Category Archives: Oil

Oil and gas exploration and production is rapidly expanding across the U.S. due to technological developments that have made extraction of previously untapped unconventional resources such as shale gas feasible.

In fact, shale gas production “has gone from a negligible amount just a few years ago to being almost 30% of total U.S. natural gas production.” 

But national clean air standards covering these activities have not been updated since 1985 in one case and 1999 in another. They are limited, inadequate, and out of date, particularly given recent technological advances in this area. 

This poses a serious problem, since exploration and production activities emit numerous hazardous air pollutants and other airborne contaminants that threaten human health and the environment. Communities across the country are paying the price, suffering from air pollution in the absence of protective, comprehensive standards. 

In July, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new nationwide safeguards to reduce air pollution from upstream oil and gas production activities.  Recently, the public was given a chance to express their opinions on the issue at three hearings held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Denver, Colorado, and Arlington, Texas. EDF testified at all three. (Public written comments will be accepted through November 30^th and EPA is required to issue a final rule by February 2012. You can submit comments online, via fax or through the mail. In your correspondence, please be sure to reference Docket Number EPA–HQ–OAR–2010–0505; FRL–9456–2.)

I testified at the EPA hearing in Pittsburgh where compelling concerns were raised by many in the communities hard hit by air pollution impacts.  People in communities across Pennsylvania expressed concern that adequate protection from dangerous pollution in their home state is simply not in place. Some pleaded with the EPA to finalize new standards, others expressed anger that EPA has not done so already, and many fear that the new standards won’t be tough enough to keep their families safe.   

The individual who testified before me declared that when it comes to our health and that of our children, the costs of cleaning up harmful pollution should not factor into EPA’s decision-making. He got a standing ovation.

Of course, the hearing also featured industry representatives, some of whom echoed the position of the American Petroleum Institute (API) calling for more time to comment on the proposed standards and to delay their implementation.

Yet, the truth is that the proposed EPA rules will standardize many practices and technologies already being used in states such as Colorado and Wyoming, and elsewhere by natural gas companies. Further, these practices and technologies reduce gas losses, which results in greater recovery and sale of natural gas, and thus increased economic gains. The return on the initial investment for many of these practices is sometimes as short as a few months and almost always less than two years.  In these tough economic times, it would seem wise to eliminate waste, save money, and reduce environmental impact.

Based on EPA estimates of natural gas losses, industry lost more than $1 billion in profits in 2009 due to venting, flaring and fugitive emissions.  The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), with supporting data from EPA, estimates that around 40% of natural gas estimated to be vented and flared on onshore federal leases could be economically captured with currently available control technologies. Recouping these losses could increase federal royalty payments by $23 million annually, at a time when revenue is desperately needed.

The industry can demonstrate their commitment to bringing natural gas to market in an environmentally sound way by using best practices, acknowledging the benefits of these safeguards, and being proactive in helping them get adopted.

And, while EPA’s proposed rules are a great start, there is room for improvement (for more details, see EDF’s preliminary analysis of the regulations). Bottom line: it is critical that stronger clean air standards move forward.  They are vitally important to protect human health and the environment.

At the EPA hearing in Pittsburgh, the public demanded that EPA require industry to be more vigilant about health and safety, and reduce their environmental impact.  Considering the potential increased revenue of capturing more gas, advocating for strong clean air rules makes both dollars and “sense.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of updating national safeguards to better protect Americans from the health impacts of natural gas and oil emissions. The standards address the emissions discharged during gas and oil drilling and development practices, known in the industry as ‘upstream’ activities.  

Residents around the growing number of drilling, processing and transmission sites will be relieved to hear this because while industry activity has increased dramatically in the U.S., the Clean Air Act standards that regulate the related air pollution are outdated.  Current standards are limited and fail to adequately protect public health.

These industrial activities discharge a host of air pollutants. Drilling rigs, wells and equipment emit hazardous air pollutants such as benzene, a known human carcinogen.  

A number of other airborne contaminants contribute to ground-level ozone or "smog" pollution, elevated levels of which can lead to:

• decreased lung function, particularly in children who are active outdoors;
• respiratory-related hospital admissions and emergency room visits  among both children and adults; and
• lung inflammation, possible long-term damage to the lungs and premature mortality.

Upstream drilling activities were the single largest source of ozone precursor pollutants in Colorado in 2008. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reports that storage tanks used in the exploration and production of natural gas in Texas are the largest source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the state. These contaminants contribute to smog and also are comprised of hazardous air pollutants. And according to a recent inventory, oxides of nitrogen and VOC emissions produced from gas production in the Barnett Shale are comparable to the combined emissions from all the cars and trucks in the Dallas Forth-Worth metro area.

Oil and natural gas activities also are the single largest source of U.S. methane emissions.  Methane is both a potent greenhouse gas and a contributor to smog.   In 2009, methane emitted from these activities was roughly equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from 60 coal-fired power plants. 

The media is starting to cover the plights of individuals and families who are suffering from exposure to these pollutants. National Public Radio did a story on a family in Pennsylvania that had a number of health symptoms due to drilling. “First Pam, her husband and two grown kids started getting headaches, and then fatigue set in. They've also had dizziness, nausea and nosebleeds. I've had a sore throat so long that I don't know what it would be to not have a sore throat," Pam says. For a week last summer, Pennsylvania state officials monitored the air at the Judys' house and the compressor station. They found…toxic chemicals they say almost surely came from the compressor station.”

It is vitally important that EPA strengthen national emission standards. Improved emission standards will help protect millions of Americans, urban and rural, who live in the vicinity of oil and gas air pollution discharges.

Rigorous federal guidelines will also foster industry innovation and emerging technologies, and increase profits by using available best practices to capture saleable gas that’s otherwise released into the atmosphere.   

Updated safeguards are long overdue but there is no guarantee that they will be the strong standards that are essential to protect the public's health. You can help ensure that they are.

We encourage everyone who wants to breathe cleaner air to let the EPA know you support strong and comprehensive standards for the natural gas and oil industry.

Please get involved by writing to the EPA in favor of updated protections. We also invite you to join us and share your thoughts with the EPA at the upcoming public hearings in: Pittsburgh, Sept. 27; Denver, Sept. 28; and Arlington, Texas on Sept. 29. If you can't make the hearings, you can submit comments online, via fax or through the mail until Oct. 24. In your correspondence, please be sure to reference Docket Number EPA–HQ–OAR–2010–0505; FRL–9456–2.

Chutzpah.  That’s how Washington lawyer Matt Armstrong, of Bracewell & Giuliani, characterized the possibility that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would now take enforcement action against natural gas drillers who injected millions of gallons of diesel fuel into the ground to facilitate hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, to extract  natural gas trapped in shale formations thousands of feet below.  His point was that the EPA – having taken little action to develop clear regulations banning or restricting this particular practice – can’t pretend that they always disapproved of diesel fuel injection now that a Congressional investigation spearheaded by Henry Waxman and Ed Markey has brought it to light. 

While I think Armstrong may have a point about the EPA being asleep at the switch on this one, and I take him at his word that he, and the natural gas industry clients he represents, welcome clear and effective federal regulations restricting or – better yet – banning this practice, I can’t help but conclude that it is the natural gas industry, rather than the EPA, that wins the award for chutzpah.

Part of the reason that anti-shale gas campaigners are gaining such traction with the general public is that the natural gas industry makes it so easy for them.  Does any CEO of any natural gas production company really think that the general public would ever believe that injecting diesel fuel into the ground is a good idea?  This little episode only further underscores the perception that when the natural gas industry unflinchingly opposes public disclosure of the chemicals used in “frac fluids” – or, as my colleague Ramon Alvarez pointed out yesterday – when the oil and gas industry sue to block recently adopted EPA regulations requiring basic air pollution reporting that, indeed, the industry really does have something to hide.  

Being tone deaf to public perception is not a crime, but when you turn around and blame the regulatory agency you regularly oppose for failing to stop you from engaging in what is obviously a potentially harmful practice that they should have been regulating, you certainly are guilty of chutzpah.  If the natural gas industry ever expects to be embraced as a responsible partner in transitioning this nation to a safe, secure, low-carbon, clean energy future, natural gas production practices need to dramatically improve and the stonewalling and finger pointing at others need to stop.