Oil- and coal-backed groups far outpace Obama, allies on energy ads

By Neela Banerjee

8:16 AM CDT, April 14, 2012

WASHINGTON -- Energy has become a touchstone issue in the presidential race, and groups backed by oil and coal dollars have spent far more money on ads bashing the president’s record than the Obama campaign and its allies have spent defending it, according to a new analysis by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think tank.

Relying on the groups' own announcements and data provided to press clients by Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group, the Center’s Climate Progress blog calculated that in the first 3-1/2 months of 2012, “groups including Americans for Prosperity, American Petroleum Institute, Crossroads GPS, and American Energy Alliance have spent $16,750,000 on energy attack ads.”

In comparison, the Obama campaign and an affiliated "super PAC," Priorities USA, “have spent at least $1.67 million defending the president’s energy record,” the analysis reported.

The numbers could already be out of date, and both sides have likely spent more since those announcements were made, said Elizabeth Wilner, vice president of Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads by issue.

With the economic recovery weak, gas prices high and Mideast politics threatening to send them even higher, Obama’s opponents are battering him on energy policies they maintain have contributed to pain at the pump.  The Obama campaign has rolled out ads in defense. As a result, five of seven general election commercials airing in key swing states like Ohio, Virginia and Florida are about energy, according to Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-pn-oil-and-coalbacked-groups-far-outpace-obama-on-energy-ads-20120413,0,452349.story

Fossil-fuel subsidies are the real job killers

By Brendan Smith and May Boeve

Original source: http://grist.org/fossil-fuels/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-the-real-job-killers/

How many lobbyists does it take to defend billions in subsidies for one of the most profitable industries in the world? 786. That’s the size of the army that oil and gas companies maintain in Washington to strong-arm Congress into bankrolling an industry that is cutting jobs and literally fueling the climate crisis. This army is bigger than Congress itself, which has only 535 members.

Last year, Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee decided to investigate Big Oil’s jobs claims — and it turns out the industry has gone on a firing spree in recent years. They discovered that despite generating $546 billion in profits between 2005 and 2010, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP reduced their U.S. workforce by 11,200 employees over that period. In 2010 alone, the top five oil companies slashed their global workforce by 4,400 employees — the same year executives paid themselves nearly $220 million. But at least those working in the industry as a whole get paid high wages, right? Turns out that 40 percent of U.S oil-industry jobs consist of minimum-wage work at gas stations.

With job numbers like these, it is no wonder the fossil-fuel industry needs to spend millions ensuring they are not branded as “job killers.” As Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said, “Oil companies that make record profits and then cut American jobs strain their own credibility when they claim to be huge job-creators.”

And it gets worse. In what must rank as one of the greatest boondoggles in history, Big Oil is leveraging its taxpayer subsidies to rake in profits that, in the words of The New York Times, are “being continuously recycled to win the support of pliable legislators [and] underwrite misleading advertising campaigns.”

There is also a bigger, far more insidious way that Big Oil is killing jobs and undermining our economy: The industry remains hell-bent on denying climate change and obstructing climate action.

But the planet appears to be running a campaign of its own to persuade Americans that the oil lobby is leading us ever closer to economic ruin. Over the last year alone, hurricanes, floods, and droughts have had a devastating effect on American jobs. After tornadoes hit the area around Tuscaloosa, Ala., in April of last year, more than 6,000 people applied for disaster-related unemployment benefits. In Vermont, the number of workers filing unemployment claims went from 731 before Hurricane Irene to 1,331 two weeks afterwards. For the U.S. economy as a whole, 2011 was a historic year for expensive weather-related disasters, costing taxpayers $52 billion.

Consider one of the centers of U.S. oil production: Louisiana. Economists have been studying the long-term economic effects of Hurricane Katrina [PDF] in hopes of modeling the risks for the rest of the nation’s coastal regions. They found that Katrina wiped out 129,000 jobs in the New Orleans region — about 19 percent. Three years later, in 2008, 47,000 of the jobs lost in Katrina had returned, but 82,000 had not — and that doesn’t even consider the tens of thousands of new jobs that likely would have been created had there been no Katrina.

Our nation is in desperate need of jobs. Instead of bankrolling an industry that is laying off workers and threatening our economic future, why not take the billions in subsidies going to oil companies and invest instead in a sector that both creates jobs and protects the planet? It will be money well spent: According to the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, investment in a green infrastructure program would create nearly four times as many jobs as an equal investment in oil and gas.

Big Oil has spent millions positioning itself as the ultimate job creator, while branding those of us pushing to end fossil-fuel subsidies as “job killers.” But we are the ones fighting to put people back to work and ensure that we have a sustainable economy for generations to come. The oil and gas industry may have an army of 786 lobbyists, but we tally in the hundreds of thousands. This is the year we are coming to take our money back, create jobs, and protect our planet.

Brendan Smith is an oysterman and cofounder of the Labor Network for Sustainability.

Oil worker’s death renews debate on safety of extraction method

Chevron was fined $350 after an employee at a Kern County field where high-pressure steam is injected into the ground was sucked underground and boiled to death last year.

By Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times

April 14, 2012, 5:50 p.m.

SACRAMENTO — California's largest oil company failed to warn employees of the dangers in an oil field where a worker was sucked underground and boiled to death last year, state authorities found — and then they fined the firm $350.

The small regulatory penalty, levied after a first investigation cleared Chevron, has angered labor leaders and reignited a debate over the risks of the extraction technique that led to the worker's death. The method, in which a rush of steam heats the ground and loosens oil deposits, yields much of California's crude.

Labor leaders said that for years workers have had safety concerns about the process, which they described as inherently dangerous because injecting steam at high pressures to coax oil from the porous earth can create a minefield of craters-in-waiting.

"They let Chevron off the hook way too easy," said Ed Crane, secretary-treasurer of United Steelworkers Local 12-6, the union that represents oil field workers. "A guy died, for God's sake. If people aren't being trained properly, how does $350 handle that? Chevron is not going to pay attention to that."

To read the entire article go to: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oil-death-20120412,0,531022.story

Op-Ed: How to Prevent Oil Spills

By JOE NOCERA April 13, 2012

BP held its annual meeting on Thursday, and, all things considered, the company’s shareholders had much to be happy about. Yes, a small percentage voted against the $6.8 million pay package that the board awarded Bob Dudley, the chief executive. And there were plenty of protesters in attendance, including angry Gulf Coast residents and climate change activists.

Mainly, though, BP shareholders had to be pleased with the progress the company has made since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Two years after the spill that cost 11 lives and saw millions of gallons of crude poured into the Gulf of Mexico, the company unveiled 2011 net profits of close to $24 billion. And that’s after spending some $22 billion settling claims and paying cleanup costs. “We are fully back to work in the Gulf of Mexico,” Dudley announced.

To be sure, there are still some lawsuits to resolve, brought by several gulf states as well as the federal government. And there is also a criminal investigation, which a Justice Department representative told me was “very much ongoing.”

But not to worry. In addition to the $22 billion it has already spent, BP has another $15.2 billion set aside to cover future fines and payments. No government settlement will come close to that amount. As for the criminal investigation, it will likely result in a deal in which BP agrees to plead guilty — and pays yet more fines — while no actual human being goes to jail. Money solves everything, doesn’t it?

To read the entire article go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/opinion/nocera-how-to-prevent-oil-spills.html?ref=opinion

Northwest coal export projects could have ‘significant’ public health impacts, EPA says

Published: Friday, April 13, 2012, 10:16 PM     Updated: Friday, April 13, 2012, 10:44 PM

By Scott Learn, The Oregonian

The Environmental Protection Agency wants a thorough review of the consequences of coal export through Northwest ports, saying the first project in the pipeline -- at Oregon's Port of Morrow -- "has the potential to significantly impact human health and the environment."

It's not a full victory for environmentalists and tribes near the Columbia River. EPA stopped short of recommending that the Army Corps of Engineers conduct a wholesale analysis of all six potential projects to export Montana and Wyoming coal to Asia through Oregon and Washington.

But it gives environmental groups more ammunition in the high-profile dispute, which could well end up in court.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2012/04/northwest_coal_export_projects.html

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge says shale gas producers must be straight with the public

Published: Saturday, April 14, 2012, 6:00 AM     Updated: Saturday, April 14, 2012, 7:34 AM

By John Funk, The Plain Dealer

Drilling and fracturing Ohio's Utica Shale is an industrial process -- and there will be problems, former Gov. Tom Ridge warned industry experts Friday.

In a frank and plain-spoken address to more than 100 attending a forum in the downtown Cleveland law offices of McDonald Hopkins, Ridge said the industry has to deal with environmental problems as they arise -- and be transparent about them - because the economic potential is enormous.

"Things will happen because it is an industrial process," he said. "There will be spills. Somebody may use the wrong drilling rig. The industry should be self-policing."

Ridge, a former Pennsylvania governor and first secretary of Homeland Security, now heads an energy and maritime consulting firm that specializes in risk management and other strategic services.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/04/former_pennsylvania_gov_tom_ri.html

More on the Link Between Earthquakes and Fracking

By HENRY FOUNTAIN April 15, 2012, 12:00 pm

Scientists from the United States Geological Survey have cautiously weighed in on a subject that has sparked public concern in some parts of the country: spates of small earthquakes in oil- and gas-producing areas.

In a report to be presented next week at a meeting of seismologists in San Diego, the scientists say that increases in the number of quakes in Arkansas and Oklahoma in the last few years are “almost certainly” related to oil and gas production. But in a summary of the report, they say they do not know if seismic activity is increasing because companies are taking more oil and gas from underground or because of “changes in extraction methodologies.”

One “extraction methodology” that has become increasingly popular, especially for natural gas production, is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which water and chemicals are injected into wells under pressure to create fissures in the rock and unlock the gas. A report by a state seismologist in Oklahoma suggested that two minor quakes in January, about 50 miles south of Oklahoma City, may have been directly caused by a fracking operation.

To read the entire article go to: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/more-on-the-link-between-earthquakes-and-fracking/?ref=energy-environment

Colorado drilling task force tries to defuse state-local battle

Posted:   04/13/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT Updated:   04/13/2012 05:07:20 AM MDT

By Mark Jaffe The Denver Post

Gov. John Hickenlooper's oil-and-gas task force today adopted a plan to create a collaborative relationship between the state and local governments on regulating drilling.

But even before finishing, industry and local government representatives were predicting that the issue would still end up in the legislature and the courts.

"There are still a whole lot of unresolved issues," said Stan Dempsey, president of the Colorado Petroleum Association and a task force member.

The task force outlined a plan to increase cooperation between state regulators and local governments and to enable local inspectors for rigs and wells.

The commission did not address a range of issues that Hickenlooper outlined in his executive order, including well setbacks from homes, air quality, noise abatement and traffic management.

The task force's aim was, in six weeks, to try to resolve some of the emerging conflicts among the industry, the state and cities and counties.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20385637

Nuclear Energy Advocates Pushing Thorium

Is it a panacea?

Ken Silverstein | Apr 15, 2012

As the world community grapples with whether to pursue nuclear energy and at what pace, a “new” paradigm is getting thrown into the mix -- one that its advocates say is abundant in nature and which does not create the near the levels of radioactive waste that uranium does.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.energybiz.com/article/12/04/nuclear-energy-advocates-pushing-thorium&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=EB_DAILY2&utm_term=Original-Member