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Obama Administration Must Say No to Industry Loopholes in Natural Gas Fracking Standards
Natural gas development is spreading like wildfire across the country. Energy companies have drilled more than 75,000 wells in the past five years, many of them on farmlands, near public schools, and in people’s backyards. These wells release benzene and other chemicals known to cause cancer. Yet energy companies aren’t obligated to clean up any of the pollution they put into the air we breathe.
The Obama administration is poised to change that.
It is about to establish the first-ever national limits on air pollution coming from natural gas wells, especially from wells that are fracked. This would be a major first step in protecting public health and create real improvements for families living in the midst of natural gas fields.
But the oil and gas industry is clamoring for loopholes in these safeguards—loopholes that would make it easy for them to continue polluting. NRDC has fought hard for strong air standards, and we will be watching to make sure the safeguards issued next week are not watered down with industry-friendly exemptions.
Now is the time to hold energy companies accountable for the pollution they create. For far too long, they have run roughshod over the health and well being of American communities and ordinary people are paying the price.
A new study by researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health found that air pollution from natural gas fracking sites increased the risk of significant health problems for people living near drill pads. The toxins detected in the air included natural-gas-related chemicals linked to headaches, asthma symptoms, childhood leukemia, and other cancers. The dangers increased for people living within a half-mile of natural gas drill pads, yet Colorado lets companies sink wells up to 150 feet of people’s homes.
People living near wells have told me they are afraid to let their children play outside. Others have described strong chemical odors coming from drill pads and reported fumes that have left them with burning noses, heart palpitations, and headaches. No one wants to deal with these threats in their own homes and backyards.
The good news is that proven solutions exist to reduce the pollution coming from drill pads and other equipment. A large amount of pollution rushes out of a well in the first few days after a well has been fracked or refracked. Through a process called green completion, companies can capture the fumes in truck-mounted portable tanks, separate out the methane and other hydrocarbons—the main ingredients in natural gas—and sell them for a profit.
NRDC experts analyzed green completion and nine other pollution control measures and found them to be practical and profitable. In our new report, Leaking Profits, we show that if companies employed these solutions, they would keep hundreds of thousands of tons of dangerous contaminants out of the air and increase the gas industry’s profits by $2 billion a year.
Colorado and Wyoming have required green completion for several years and still those states have experienced enormous growth in natural gas drilling. Clearly standards to protect our health do not limit production.
And yet the industry is fighting tooth and nail to block or water down any national standards. The American Petroleum Institute and other lobbying groups have complained about the forthcoming limits on air pollution and have demanded broad exceptions that would render the limits nearly meaningless. But the API complaints are overblown and the industry can easily comply with the new rules. As my colleague David Doniger wrote in a recent post, the industry wants an exemption that swallows the rule.
The American people have grown tired of the industry’s refusal to clean up its mess. According to a survey by Bloomberg last month, over three times as many Americans say there should be more regulation of natural gas fracking.
The natural gas industry wants to position itself as a cleaner alternative to coal, but it will face new battles in each new community it enters unless it becomes a more responsible actor and embraces environmental and public health safeguards. It’s not enough to be a hair better than coal.
And the Obama administration must do its part by putting much stronger safeguards in place. The air pollution standards that we hope will be finalized next week are in important start. But we will continue to press for additional safeguards to better protect Americans from the toxic, smog-forming, and climate-changing pollution from oil and gas production.
In the meantime, we will monitor the April 17 release. We will welcome strong curbs on pollution from fracking and we will oppose any loopholes that make it easier for energy companies to dirty our air.
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36 Comments so far
Show AllJust what we need, another "Obama Must" article. Haven't these Obama "Hopers" figured it out yet? The only thing Obama must do is exactly what he was hired to do. And that has no relation to anything that might improve life for anyone but the corporate elite.
"...the Obama administration must do its part by putting much stronger safeguards in place."
Don't hold your breath Frances. And those loopholes you mention earlier in your article were, no doubt, designed in from the get go. "...the first-ever national limits on air pollution coming from natural gas wells" will turn out to be the usual Obama front for the con which eventually allows the natural gas industry to do whatever it pleases.
What a deep slumber progressives seem to be in regarding ObamaCon, Wizard of Guile. What will it take to wake them up?
"jmowrey"
I agree.
In reality, Obama is not so much a "wizard" as he is a polished lever in the so-called Free market machinery of corporate greed and domination which feeds upon the drugged sleepers.
Attracting boatloads of corporate cash to the Democratic Party is the only thing Obama MUST do to keep his job.
Just what we need, another "Obama Must" article.
Yup, and generally I don't even bother reading them anymore.
Ditto, and proud of it. One can only take so much campaign bullshite before nausea sets in.
I cannot help but feel sorry for those like this author who refuses to learn from the past three plus years of Obama's corporatist sellouts or the past decades of the democratic Party's inability, or unwillingness, to forego the money from corporations and do the right thing for all Americans.
"The U.S. government may decide as soon as next week on LNG’s request to build the $10B plant (in Louisiana) that would be the largest in the U.S. to liquefy gas and load it onto ocean-going tankers." http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/lng
Long and short "puts" on LNG for EXPORT being derived from 75,000 (+?) fracking boom sees investor advisories that hail the volatility of the market as near-monopoly hay making saying nothing about environmental, legal, human rights, etc.
The blinkered security world of global hedge funds and share holder 'citizenship' has become juggernaut
The comments have it right. This article reminds me of the way the Sierra Club used to send snail/electronic spam asking us to tell Bush in 2004 to stop gutting the environment. They didn't help Ralph Nader, a true candidate for environmental reform, at all and it continues to be an act of dishonor to treat real helpers such as Rocky Anderson whose environmental activism was applied while mayor of SLC as non-viable and give him or other third party progressives like him no mention or credit. Interestingly, I went to NRDC and tried to find any mention of Rocky Anderson, Jill Stein, or Stewart Alexander. Nada, zilch. Sure, a some rosy talk about corporations cooperating with other countries in going green which I suspect is greenwashing behind the scenes. No wonder Ralph Nader was right when he complained rightfully so about "environmentalists" compromising from supporting the wrong candidates and parties to caving in to the polluting corporations.
Max, thanks for some serious ugly truth. It is disturbing isn't it? It's bad enough we got betrayed by the man who promised change, but the continual betrayal by so-called progressive organizations continues to be just disturbing. I might throw in the lack of effort by the ACLU on the NDAA and 4th Amend. gutting.
Cheer up, Stonepig. Here's a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark and cloudy sky.
http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-detention-ndaa-aclu-303/
ok pollyanna...cheer up my ass...this country is now in the throes of death and you suggest cheering up??? ARE YOU NUTS? Or in a bubble.
I smoke and drink and protest. BooYah.
And the piece by the ACLU, I have heard words words words , it's time for action action action.
Betrayals and letdowns are everywhere and at all levels. Hell, in months of travelling to every big city across the nation, I find a pattern of metros always facing budget cuts while "management" gets richer. Who pays for it? Why the customers in form of fare hikes and less routes and longer waits without doubt. Even more disturbing is finding out that some of the money being collected is going towards secretly funding the frackers. I know, it's much worse than watching the Sierra club flying all over and burning fuel when they should be using video conferencing. All this and yet another "please tell Obama ..." droopy and sappy article.
I doubt very much that Obama would say no to ANY industry, let alone the energy industry and certainly not in an election year (he always has a good excuse for being a rightie in disguise). Send O another fawning letter pleading for truth, justice and the American Way Frances. Get US all to sign it! On the other hand, We could all go Abbie Hoffman. Does anyone remember "Steal This Book"? Abbie got the attention of 'the man'. I always thought that he was on to something big.
Steal this book, free as it was meant to be:
http://www.semantikon.com/StealThisBookbyAbbieHoffman.pdf
Oh, "must" he. As an elementary school teacher talking to student who didn't do his homework assignment from yesterday says........................"Now he must put on his thinking cap...."
Very funny, and true. Ask 10 strangers today if they even know what fracking is, better yet, college kids. More disturbing.
College kids might give you an answer you did not expect.
The ones I have asked knew nothing.
Yeah, I expect nothing from Obama except more dancing around real solutions, if there are any truly real ones, and more capitulation to the big mmoneyed powers that put him-and keep him-in place. The fracking will go on and God help those poor SOB's that are in the way and must inhale the by-product of this destruction. In fact that means God help us all, because we are ALL downhill of this nightmare known as Fracking...
Just what we need more regulations driving our energy prices higher.
Your future looks bleak, Billy.
And anyone living in the economy, maybe even you piggy, lol.
Oh ...snap. And don't call me piggy, it is derogatory to you and has nothing to do with the issue. You obviously have a larger carbon footprint than many of us because you are worried about the prices...instead of your children's future, the health of the world, and whether the world will even survive the extensive release of CH4 into the environment due to fracking.
Call us when your water catches on fire...oh, wait, you don't want anyone doing something about it.
Spoken like a real troglodyte. Energy companies thrive on such idiocy. When California rate payers were ripped off blind, including many businesses that had to shut their doors because of the gaming of those markets by Enron, et al, it is my guess that you were one of the tools, or fools, that were claiming that the huge spikes in prices and the blackouts were caused by "them thar environmentalists".
Yep, it's those darn old regulations that are driving prices up.Let's de-regulate everything and soon enough, it'll all be free. Please, go troll elsewhere. And don't for one minute blame the speculators and commodities traders for the high fuel prices....
The cartoon left to die on the newsroom floor...God looking over the earth all dead and done, says, "Told you not to frack with Mother Nature."
Yes, obama must 'listen' to the facts. Lets all go and hold up signs.
Lets be really learned about all the devastation. And 'educate' the people in power.
It's worked so great for thirty years, hasn't it?
Thank god we at least have occupy. A startling new face to face democracy that is ALSO so tired of this idea that you 'educate' the sociopaths in power...and thus things will magically change.
This natural gas boom is a really scary monster. Out to eat your neighborhoods and wild places, and pollute your ground water and shake the literal foundations of our crumbling society, all at the same time.
Hyperbole? Frack you.
We don't need hussein trying to ruin the gas production as well as our coal production and usage, he's done enough damage already.
seriously
Killing the messenger does not change the fact that the message is important.
What people do not seem to understand is that the argument that the gas is necessary to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is intended to distract us from realizing that the gas industry wants to be able to pollute a common resource (the air we breathe) without any repercussions. In effect, they are implicitly saying that they own the atmosphere and can do anything they want to with it because they are helping solve the energy problem.
A few years ago the Supreme Court (yes, that reactionary, right-wing-whacko court) ruled that the EPA has the authority to label CO2 as a pollutant. Surely, methane belongs to that category too.
"the argument that the gas is necessary to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is intended to distract us ... " It is also specious. Natural gas IS also a carbon based fossil fuel, sequested over millenia, whose burning will create CO2 and contribute to global warming. That is in addition to the unintentional release of gas and fracking chemicals directly into the air, soil and water in the fracking areas.
Hate to keep repeating myself, but all indicators point to the urgent necessity to move quickly to a system based on solar and wind, toward conservation, efficient architecture, public transportation etc.
Of course they want an exemption-- that way they can piously say to their opponents that they are following the law. Some of the stuff comming up is smelly but some of it like Radon has no odor and comes out more evenly and in greater amounts than expected because in Western PA we are sitting on low grade Uranium deposits. But hey, no need to wory about that-- it might take years to develop those kinds of cancers and by then the frackers might be gone. And the bromolated chloromethanes which can't be treated in your drinking water are deadly too but in such low concentrations that we can't taste or smell them either. This is the kind of polution the gas industries love-- and the politicians who take their money and the unions that argue it will mean more jobs-- to all these frack boosters I say breathe and drink your fill-- you asked for it.
Asking Obama to say no to industry insiders who profit enormously off the diminishment of humanity and the poor is tantamount to asking the Pope to renounce Catholicism.
What STANDARDS ?
"Obama Administration Must Say No to Industry Loopholes in Natural Gas Fracking Standards"
After purposefully abrogating ANY aspect of clean air and water acts, are you referring to the people's predilection of not having their tap water explode and burn their houses down ?
Are there really STANDARDS for that kind of thing ?
THE NEW GOLD STANDARD:
"greed at any cost"
------------------
BTW, I read elsewhere that the drillers add radioactive I-131 (deadly to humans), in order to track the effectiveness of their precision devastation, so as to better figure out next time to use even higher pressures, etc … to extract even greater gas reserves.
Keeping track of their successes in drilling & extracting, is so much more important STANDARD, than keeping track of the people killed or maimed, in the process -- right ?
This is a disappointing article. Not because of what Obama will or will not do. But because the author seems to think that all we need to do is establish pollution, health, and safety regulations without glaring loopholes (such as the "green completion") she talks about and everything is great with fracking.
I think it is becoming very clear that natural gas production through fracking, wherever it has been taking place (including Colorado and Wyoming) is a dangerous process and will probably end up being just as dirty as other fossil fuels. What about water? What about earthquakes? I understand about trying to improve a process to better protect people. But how about we just ban fracking all together.and protect the whole planet.
A sizeable carbon tax, enough to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions by about 6 per cent every year, is necessary to prevent atmospheric greenhouse effects rising to unstoppable levels. (NASA LINK http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha08510t.html )
{ . . .
"Humanity is now the dominant force driving changes of Earth's atmospheric composition and thus future climate. The principal climate forcing is carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel emissions, much of which will remain in the atmosphere for millennia. The climate response to this forcing and society's response to climate change are complicated by the system's inertia, mainly due to the ocean and the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. This inertia causes climate to appear to respond slowly to this human-made forcing, but further long-lasting responses may be locked in. We use Earth’s measured energy imbalance and paleoclimate data, along with simple, accurate representations of the global carbon cycle and temperature, to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially disastrous impacts on young people, future generations, and nature. We find that global CO2 emissions reduction of about 6%/year is needed, along with massive reforestation."
. . .}
This is a concensus scientific and optimistic view. It is optimistic because it assumes that politics still has some sense and rationality. It assumes a time frame thought to be left, to bring global carbon emissions down, to prevent a global warming killing. The minimum global warming prevention premium of 6% reduction is going up with every year of inaction, as will the real damage and insurance costs. The global climate fever is racking up.
Shale gas does not bring carbon emissions down signficantly. Its energy costs of extraction, and methane leakage, and its system effect of diverting time and money investment into renewable energy, make it a climate change disaster. As the resource runs out, the bankrupt corporations will behind an uncleanable toxic mess, while the profiteers will have escaped to cooler climes with all the money. At the very least, the carbon profits need to heavily taxed, to pay for permanent local land and water damage, and relatively permanent global climate change
The article goes on,
{ . . .
"The stark reality is that global emissions are accelerating and new efforts are underway to massively expand fossil fuel extraction, by oil drilling to increasing ocean depths, into the Arctic, and onto environmentally fragile public lands; squeezing of oil from tar sands and tar shale; hydro-fracking to expand extraction of natural gas; and increased mining of coal via mechanized longwall mining and mountain-top removal."
. . .}
To take action the government has to face down corporations with lots of money, and stop rich people telling big lies to each other.
{
. . .A situation in which scientific evidence cries out for action, but a political response is impeded by the financial power of special interests, suggests the possibility of an important role for the judiciary system. . .
. . .
Until there is a sustained and growing public involvement, it is unlikely that the needed fundamental change of direction can be achieved.
. . .
. . .
A broad public outcry may seem unlikely given the enormous resources of the fossil fuel industry, which allows indoctrination of the public with the industry's perspective. The merits of coal, of oil from tar sands and the deep ocean, of gas from hydrofracking are repeatedly extolled, all of these supposedly to be acquired with utmost care of the environment. Potential climate concerns are addressed, if at all, by discrediting climate science and scientists . . .
}
So we live in a fossil fuel dictatorship. Only by overthrowing the government, and installing science based climate policy, is there any hope for the next generations.