale Revolution has launched America towards energy
leadership. We became a net exporter of energy--reducing prices here at
home and undercutting the leverage of our Russia (Putin), China, and
OPEC. The best defense against our adversaries is more United States
energy production.
The Shale Revolution also saved Americans billions of dollars. It
is estimated the shale revolution saved U.S. consumers $203 billion
dollars annually, breaking down to $2,500 per family of four.
It also lowered energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 527
metric tons per year. Innovation in the oil and gas sector has made the
United States a leader in not only energy production but also emission
reductions. The United States produces energy cleaner and safer than
nearly anywhere in the world and we need policies that reflect this
reality instead of ones that undercut our success. Natural gas is
clean, affordable, and reliable and we should be increasing its
production, not prohibiting it. This bill reflects this reality and
would help in delivering affordable and reliable energy to Americans.
I urge support of H.R. 1121 to increase American energy production
and restore energy leadership.
______
Statement for the Record
Bureau of Land Management
U.S. Department of the Interior
on H.R. 1121
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this Statement for the
Record on H.R. 1121, Protecting American Energy Production Act.
H.R. 1121 states it is the ``sense of Congress that States should
maintain primacy for the regulation of hydraulic fracturing for oil and
natural gas production on State and private lands.'' The bill also
prohibits the President from issuing a moratorium on the use of
hydraulic fracturing unless Congress authorizes the moratorium.
The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to the highest
standards of safety and responsible oil and gas development on public
lands. As President Biden has repeatedly stated, oil and gas operations
will continue into the future while we transition to a clean energy
economy. Neither the President, the Secretary of the Interior, nor the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have proposed a moratorium on the
practice of hydraulically fracturing oil and gas wells. The BLM also
notes that States already have discretion over the use of hydraulic
fracturing for oil and gas development on State and private lands.
Hydraulic fracturing is a common practice for stimulating the flow of
oil or gas from a wellbore, and the BLM estimates that the majority of
oil and gas wells in production have been hydraulically fractured.
The Department of the Interior is concerned that H.R. 1121 would
unduly limit the President's discretion in managing the safe and
environmentally protective development of Federal resources from
Federal lands. As such, the Department does not support the bill.
______
Submissions for the Record by Rep. Westerman
Statement for the Record
American Petroleum Institute
in support of H.R. 5616, BRIDGE Production Act
September 28, 2023
``API appreciates the intent of the BRIDGE Production Act and the
forward thinking of Congressman Graves in introducing this bill. The
importance of the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and natural gas industry
cannot be denied. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for nearly 15% of U.S.
oil production and supports an estimated 345,000 jobs throughout the
country. For the past year-and-a-half the offshore oil and natural gas
industry has been forced to rely on legislation and court orders to
have regular and meaningful lease sales. The Biden Administration has
failed to complete the required 5-year Program on time, reduced, and
attempted to introduce harmful restrictions on oil and natural gas
vessel traffic in the Gulf of Mexico. The BRIDGE Production Act will
provide for much needed offshore lease sales and help give companies
the certainty needed to continue to invest in Gulf of Mexico
exploration and development.''
Holly Hopkins
Vice President of Upstream Policy
______
BRIDGE Production Act Will Help Lower Energy Costs and Tame Inflation
Consumer Energy Alliance, September 20, 2023
https://consumerenergyalliance.org/2023/09/bridge-production-act-will-
help-lower-energy-costs-and-tame-inflation/
*****
WASHINGTON--Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), the leading energy and
environmental advocate for families and businesses, applauds the
introduction of the BRIDGE Production Act of 2023 by Congressman
Garrett Graves.
``With oil prices back over $90 and Saudi Arabia and Russia extending
their 1.3 million barrel per day production cut through the end of this
year, American families and businesses struggling with higher energy
prices need real solutions. The Bridge Production Act is that
solution,'' CEA Vice President Kaitlin Hammons said.
``This bill will remove the uncertainty in the Gulf of Mexico federal
leasing program caused by years of intentional delays by the Biden
Administration. The Gulf of Mexico is one of the least carbon-intensive
producing regions in the world. Refusing to make good use of an
integral piece of American energy security is irresponsible policy and
bad for the environment.''
``A price hangover from the highest inflation in 40 years remains, and
gas is more expensive today than it was last year, heading toward $4 a
gallon. Higher energy prices increase the price of everything--from
groceries to lumber to clothing to appliances--pulling money from our
pockets and boosting inflation. Americans deserve relief at the pump,
and everywhere else they shop. Congress is right to step in on behalf
of American families and small businesses to ensure we can keep energy
prices down and energy security strong.''
Congressman Graves' bill is the companion to the Senate version
introduced by Senators Cassidy and Cruz in July.
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