“Moreland Monday” Analysis of Pro-Fracking Contributions Raises Serious Questions for Commission to Investigate – Common Cause
July 23, 2013
TOO BIG TO IGNORE: Subsidies to Fossil Fuel Master Limited Partnerships
July 23, 2013
priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2013/07/OCI_MLP_2013.pdf.
TOO BIG TO IGNORE:
Subsidies to Fossil Fuel
Master Limited Partnerships
Prepared by
Doug Koplow
Earth Track, Inc.
Cambridge, MA
Prepared for
Oil Change International
July 2013
Port Ambrose LNG terminal
July 22, 2013
MORE IN NEW YORK »By
- WILL JAMES
A proposal to build a natural-gas facility off Long Island and New Jersey has turned into a proxy for the debate about hydraulic fracturing, the gas-drilling technique that remains banned in New York state.
Liberty Natural Gas LLC is asking the federal government for permission to build a facility where ships carrying liquefied natural gas would dock, vaporize the gas and pump it into the New York City area.
The company says it will never use the $300 million terminal in the Atlantic Ocean to export the gas overseas. But opponents are skeptical, saying the facility to be called Port Ambrose could drive a hydraulic-fracturing boom in the Northeast as the U.S. natural-gas industry appears poised to pivot from importing to exporting.
Federal agencies are reviewing the application, but environmental groups from the Catskills to the Jersey Shore are lobbying Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a New York Democrat, and Gov. Chris Christie, a New Jersey Republican, both of whom have the power to stop the proposal.
“Fracking in New York state will be made possible because of this facility that is being proposed off of our shores,” said Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental group in eastern Long Island.
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said: “We are monitoring the federal process.” A Christie spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment. In 2011 and 2012, Mr. Christie vetoed two proposals by Liberty to build offshore terminals, citing environmental and security concerns.
Liberty, based in Manhattan, said it wanted only to exploit a niche market in the New York City area, where winter prices rise because pipeline capacity falls short of demand.
“We’ve identified New York City as a particularly attractive seasonal peak market during the winter months,” said Liberty Chief Executive Roger Whelan.
Industry experts backed the Liberty business plan’s logic. “It’s not totally crazy, because of the constraints to deliver to the New York City area,” said Kenneth Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University, in Houston. “It’s a way around pipeline constraints.”
Hydraulic fracturing—widely known as fracking—involves the injection of millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the earth to break up shale rock and release natural gas. Critics cite concerns about groundwater pollution, hazardous byproducts and the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Parts of New York state sit on the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation rich in untapped natural gas. A moratorium on widespread, high-volume fracking has been in place since 2008 as New York state government officials weigh whether to allow it. It is legal in other states, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, that also sit atop the formation.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration are conducting an environmental review of the Port Ambrose proposal, which would be 20 miles southeast of Jones Beach on Long Island and 28 miles east of Long Branch, N.J.
Port Ambrose would consist of two submerged buoys—each 33 feet tall and 24 feet in diameter—moored to the sea floor where ships could stop and turn liquefied natural gas into its gas form. The gas would travel through underwater pipelines into an existing pipeline serving New York City and Long Island.
The Maritime Administration ultimately will rule on the application, but it must deny it if Mr. Cuomo or Mr. Christie expresses opposition.
The proposal comes at a dynamic time for the gas industry. U.S. prices have been dropping for years as new production methods such as fracking have driven a domestic boom.
As U.S. natural gas production has hit record heights in recent years, more companies have been seeking to ship it overseas. Port Ambrose is one of four pending import terminals, while there are 20 seeking to export, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
A representative for Neptune LNG Deepwater Port, an offshore terminal in Massachusetts Bay near Boston designed to exploit a niche similar to the one eyed by Liberty in New York, said last week that low natural-gas prices have rendered the facility inactive for years and it planned to suspend operations.
Neptune was one of only two operational offshore ports designed to import liquefied natural gas—like Port Ambrose.
Even though Neptune is shutting down, Mr. Whelan said the Boston area still relies on liquefied natural gas from other facilities in the winter, due to pipeline constraints. “It really is an apples and oranges comparison,” he said. “We still believe there’s a very strong market in the winter months for this kind of supply into New York City.”
Some of the contention over Port Ambrose hinges on whether it would be legal or technically feasible to switch an import facility to an export facility.
Mr. Whelan said he wouldn’t seek to export gas from Port Ambrose because it wouldn’t be legal under the federal license he seeks. Liberty’s opponents say federal law allows the Maritime Administration to easily amend licenses without having to solicit public input, and they want the federal government to take the impacts of exporting the gas and fracking into consideration.
The Maritime Administration said if Liberty sought to export liquefied natural gas from Port Ambrose, it would be required to file a new application and restart a lengthy review process. The current application is being considered exclusively for importing, a spokeswoman said.
Emerging technology will allow exporters to liquefy natural gas on vessels and ship it from offshore terminals like Port Ambrose, but Mr. Whelan said that technology was prohibitively expensive, costing billions of dollars. “It would be insanity to install an export facility,” he said.
A version of this article appeared July 22, 2013, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Offshore Plan Spurs Debate On Fracking.
Northeast Gas Association: NGA ISSUE BRIEF: Pipeline Expansion Projects
July 21, 2013
Northeast Gas Association: NGA ISSUE BRIEF: Pipeline Expansion Projects.
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FossilFuelSubsidy_201112.pdf
July 18, 2013
Report_FossilFuelSubsidy_201112.pdf.
Pennsylvania Fossil Fuel Subsidies:
An Overview
by
Christina Simeone, Director, PennFuture Energy Center
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pennsylvania taxpayers may not know they are subsidizing the production and use of fossil fuels. In fact,
Pennsylvania is subsidizing fossil fuels at a cost of almost $2.9 billion per year.1,2 Use of these fuels burdens
taxpayers with additional non-monetized externalities such as air, land and water pollution and the associated
negative human health and property impacts. Since many of these subsidies were passed years or decades ago,
Pennsylvania’s current policymakers may not all be aware that these subsidies exist or understand their cumulative
impacts.
The federal government has long subsidized the production and use of fossil fuels to the tune of billions of
dollars per year, and to the considerable benefit of these extremely profitable and mature industries. Federal level
subsidies reduce the amount of taxable income that fossil fuel companies are required to report to Pennsylvania for
state taxes. Further, Pennsylvania tacks on additional subsidies such as tax breaks and grant programs that benefit
the use or production of fossil fuels. With respect to energy, there is no free and competitive market, least of all in
Pennsylvania.
The state’s fossil fuel subsidies come primarily in the form of tax exemptions, with only a handful of applicable tax
credits and grant programs. There are exemptions for the use of fossil fuels, such as exempting gasoline purchase
from Sales and Use Tax, which make these fuels more attractive by lowering their costs to the consumer. There are
also exemptions that benefit distributors of fossil fuels, such as exempting natural gas sales from the Gross Receipts
Tax, thereby reducing the tax burden on distribution companies, and increasing their profitability. Producers of
fossil fuels also enjoy subsidies, like the Sales and Use Tax exemption for the purchase of mining equipment,
which reduces costs to coal mining companies and increasing profitability. Ironically, Pennsylvania subsidizes the
purchase of pollution control equipment to help users of fossil fuels pay for the cost of cleaning the air and water
fouled by these very fossil fuels.
This preliminary overview of Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel subsidies is intended to promote discussion and perhaps
even a reexamination of Pennsylvania’s overall incentive strategy with respect to energy. This report should be
read as an introduction to the issue of Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel subsidies; additional research and analysis is
required.
PEER – NO SURPRISE FEDERAL PIPELINE SAFETY EXERCISES SINCE 2005
July 18, 2013
PEER – NO SURPRISE FEDERAL PIPELINE SAFETY EXERCISES SINCE 2005.
For Immediate Release: Jul 17, 2013
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337
NO SURPRISE FEDERAL PIPELINE SAFETY EXERCISES SINCE 2005
Scant Oversight or Local Coordination on Pipeline Emergency Response Plans
Posted on Jul 17, 2013
Washington, DC — The federal pipeline safety agency has not conducted a single surprise exercise for more than eight years to determine whether an operator can execute emergency response plans, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Nor does the agency have a ready account of which emergency response plans it has approved, rejected or changed.
More than 2.5 million miles of pipelines carrying oil, natural gas and high-hazard liquids, honeycomb the U.S. Each year, there are more than 100 “significant” pipeline accidents involving loss of life, injuries, fire and/or major spillage. Recent pipeline spills and explosions have had catastrophic results.
Federal guidelines call for up to 20 unannounced exercises annually to demonstrate an operator’s “ability to respond to a worst case discharge spill event.” Yet in documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) concedes that –
- It has not conducted any unannounced safety exercise since 2005, when it only conducted one. In the preceding 10 year period, the agency conducted 36 surprise exercises, peaking with 14 in 1997;
- In the last five years, PHMSA has completed only 26 announced safety reviews, with only one initiated in 2012. More than half of all these reviews (15) occurred in 2011; and
- The agency cited two exercises in 2004 which were labeled “unknown” because PHMSA had no record on whether they were surprise or scheduled.
“Since there are no surprise safety drills, it should be no surprise when the on-scene response to actual emergencies is lacking,” stated PEER Counsel Kathryn Douglass, who brought the suit that pried the documents loose. “Given PHMSA’s supine posture, pipelines in America are essentially self-regulated.”
Beyond whether operators can carry out their emergency response plans, the adequacy of those plans also remains in question. Months after PEER asked and ultimately sued PHMSA to produce response plans submitted by pipeline operators, the agency still has only been able to provide a handful of the 314 current plans. Moreover, PHMSA cannot identify a single one of the more than 1,000 pipeline response plans it has reviewed during the past five years that it has rejected or amended.
“If it takes PHMSA months to produce copies of emergency response plans, that means communities on the front line have no access to the safety playbook in case of an accident,” Douglass added, noting that in recent major pipeline spills, local emergency response agencies were in the dark both about what was occurring and what the planned response was supposed to include. “We should not have to sue in federal court to obtain pipeline emergency response plans – they should be posted routinely on the web.”
###
See PMSA list of pipeline safety exercises – unannounced, announced and unknown
Look at federal guidance on unannounced pipeline exercises
Scan the list of all current and archived facility response plans
View PHMSA failure to implement NTSB recommendations following recent disasters
Quebec’s Lac-Mégantic oil train disaster not just tragedy, but corporate crime | Environment | guardian.co.uk
July 17, 2013
GDACC 
