An Insiders ENERGY REPORT
By Alex Mills
AUSTIN Texas (Texas Insider Report) Since
the first day President Obama took office he has urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the Department of Energy the Interior Department the Bureau of Land Management
and nine other federal bureaucracies 
that have regulatory authority over the oil and gas industry
to make it tougher to operate within the borders of the United States.
Heres the latest nail in the coffin.
The Obama Administration recently announced it will issue new regulations on the oil and gas industry designed to significantly reduce methane emissions. It is another attempt to put another nail in the coffin of fossil fuels.
EPA has been the most active. It has enacted regulations that restrict air emissions from crude oil natural gas facilities and electric utilities.
Even though EPA did not make the actual language of the new methane regulations public (that is scheduled for the summer of 2015) it did warn that the new rule will be tough as it has a goal to reduce methane emissions by 40 to 45 of 2012 levels by 2025.
All sectors of the natural gas industry will be part of the rulemaking from the wellhead to the burner tip.
Ironically many economist credit the dramatic increase in crude oil and natural gas production from hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling as the bright spot in the U.S. economy during the last five years. The increase in production has created an oversupply of oil and natural gas and has created a softening of price.
As energy costs dropped the U.S. economy picked up steam.
Environmental groups have pushed for more regulations in hopes that it would increase the cost of oil and gas production and
therefore making wind and solar energy more competitive.
The new regulations will increase the cost of drilling and producing oil and gas.
EPA acknowledged in its news release on Jan. 14 that emissions from the oil and gas sector are down 16 percent since 1990 and current data show significant reductions from certain parts of the sector notably well completions."
Some policymakers believe this is another attempt by the Obama administration to stretch federal controls of the oil and gas industry into areas historically left to the states to regulate. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regulates air emissions by the energy industry.
The EPA news release tried to soften the increase in bureaucratic reach by stating it has a cooperative engagement with states."
EPA also claimed that these new regulations are cost-effective commonsense requirements."
When was the last time a federal bureaucracy issued cost-effective commonsense regulations?
The Debate About Fracturing Must Be Based On Sound Science
Hydraulic fracturing has been accused by environmental groups of everything from polluting water supplies to contaminating the air to causing cancer to inducing earthquakes.
The hysteria they have been able to create has people scared to death (no pun intended). Some residents have become so frightened that citizens have asked their city officials to prohibit hydraulic fracturing within the city limits.
Texas cities - such as College Station Mansfield Azle Reno Presidio Alpine and of course Denton which did pass a referendum banning hydraulic fracturing within the city have all discussed banning the
technology.
However all of these claims have been proven false.
Dr. Dan Hill head and professor and Noble Chair of the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A & M University wrote a column that appeared in the Bryan/College Station Eagle on Dec. 30 that warned consumers
to keep an eye out for claims masquerading as science."
He said such claims are based on flawed research and inappropriate comparisons of air test results and safety threshold."
Hill cited a study in Colorado which alleged that people who live within a half mile of a natural gas well are at higher risk of cancer. That study was later criticized by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for it flawed methodology and was eventually decommissioned by the Garfield County Commissioners in Colorado.
Similarly some residents of Flower Mound Texas (north of Fort Worth) suspected that breast cancers were linked to increased drilling. After extensive investigation by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas the Texas Cancer Registry and Susan G. Komen for the Cure in Dallas all said there is no evidence of an increase in cancers.
The Texas Department of State Health Services also found no connection between natural gas production and cancer in 2014.
Safety thresholds and air quality issues also are ripe for confusion" Hill wrote.
State regulators use short-term and long-term values to set thresholds to protect public health. Short-term values are intended to protect against adverse effects of exposures to various compounds in the air occurring over a period of hours to a few days. Long-term values are intended to protect against the adverse effects of exposures over a long period of time such as 70 years.
Safety thresholds for long-term exposure are lower than short-term thresholds.
Some confuse the issue however by comparing short-term air test results (from continuous air monitors for example) to lower long-term thresholds" Hill continued. Comparing short-term data measurements to long-term standards is not scientifically appropriate.
The question should be: are short-term air tests based on one-hour or 24-hour monitor readings in compliance with short-term safety thresholds? In the vast majority of instances the answer is yes."
Hill pointed out that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently reported methane emissions from petroleum and natural gas systems sector have decreased by 12 since 2011 with the largest reductions coming from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells
which have decreased by 73 during the period.
As the debate rages on Hill asserted the dialogue must be based on sound science.
Alex Mills is President of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
