• Climate Change

More Cheap Oil Heading to Market Will Complicate Efforts To Curb Global Warming

• climate change
• fracking
• oil and gas drilling
• SUV

Brazil, Canada, Norway, and Guyana are set to flood the global oil and gas market with an additional million barrels a day in 2020 and nearly a million more in 2021, thus driving down prices and slowing efforts to combat global warming by weaning consumers and industries off fossil fuels.  According to The New York Times, experts predict that this will complicate efforts to gain greater adoption of electric vehicles, and will keep SUVs and other less fuel-efficient cars competitive.

Why This Matters:  An increase in the supply of cheap gas could not come at a worse time for the global fight to curb greenhouse gas emissions — this will obviously have the opposite effect of a carbon tax.

• Climate Change

Trump Administration Claims In Arctic Drilling Assessment That There Is No Climate Crisis

• Arctic
• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• environmental impact statement
• oil and gas drilling

E&E News reported on Monday that the Trump administration states it its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in favor of oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – the agency responsible for EIS – “does not agree that the proposed development is inconsistent with maintaining a livable planet (i.e., there is not a climate crisis).”

Why This Matters:  This is yet another sign that the Trump Administration is ignoring the overwhelming opinion of expert scientists — the U.N. IPCC Oceans and Cryosphere report from last week is full of examples of how the Arctic region is being severely impacted by climate change caused by fossil fuel use.

• It is also highly likely that the BLM silenced its own scientists in the process of drafting the ANWR EIS.

• Land

Theodore Roosevelt and the Cowboy Conservationist

• conservation
• cowboy
• hunting
• oil and gas drilling
• public land
• Teddy Roosevelt

By Ty Loft It’s hard to imagine Theodore Roosevelt sipping kombucha. The beloved former President spurned his New York urbane upbringing, pausing his career at 25 to find adventure in the Wild West by ranching cattle and hunting bison in North Dakota. By 40, he returned to the East to become Governor of New York. […]

• Land

Manmade Earthquakes Rattle North Texas Even After Oil Exploration Ends

• fracking
• North Texas
• oil and gas drilling
• Texas

In recent years the Fort Worth Basin located in North Central Texas has become a major shale gas production region. In order to extract oil and gas trapped in the rock, wastewater is injected deep into the ground and works its way into dormant faults and eventually forces the rock to crack and allow fossil […]

• Oceans

Georges Bank Should Not Become Exxon’s Bank

• coastal tourism
• Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
• endangered species
• fishermen
• Massachusetts
• North Atlantic Right Whale
• ocean
• oil and gas drilling

By Senator Edward J. Markey (D- MA) This week, a court ruling forced the Trump Administration to put its plan to massively expand offshore drilling for oil and gas on hold. The Trump Interior Department’s record is one of blatant disregard for the ocean’s living marine resources and the people and coastal economies that depend […]

• Oceans

Offshore Drilling Plan On Hold Indefinitely

• David Bernhardt
• Department of Interior
• Oceana
• oceans
• oil and gas drilling

In his first interview since being confirmed as Interior Secretary, David Bernhardt told the Wall Street Journal on Friday that the Administration’s ocean drilling plans have been delayed for now because it will take a long time to appeal a ruling by a Judge in Alaska that the Interior Department could not lease offshore areas that President Obama had permanently removed from leasing.  Berhardt, according to The Journal, would not speculate on how long the offshore drilling would be delayed but remarked that the appeals process is “going to take a while” and added that, “I’m not at a point now where it’s an imminent thing.” We reported earlier this month on the Alaska ruling, in which Judge Sharon Gleason, an Obama appointee, held that the law was explicit in giving the President authority to “withdraw” lands but silent about “revocation” of a withdrawal, and thus the President Trump’s action was illegal.  

• People

Heroes of the Week: The Cathedral Savers

• Chaco Canyon
• Fire
• Notre Dame
• oil and gas drilling
• Pueblo Indians
• UNESCO World Heritage Site

This week the tragic fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral was juxtaposed with the House Resources Committee field hearing on the damage oil and gas drilling is doing to our own priceless American cultural heritage in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.  At Notre Dame, the stories of the heroism shown by Father Jean-Marc Fournier who guided […]

• Air

Oil and Gas Drilling In New Mexico Scrutinized, Methane Leaks Soar

• air pollution
• Chaco Canyon
• federal land
• House Natural Resources Committee
• methane
• moratorium
• oil and gas drilling
• sacred sites

A surge in oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin of New Mexico is causing a dramatic increase in methane emissions according to a new study by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).  The Associated Press reports that the EDF analysis showed that in 2018 statewide methane gas emissions from oil and natural gas production is five times higher than what the petroleum companies are reporting to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and more than twice what EDF estimated these emissions to be two years ago.

• Animals

Sage Grouse Habitat To Be Opened For Drilling

• #savegrouse
• Bird
• Department of Interior
• endangered species
• oil and gas
• oil and gas drilling
• sage grouse

Late last week, the Trump Administration announced its decision to open up for oil and gas drilling nine millions of acres of critical habitat for the Sage Grouse, a bird whose endangered status hinged on whether the habitat would be saved. 

• Health

NYT Exposé: Health Risks on the Rise Due to Regulatory Rollbacks

• air
• air pollution
• benzene
• cancer
• carbon dioxide
• coal power plants
• Farm Workers
• fossil fuels
• health
• methane
• Native Americans
• oil and gas drilling
• pesticides
• regulations
• rivers
• sickened
• toxic chemicals
• toxic waste
• water pollution

The New York Times investigated and found that the consequences of the President keeping his promise to deregulate in favor of industry and development, particularly for fossil fuels, are beginning to have real detrimental impacts for those who live or work in proximity to them. The stories of those impacted demonstrate that the U.S. environment is not as clean as most think.