Halliburton supported Energy bill that exempts disputed drilling process

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http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11676~1615677,00.html

Tucked inside an 800-page energy bill winding its way through Congress is a short section that would exempt from federal regulation a lucrative gas-drilling process perfected by the energy company Vice President Dick Cheney once ran, and still recieves money from.

The process, widely used across Colorado and the rest of the West, injects diesel fuel, hydrochloric acid or other additives into the ground to help boost production.Environmentalists say that could put drinking water at risk, and they want federal officials to have regulatory power to prevent problems and step in if water is contaminated. Alabama residents say the technique, called hydraulic fracturing, fouled drinking-water wells and unleashed a stench in homes.

"Waiting for damage to occur was not the intent of the Safe Drinking Water Act," said David Ludder of the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation. "(State) agencies have an interest in not finding contamination. They're interested in production, not protecting drinking water."Ludder in 1997 persuaded a federal appeals court to require the fluids used for hydraulic fracturing in Alabama to meet federal drinking-water standards.

Industry officials want to prevent the spread of federal regulation to places such as the Rocky Mountain West, a key region in President Bush's energy plan because 85 percent of the growth in production of coal-bed methane gas is expected to take place here in the next 10 years.The officials say there's no proof that hydraulic fracturing endangers drinking water and that regulation would drive up the price of gas for no good reason.

Officials of Halliburton Co., a Houston-based oil and gas giant that Cheney was running when Bush picked him as his running mate in 2000, say regulation is a threat to profits. The company fought regulation of hydraulic fracturing when Cheney was chief executive.
After Cheney took office and chaired the White House energy task force, his final report touted hydraulic fracturing as a way to deliver more clean-burning natural gas to the nation, although he did not ask Congress for an exemption. It left out any potential environmental hazards.

Steve Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said Halliburton and the oil and gas industry are enjoying the benefits of a Republican White House and Congress, to which they gave significant financial contributions."Campaign contributions are given with the intent of getting favors large and small," Weiss said. "The industry has had many of its issues addressed."

Cheney has sold his holdings in Halliburton, the world's biggest practitioner of hydraulic fracturing, but still receives some fixed financial payments from the company. Analysts say the process represents about 5 percent of the company's $12 billion total business.

Industry advocates point to an Environmental Protection Agency study that concluded hydraulic fracturing is unlikely to pollute drinking water. hat study, a two-year peer-reviewed inquiry, was opposed at first by the oil and gas industry. Now the industry uses the study, still in draft stage and being refined, to argue for total exemption.

In addition, they say, the EPA study didn't test groundwater itself; instead, it relied largely on the findings of state oil and gas commissions, traditionally dominated by industry. In Colorado, for example, five of the seven members of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission are from the industry.
Critics also said that, using the report's own figures, hydraulic fracturing puts the carcinogen benzene into groundwater at levels higher than drinking water standards allow.

And all experts who will review the study are from the oil and gas field. One is an employee of Halliburton. None has a background in toxicology or public health.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process designed to squeeze more gas out of the ground.
Crews pump water, sand and chemicals into the earth at high pressure to open fissures in the rock and let gas flow toward the well.
Environmental activists say the cracks made by hydraulic fracturing allow the chemicals to migrate toward drinking water.

Hydraulic fracturing, Peggy Hocutt said, fouled her drinking water in the west-central Alabama town of Adger in 1989, after a crew fractured a coal-bed methane well.
"I got huge black gobs of jelly, and the odor would knock you down," Hocutt said. "This nagging fear was always there about what we'd been exposed to." She said she suspects contaminated well water contributed to the serious health problems she has had since, including the colon disorder diverticulitis, bladder infections and breast cancer.

Across the Black Warrior River, Cynthia McMillian's parents were having similar problems at their home 20 miles north of Tuscaloosa.
A gas company put a well 700 feet from their water well. One day in September 1989, they said, their faucet started to hiss, and the water ran cloudy and oily for two days.
"You turn on the tap, and it's coming out black," McMillian said.


Halliburton, one of only three global companies that perform hydraulic fracturing, is the only one lobbying on the issue.

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall offered only this statement: "We are following this issue along with many others in the energy bill."

But in testimony in Alabama in 1999, Halliburton's vice president for production enhancement, Jerry Borges, said federal regulation would do little to protect the environment.

"It also violates the intent of the Safe Drinking Water Act by impeding the development of oil and gas production," he said.

When Bush, a former oilman like Cheney, took office, hydraulic fracturing became a hot topic. Cheney's energy task force discussed fracturing in an April 3, 2001, meeting in Cheney's ceremonial office, according to a General Accounting Office report. Cheney won't say if he or his staff met with Halliburton, and he has gone to court to block release of any such information to the public.

The result, the Bush administration's National Energy Plan, described hydraulic fracturing as "one of the fastest-growing sources of gas production." Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise emphasized that the report did not ask Congress for action.

"It was only cited as an example of a new technology," Millerwise said. "There was no mention of fracturing in recommendations sent to the Hill."

The report anticipated "added controls" for hydraulic fracturing, but that now seems unlikely. Tauzin, the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, included the total federal exemption in his energy bill, which has passed the House. It's likely to be supported by Republican senators who will help write the final version.

Yet there hasn't been a hearing in Congress to examine whether hydraulic fracturing can pollute drinking water or threaten health.

Halliburton made more than $700,000 in political contributions since 1998, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, with 95 percent of the money going to Republicans.

The oil and gas industry contributed $58 million for the 2000 and 2002 elections, about 78 percent to Republicans.

"Contributions don't necessarily buy decisions; they buy access," said Weiss, the Center for Responsive Politics' spokesman. "The oil and gas industry has had access and has gotten results."

The congressional exemption would wipe out the many years of legal work by McMillian and the environmental group that helped her, but she hasn't written her congressman or lobbied to stop it. She says she's just too tired.

"After a while, you get tired of barking into the wind," she said.


DUers, are we too tired to pursue this?



Wyoming Republicans Sen. Craig Thomas and Rep. Barbara Cubin are among a handful of congressional members selected to hash out final details of a national energy bill. Thomas is one of seven Republican senators on the House-Senate conference committee, which will begin meeting next week to work out key differences between the Senate and House versions of the far-reaching bill.
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2003/09/07/news/wyoming/98a0a0174b44fc2a571d482abebdef66.txt


sorry for the dupe of jenm's timely post

[papau]

1. Why exempt rather than regulate? - ground water is bad if very deep

salty with poisons -

There should be a depth that effectively means hydraulic fracturing is not making it much worse (2 miles min. perhaps)

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2. I would rather they just stop

Democratic Senator Bingaman said."Until we get a credible case that there's a problem, we didn't want to see a proliferation of lawsuits,"

So the supporters are content to wait for a catastrophe, short of that they assert the practice is safe.

Among the chemicals are toxic solvents such as benzene and thiourea, which, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, can cause goiter, liver, blood and respiratory damage, and is "a possible human carcinogen."

It is not unreasonable to expect that over time, these chemicals will find their way into a water system. Land shifts, erodes. These chemicals may not disappear. In, Vietnam Agent Orange lies beneath the soil and was seemingly innocuous until some future geological event allowed it to seep into the groundwater. Also, future land use and development projects may not account for the presense of these materials in the ground. Although I don't know the length of time these chemicals might remain in particles, I imagine it would relate to the amount introduced.

[papau]

3. Funding a study would seem logical - unless you're afraid of the results

Indeed giving the EPA the power to regulate hydraulic fracturing if the study shows that to be wise would seem the way to go - since Congress keeps a veto right on any regulation that the EPA proposes.

Now why that can not be the compromise is a question for the GOP and the GOP-Lite-Dems.

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4. Is this a new study that you want?

"Industry advocates point to an Environmental Protection Agency study that concluded hydraulic fracturing is unlikely to pollute drinking water. hat study, a two-year peer-reviewed inquiry, was opposed at first by the oil and gas industry. Now the industry uses the study, still in draft stage and being refined, to argue for total exemption."

I'm for a new study. But who has credibility on this issue?

Whose EPA? Whitman's? Levitt's? Sigh...
With the Republicans in control of that agency it should be renamed 'The Industry Protection from Environmental Regulations Agency'

I have no faith or trust in this administration.