I told myself this couldn't be true: Big Oil and Gas is Exempt from Major Environmental Laws

[cali]

So, I was reading this:

Fracking is the slang term for hydraulic fracturing. It is the process of breaking apart (fracturing) dense shale rock in order to release the hydrocarbons (like gas and oil). A gel cocktail comprised of water, sand and chemicals referred to as fracking fluid is injected under high pressure into the rock deep underground, creating new fractures that allow access to deposits previously out of reach.

Interestingly, while Big Oil and Gas like to tell the public and the media that fracking is a safe technology that has been employed for decades, they also tell investors that drilling operations are inherently risky and include leaks, spills, explosions, blowouts, environmental damage, personal injury and death.

Fracking has been used for decades, but the scope and scale of fracking today has no precedent and is causing great alarm by those who are paying attention. Here are eight reasons why fracking is not good for you, your family, community or state.

(and snip, snip, snip, came to this):

4. The Halliburton Loop Hole. Thanks to sweetheart deals made with then Vice-President Dick Cheney, Big Oil & Gas are exempt from the Safe Drinking Water and the Clean Air Act. Yes, really.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-frightening-facts-about-fracking.html#

"What. The. Fuck." I said to myself and went to find out what the details are. How did I not know this? I feel like an idiot.


Home » Oil and Gas Exemptions from Federal Laws
Oil and Gas Exemptions from Federal Laws

The oil and gas industry enjoys exemptions from 7 environment federal laws as follows. For the history around this, please check out this link:
http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/resources/060211_earthworks_petroleumexemptions.pdf

This one also provides a great summary: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/03/us/20110303-natural-gas-timeline.html?_r=0

Safe Drinking Water Act

EPA considered hydraulic fracturing as exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act following the act’s passage in 1974 (LEAF v. EPA 1997, EPA Fracturing Final 2004). The act sets standards and requires permits for the underground injection of hazardous substances so that these materials do not endanger Underground Sources of Drinking Water (SDWA 2008).

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

This law sets standards for disclosure and safety in handling hazardous waste, for reducing such waste and for developing non-toxic alternatives (RCRA 2008). In 1988, the EPA and Congress agreed not to apply RCRA to oil and gas wastes, overriding objections from some officials at EPA after the agency had documented 62 cases in which oil and gas wastes had caused damage. Two EPA officials told the Associated Press that the exemption was granted due to industry pressure, a charge that EPA administrators denied (Dixon 1988).

Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (TRI)

Oil and gas is exempt from the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986. The act requires companies to report the release of significant levels of toxic substances to EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The Oil and Gas Accountability Project, a reform organization, has said that the law would likely apply to benzene, toluene and xylene, chemicals often used in oil and gas drilling (OGAP Exemptions 2008).

Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act sets standards for stormwater discharge. However, oil and gas is exempt from this act despite the potential for significant runoff from thousands of well pads, pipelines and other infrastructure. In 1987, Congress added amendments to the Clean Water Act requiring EPA to develop a permitting program for stormwater runoff. These amendments exempted oil and gas exploration, production, processing or treatment operations, and transmission facilities. However, the EPA considered the standards to apply to construction facilities. Beginning in 1992, the EPA required stormwater permits for oil and gas construction facilities of five acres or more. In the 2005 Energy Bill, Congress extended the exemption to all oil and gas construction facilities (Clean Water Act 2008, EPA NPDES 2006, W&WNews 2006).

Clean Air Act

This law limits emissions of nearly 190 toxic air pollutants, including many emitted by oil and gas companies (Mall et al. 2007, Clean Air Act 2008).

For major sources of air pollution, a company must install the maximum level of pollution control for hazardous emissions that is technically achievable by the cleanest facilities in an industry sector. Smaller sources of emissions grouped together that produce pollution above certain thresholds are generally covered by the act. This aggregation requirement is designed to protect the public from smaller sources that might be relatively harmless on their own but collectively release of large quantities of toxic substances. However, drilling sites are not treated as an aggregated unit under this program (Mall et al. 2007, Clean Air Act).

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) holds most industries accountable for cleaning up hazardous waste. The act, passed in 1980 and amended in 1986, allows the federal government to respond to releases of hazardous substances that threaten human health or the environment. It created a trust fund known as “Superfund” to be used to clean up contaminated sites; the fund is financed via taxes on the chemical and petroleum industries. Congress has since abolished the taxes and pays for the fund through general revenues. As a result, the fund is too small to meet cleanup goals. Yet the liability exemption for drilling companies remains (Mall et al. 2007, CERCLA 2008).

Superfund allows Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) to be held liable for clean-up costs for a release or threatened release of a “hazardous substance.” But the law defines this term to exclude oil and natural gas (CERCLA 2008).

National Environmental Policy Act

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), enacted in 1969, exempts certain oil and gas drilling activities, obviating the need to conduct environmental impact statements (EIS) (BLM 2008).

The exemption, enacted by Congress in 2005, effectively shifts the burden of proof to the public to prove that such activities would be unsafe. In 2006 and 2007, the BLM granted this exemption to about 25 percent of all wells approved on public land in the West (BLM Budget 2009).

The activities thus exempted include:

(1) Individual surface disturbances of less than 5 acres so long as the total surface disturbance on the lease is not greater than 150 acres and site-specific analysis in a document prepared pursuant to NEPA has been previously completed.
(2) Drilling an oil or gas well at a location or well pad site at which drilling has occurred previously within 5 years prior to the date of spudding the well.
(3) Drilling an oil or gas well within a developed field for which an approved land use plan or any environmental document prepared pursuant to NEPA analyzed such drilling as a reasonably foreseeable activity, so long as such plan or document was approved within 5 years prior to the date of spudding the well.
(4) Placement of a pipeline in an approved right-of-way corridor, so long as the corridor was approved within 5 years prior to the date of placement of the pipeline.
(5) Maintenance of a minor activity, other than any construction or major renovation or a building or facility (NEPA 2009).

http://www.eastbocounited.org/oil-and-gas-exemptions-from-federal-laws/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exemptions_for_hydraulic_fracturing_under_United_States_federal_law

[cali]

1. I'm going to kick this and hope I get some responses.

[broiles]

18. Also will kick.

[Coyotl]

29. Google "Halliburton Exception"

[cali]

63. Oh, believe me, I did. first thing. when I seize on something, I research the ever loving

shit out of it.

[Coyotl]

67. Corruption at its finest, passing a law to exclusively benefit one corporation, Cheney's

[calimary]

59. Kicking this, too.

People need to know this stuff. Updated TOLL FREE Capitol Hill switchboard numbers conveniently located here in my sig line.

[raven mad]

2. Welcome to Alaska.

Sorry, it just seemed apt.

[DURHAM D]

3. IIRC Senator Obama voted for the Halliburton Loop Hole. nt

[jsr]

30. Obama (D-IL), Yea

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00213
Energy Policy Act of 2005

[DURHAM D]

32. And the NAYS -

NAYs ---26
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dodd (D-CT)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sununu (R-NH)
Wyden (D-OR)

[Scuba]

4. When you own the government, you get to choose which rules apply.

[ReRe]

31. Too many "get-out-of-jail-free" cards. n/t

[sakabatou]

5. K&R

[H2O Man]

6. Yep.

Dick Cheney pushed this as a "national security" issue. And it really is, though in the exact opposite manner than he argued.

[malthaussen]

15. Now, that depends on your definition of "national," H2O man.

For Dick's "nation," it is "national security" in exactly the sense he argued. For our nation... well, the lawmakers don't really much care about our nation, do they?

-- Mal

[spanone]

7. those are the very industries that the laws were enacted for!!!

insanity. the dick cheney legacy.

[freebrew]

65. It's Dick Cheney, LLC...

a wholly owned subsidiary of the BFEE.

[cali]

66. But it's not just Dick Cheney. Not by a long shot.

[appal_jack]

8. massive k&r. nt

[Champion Jack]

9. Closing the Halliburton loophole should be of paramount importance to ...

everyone who likes and needs clean water

[DURHAM D]

12. The Democrats can not use this given the current occupant of the WH. nt

[cali]

14. they should use it.

the should be making fracking a big issue

[DURHAM D]

23. Exactly.

But Dems are compromised.

[ProSense]

33. That's absurd

"But Dems are compromised. "

What's to stop Democrats from addressing this?

[DURHAM D]

34. I think you have lost focus. nt

[ProSense]

37. I think you're focusing on Hillary. n/t

[DURHAM D]

38. Now I am certain you are lost. ????

[zeemike]

39. Thousands and thousands of dollars in campaign funds.

And thousands and thousands of campaign funds for their opponent if they don't tow the mark.

That is the reality.

[truedelphi]

48. Have you not ever heard of former Governor Ed Rendell?

He was the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, and now he is one of the Top Big Dawgs in the world of Texas fracking.

He will be able to leave a nice estate to his offspring.

And many Democratic "leaders" would not mind following in his footsteps.

[ProSense]

16. Why not?

Here's a good NRDC post on the overall situation:

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ksinding/its_a_question_we_have.html

[cali]

20. that's a very interesting article- and very harsh on the admin

and not answering a letter from NRDC's "big gun", Frances Beinecke, is very interesting.

from the blog piece:

<snip>

By the end of 2013, we still hadn’t received an answer to that letter. But in December, the IG did release a report about the Texas investigation. As my colleague Amy Wall pointed out, that report made clear that “…the overall risk faced by current and future area residents has not been determined.” The IG found that the agency had not violated its regulations or policies in backing away from these investigations, but it didn’t offer any real justification for the agency’s actions.

On January 10, McCarthy answered NRDC’s September 13 letter. In that response, the administrator cited the December IG report’s finding: EPA had withdrawn its emergency order because the agency had reached an agreement with the company, Range Resources; the costs of litigation would be too high; and “immediate human health risks were believed to have been addressed.” But McCarthy’s response was anything but reassuring.

In all three cases, the EPA argued unconvincingly that, as long as citizens in the contaminated areas had other sources of safe water, the agency did not have to pursue further the origins of the contamination. If it weren’t so disturbing, that argument would be laughable. We need to know what’s causing the contamination, how widespread the health danger is, and what can be done to remedy the environmental damage.

<snip>

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ksinding/its_a_question_we_have.html

[DURHAM D]

12. Double post - have not seen this in a long time. nt

[madamesilverspurs]

10. "There's no such thing as the Halliburton loophole".

That's what they keep telling us, it's one of their favorite refrains. "They" are the companies responsible for the 20K+ wells in our county, including more than 700 within our city limits. Their financial heft is sufficient to own our county commission and city council; our health department this week disputed the otherwise well-regarded study that shows rising incidence of fetal anomolies when pregnant women live in proximity to fracking wells.

My visit with my lung doctor yesterday produced very interesting conversation. He's damned livid about the comments from the health department, and he joined me in wondering why the head of that department was absent from the comments. Conveniently for the oil companies, doctors are not required to report increasing rates of asthma or any other potentially fracking-related illness, thus making it easier for complicit officials to make claims of 'no relationship.'

Oil money buys a lot of suckage.

[They_Live]

22. fetal anomolies = lives and families destroyed

How is this different than "terrorists with a dirty bomb", exactly? This pollution is outrageous and a slap in the face of generations who have fought to protect our country.

[Enthusiast]

42. A lot of suckage was purchased that day but we all remained sad anyway.

The end.

[raouldukelives]

11. Gotta protect the shareholders at all costs. Too bad those costs are now our lives. nt

[malthaussen]

17. Eh, our lives have always been part of the cost of doing business.

The difference, I'd say, is that more often now it isn't just the workers whose lives are part of the cost.

-- Mal

[hootinholler]

19. Lots of people missed that one

There were a number of boulder threads here on the DU at the time.

Boulder Thread: One that sinks like a huge rock.

[truebluegreen]

21. I'd say this is unbelievable, except it isn't.

But for me it does answer the question as to whether we have tipped over the edge into a fascist state, i.e. a union of corporate and government interests.

While many of us have been focussed on social issues, our elected officials have sold us all down the river (and I use that phrase will full awareness of its historical implications).

[Phlem]

24. And they get subsidies to boot.

An excellent business model.



-p

[Bacchus4.0]

25. somewhat misleading. The Clean Water Act regulates all types of pollutants and NEPA

regulations for federal agencies all contain exemptions from having to undergo addtional environmental analysis and produce documentation. Example, Federal Highways exempts resurfacing (repaving) highways from undergoing analysis but widening a highway would have to undergo significant environmental analysis.

The Clean Water Act defines pollutants and regulates discharge of those pollutants into water but water itself is not a pollutant. There is runoff from your house too after it rains , but you normally aren't required to treat the stormwater on your property before discharging into the drainage system.


Many of the exemptions come from industry itself of course, but there are all kinds of exemptions to environmnetal laws for a variety of industries particularly if the impact is considered small.

[watoos]

28. That's not the way I remebered

how it went down. I remember when Cheney met with ??????? corporate heads of the oil and gas industry, I imagine, behind closed doors at the White House. Even the logs that were supposed to reveal the names of the visitors was never revealed.
People like T.Boone Pickens most likely helped write our energy policies for Cheney.

[erronis]

51. Absolutely - this is the smoking gun

This is where the whole idea of the black government (black means that they might be elected but are serving other interests) really took over. Cheney and his buddies decided how to further the petro interests (including the Bush family, natch).

This was not a fact-finding, opern-government type of confab - it was essentially "how to reap the windfall that grabbing the Oval Office gave us." I can imagine a few snickers when talking about the suckers out there.

Since we now know that every communication, no matter how secret/encrypted, is recorded by our Little Brethren in Fort Meade, perhaps they'll send the US taxpayers a present of the voice/meta/transcripts of these closed door meetings. C'mon, there's got to be at least one more conscientous individual working there...

[Sunlei]

26. sad isn't it.

[DeSwiss]

27. EPA = Environmental Profiting Agency

- They don't even have to disclose exactly what's in the fracking fluid they're pumping into the ground because its has been ruled a trade secret. So even if you're dying from it, they don't have to tell anyone what they're dying from.

K&R

[ProSense]

36. There's a solution

"A = Environmental Profiting Agency"

...support efforts to kill it.

A few key votes gives you an idea of Landrieu's stance:

• She voted to approve the Keystone XL pipeline
  
• She was one of 4 Democrats who voted to permanently strip the EPA of its authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions and veto the agency's scientific finding that climate change threatens public health and welfare.
  
• She was one of 4 Democrats to vote against eliminating fossil fuel subsidies
  
• She was one of 6 Democrats who urged Obama to give up on getting a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate in 2009, but that was because it was an election year

- more -

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/25501

[DeSwiss]

46. The government has ceased to exist for us, the living.

And so it has now become a zombie, one that does the bidding of even greater monsters than itself. It spies upon us. It allows its Master's minions to poison the well, the air and the very food we eat, maiming and killing us and future generations to come. Or to not come. They have become the living dead that walk among us, scaring the living daylights out of all who defy them or who are the victims de jour.

Pro, I loves ya, but it ain't happening. We ain't gonna clean it up, fix it, nor repair it. Sometimes things wear out and simply have to be replaced. I know your heart is in the right place. There was a time we were more simpatico as to the path we should follow. Not anymore. We're in the right place, discussing the right things. So there's that. And no matter how much we may tick each other off from time-to-time here at DU, it's all good. It means we haven't grown moribund and set in our thinking. Yet.

But these institutions that we created two centuries ago cannot match the exponential evolution (often mutations) into what it has become. And while many (I know you do) believe that we have to continue to work with what we've got, I believe that we have to do the exact opposite of that. It's time for that paradigm shift we've heard so much about all these years, to make its appearance.

- Don't you think?

[truedelphi]

49. Yes our agencies are zombie agencies, totally working their will for the

Last edited Tue Feb 11, 2014, 07:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Good of the One Percent.

And until the fall of 2011, or 2012 (forget which,) the EPA had some decent mid level managers who were looking into the fracking situation and using gas spectography to examine the fluids. That way, families who had been injured or even killed, they could have a court case stating that the analysis of fluids taken from the drilling spots had shown upon analysis to match "Fingerprint" by "Fingerprint" the characteristics of various toxins. So the families could win large settlements in court.

Then suddenly word was out that the EPA needed to quit doing this. And mid level folks at the EPA found themselves counting banker boxes down in the basement of the EPA.


OF course as soon as we get a Democratic Resident in the Oval Office, surely this will change!

[DeSwiss]

50. An Oval Office resident who prefers being elected as a Democrat......

...is possible, just so long as they see themselves and act like an 80s Republican.

- Because those are only kind of Democrats allowed in there......

[RAM49]

35. ANOTHER FAST TRACK 'EXECUTION'

This required super-majorities in the house and senate... it got 68 senators.
including President Obama...and the reason you never heard about it...
was by design! There was a silent message sent to the American People with this
legislation... it says... FRACK YOU AMERICA, AND YOUR CHILDREN, AND YOUR
CHILDRENS' CHILDREN...FRACK YOU ALL FOREVERMORE AND NEVERTHELESS !

The ultimate form of voter suppression...is death...dead people don't ordinarialy
vote...unless they're Republitards...they make me sick

[bullwinkle428]

40. K&R. This is that evil bastage Cheney's most enduring legacy.

[Enthusiast]

41. The wealthy fat cats get anything they want.

But, then, I wouldn't want to be a purist and alienate any new Democrats that might feel differently.

[blackspade]

43. Those that write the rules....

Rule.

[sabrina 1]

44. The TPP leaks from Wikileaks show that any Environmental laws we have in place are likely to not

apply to Foreign/Global Corporations. No wonder they are in a rush to get this in place.

I am SURE Democrats will never allow that to happen, now that they know SOME of what they have been hiding. Because we know for sure that Republicans are definitely going to be on board with any Corporate Friendly, anti-Environment legislation.

[grahamhgreen]

45. As well as getting huge tax breaks:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/05/12/208079/the-facts-of-big-oils-tax-loopholes-and-windfall-profits/

The cost of Big Oil’s loopholes

$4 billion: Cost of Big Oil tax breaks in 2011.
$2 billion: Cost of Big Oil tax breaks eliminated by S. 940.
$77 billion: Cost of Big Oil tax breaks from 2011 to 2021.

Big Oil profits pile up

$902 billion: Total profits for the five biggest oil companies in the United States, 2001-2010 (in 2011 dollars).
$32 billion: Total Big Oil earnings, first quarter of 2011. Exxon Mobil alone accounted for $10.7 billion of that figure.
38 percent: Big Oil’s first-quarter-2011 profit increase over the first quarter of 2010.
28 percent: Increase in gasoline prices compared to 2010.
53 percent: Portion of their profits that both Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips spent repurchasing stock to drive up their companies’ share values in the first quarter of 2011.
$8 billion: The amount of first-quarter profits the big five companies spent on stock buybacks.

Low effective tax rates for Exxon Mobil

17.6 percent: Average effective federal corporate tax rate paid by Exxon Mobil, 2008-2010.
20.4 percent: Average American individual federal effective tax rate in 2007 (the last year of available data).

Oil campaign cash and votes to close loopholes

$273,500: Big Oil campaign contributions to Republican senators and representatives in the first quarter of 2011.
$7,000: Big Oil campaign contributions to Democratic senators and representatives in the first quarter of 2011.
2: House Republicans who voted to cut tax loopholes for Big Oil during debate on H.R. 1230.
147: House Democrats who voted to cut tax loopholes for Big Oil during debate on H.R. 1230.
0: House Democrats who voted for $30 billion in Medicare cuts in the FY 2012 budget resolution that was passed by the House on April 15.
4: Republicans who voted against $30 billion in Medicare cuts in the FY 2012 budget.
44: Senators who voted to close Big Oil tax loopholes and use savings to offset health care costs.

Public supports ending tax breaks

66 percent: The proportion of Americans who say gas prices are taking a toll on their personal finances, according to a recent CNN poll.
74 percent: The proportion of Americans who favor “eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industry,” according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey.
2-to-1: The margin by which “Republican voters support ending subsidies” for oil companies.

What oil tax dollars could buy

$21 billion reduction in the federal budget deficit by enactment of the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act (S. 940), which would close tax loopholes for the big five oil companies over the next 10 years.
$30 billion for Medicare if tax loopholes were eliminated for all Big Oil companies. This would offset the Medicare cuts in the fiscal year 2012 budget resolution that was passed by the House on April 15.
$1 billion could pay the salaries of 18,000 high school teachers earning an average of $55,000 per year.
$1 billion could pay for 251,000 Pell Grants to aspiring college students. These grants are essential to help these scholars pay for tuition, and averaged $3,984 apiece in 2011.

[TRoN33]

47. These states with major fracking are so...

Fucked.

[joshcryer]

52. fracking fluid can literally be any fluid

so out can be used to dump toxic waste

[KT2000]

53. public participation

is needed to fight this and reframe environmental regulations as public health issues.
Places to start building a knowledge base to fight this disregard for human health:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024483122

[woo me with science]

54. K&R

[ut oh]

55. ouch...

seriously...

[Vashta Nerada]

56. Why am I not surprised?

K&R for exposure.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

57. How's that saying go?

The only thing that Environmental Acts regulate are the environmentalists.

[cali]

62. jaysus. that's a depressing thought

[blkmusclmachine]

58. Laws are for dummies

[AZ Progressive]

60. Time to wake up as to how bad corruption is in America

If you saw Gasland you'd have seen it explain just that.

[cantbeserious]

61. Kick And Recommend

eom

[RandiFan1290]

64. Silly liberals should've voted in 2010!

F*%k Nader!!1!