Oil and Gas Companies Don’t Need Exemptions from Environmental Laws: Oppose Amendments

Unlike the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee energy bill, the House bill (H.R. 6) and several recently introduced Senate bills include provisions to exempt oil and gas operators from important public health and environmental statutes and regulations, and make oil and gas development the dominant use of our public lands.  Several of these provisions could be offered as amendments to the energy bill on the Senate floor. We urge you to oppose the following if they are offered as amendments:

Attack on the Safe Drinking Water Act:  S. 837 and Section 327 of H.R. 6 seek to undermine the Safe Drinking Water Act by prohibiting hydraulic fracturing fluids (often laced with toxic chemicals such as diesel) from being considered pollutants of drinking water.  These fluids are injected into underground formations to prop open fractures and may be injected directly into or leak into underground sources of drinking water. 
It is critical that the federal government retains the ability to enact safeguards to ensure that hydraulic fracturing does not degrade water quality and endanger human health. 

Weakening the Clean Water Act:  S. 830 and Section 328 of H.R. 6 attempt to undermine the Clean Water Act by exempting from the “stormwater” requirements all oil and gas construction activities, including construction of roads, drill pads, pipeline corridors, refineries, compressor stations, sweetening plants, etc.  Construction activities cause erosion and significant sedimentation of streams, leading to pollution of drinking water, as well as harming aquatic habitat and fish populations.
There is no reason to exempt oil and gas companies from pollution controls that other construction activities are required to follow.

Requiring Rubber Stamping of Oil and Gas Permits:  Section 2027 of H.R. 6 seeks to allow oil and gas companies to take up to two years to comply with drilling permit application requirements, but limits the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to only ten days to make decisions on drilling permit applications.  Such a provision could arbitrarily force the BLM to take quick action and hamstring its ability to enforce congressionally-approved minimal safeguards designed to evaluate impacts to private property, public lands, water resources, and ensure adequate reclamation plans and bonding.
If the BLM is really the hold up, why does industry get two years?  And if the industry really needs two years, why is it so important for BLM to act within ten days, especially when this completely cuts off the opportunity for meaningful review and input from neighboring landowners and the public?

These Environmentally Damaging Provisions are Unnecessary to Assure Development of Domestic Oil and Gas Resources

Oil and natural gas development is already accelerating across the Rocky Mountain West.

• According to the Department of the Interior’s January 2003 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (“EPCA”) study, 85 percent of federally-owned oil resources and 88 percent of federally-owned gas resources in the Rocky Mountain states are already available for exploration and drilling.
• Over 35,446,000 acres of BLM lands are currently under lease for oil and gas, yet only 11,671,000 acres were in production in 2004.
• In FY 2004, the BLM issued a record number of 6,052 drilling permits on BLM lands, but industry drilled only 2,702 new wells.
• Last year, for the first time in history, over 3.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas was produced from the public lands.  Recently, the Energy Information Administration reported that the number of natural gas drilling rigs was at an all time high.

Despite the facts that: (1) the vast majority of oil and gas resources on federal lands in the Rockies are available for development; (2) approximately three-quarters of minerals leased by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are not in production; (3) the BLM has issued thousands more drilling permits than the industry can actually drill; and (4) natural gas production from federal lands is at an all time high, the House energy bill, H.R. 6, contains many objectionable provisions that elevate oil and gas development to the dominant use of our western public lands and private land underlain by federal minerals.

The Senate should exclude these measures from its energy bill.  They are environmentally damaging and unnecessary to assure development of domestic oil and gas resources.

For more information contact:
Dave Alberswerth, The Wilderness Society,  202-429-2695
Randy Moorman, Earthjustice, 202-667-4500
Sharon Buccino, NRDC, 202-289-6868
Emily Kaplan, USPIRG, 202-546-9707
Patty Larson, Western Organization of Resource Councils, 202-547-7040