When Hurricane Ike hit the U.S. Gulf Coast last month, it unleashed an environmental disaster, details of which are only now beginning to emerge. The ecological damage gives some indication of what the tropical storm-prone Southeast could face with the expansion of the offshore oil industry.

At least a half-million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the wetlands, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an Associated Press examination of federal data:

The AP's analysis found that, by far, the most common contaminant left in Ike's wake was crude oil -- the lifeblood and main industry of both Texas and Louisiana. In the week of reports analyzed, enough crude oil was spilled nearly to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and more could be released, officials said, as platforms and pipelines were turned back on.

About half of the crude oil known to be spilled so far came from one facility operated by St. Mary Land and Exploration Co. on Goat Island, Texas, near hard-hit Bolivar Peninsula, the AP reports. Ike's surge flooded the plant and broke the pipes connecting its eight storage tanks, which held oil produced from two wells in Galveston Bay. Most of that oil is believed to have ended up in the Gulf of Mexico, which is already suffering from a massive Dead Zone caused by agrichemical pollution runoff.

Studies on marine species have found that the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons contained in petroleum can remain toxic for many years following an oil spill. Crude oil also contains toxic heavy metals.

Labels: Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, hurricane ike, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

In what's being called an "unusual request," Houston Mayor Bill White has asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to grant a hearing before a judge on the latest permit application for a Houston petrochemical refinery, citing concerns over its high emissions of cancer-causing pollution.

The case highlights a theme that's been largely missing from the national debate over expanding oil production -- namely, the damaging health effects associated with toxic air releases from refining facilities.

Located in Houston's Ship Channel, Lyondell Chemical Co. is one of the nation's largest emitters of benzene, a toxic chemical that's been linked to leukemia and other cancers. The Lyondell refinery releases more benzene emissions per barrel produced than other refineries nationwide and thus presents an "unreasonable risk" to Houston residents, city officials told the Houston Chronicle:

"If the company believes that it's just fine to put tons and tons of benzene in the air," White said in an interview, "then we would like to hear what scientific evidence they have that benzene is good for you."

White has long been an advocate for cleaning up Houston's dirty air, creating a task force to examine its health effects. In most of the Houston region, where there are numerous petrochemical refineries, ambient air concentrations of benzene exceed the Environmental Protection Agency's risk guidelines, which deem as "acceptable" a risk that leads to 1 case of cancer in every 1 million people. Unlike some other states, Texas does not have its own benzene emission standard.


Last year Houston released a report (pdf) detailing a voluntary plan for reducing benzene emissions from major sources. The report ranked Lyondell as the top benzene risk for the region and called for it to take a number of steps to control emissions. Frustrated with the pace of progress through such voluntary measures, White recently said he would use a city nuisance ordinance to punish plants that did not cut releases.

The report also noted that benzene pollution is an especially serious problem in east Houston, where there are many lower-income and minority neighborhoods. East Houston is also home to some of the city's oldest Latino communities.

Mayor White's fight to clean up his city's refineries offers an important cautionary tale for our times: If the current political push to expand offshore oil drilling succeeds, many communities across the South and elsewhere will also see an expansion of the petrochemical refining infrastructure -- and more pollution troubles like Houston's now grappling with.

Labels: Bill White, environmental health, environmental justice, houston, Lyondell, offshore drilling, oil industry, refinery pollution, texas

House leaders announced yesterday that they plan to let a quarter-century ban on expanded offshore oil drilling expire next week, and the Senate is expected to follow suit, the Associated Press reports:

"The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue."

The House had planned to add a provision extending the moratorium to an emergency spending bill that's expected to be considered as soon as today. But with strong opposition to the provision from the majority of Republicans and many Democrats, the leadership was reluctant to risk a government shutdown with elections approaching.

The moratorium's expiration does not mean new drilling would begin immediately. The Interior Department's current five-year leasing plan includes potential leases off the Virginia coast, but the state would first have to agree to energy development -- and it's unlikely to do so unless Congress agrees to share federal royalties, the AP notes.

Last week the House approved a compromise measure allowing limited new drilling off the nation's coasts with the agreement of the states. It passed along largely partisan lines, with most Democrats favoring it and most Republicans opposing it because they felt its drilling allowances were too limited. Also last week, a bipartisan drilling measure being considered in the Senate was pulled because of the contentious politics surrounding the issue.

The oil and gas industry has been investing heavily in politicians, contributing more than $17 million to federal candidates and parties this election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). It's substantially increased donations to Democrats, who have received 26 percent of the industry's money this go-around -- up from 18 percent in the last cycle.

The industry is also spending generously to influence the presidential race. After Republican candidate Sen. John McCain reversed his longtime opposition to expanded offshore drilling this summer, contributions from oil and gas interests gushed into his coffers, according to an analysis by the Public Campaign Action Fund.

And while Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama has accused McCain of being too cozy with Big Oil, he has also received substantial contributions from the industry. In fact, CRP found that while McCain has raised three times more money from the industry, Obama is the favored candidate of executives from several of the biggest companies, including ExxonMobil.

McCain has said he would make expanded offshore oil drilling a priority if elected president, while Obama has said he would support expanded drilling in certain areas -- including the South Atlantic -- if it is part of a comprehensive energy plan to shift the U.S. away from oil to alternative fuels and greater efficiency.

Labels: barack obama, campaign finance, Congress, Election 2008, john mccain, offshore drilling, oil industry

More than two-thirds of North Carolina residents support offshore drilling for oil and gas, according to an Elon University poll released yesterday. But given the misleading claims about drilling made recently by some of the state's elected officials, we suspect the strong public support for the practice stems in part from a lack of understanding about its serious environmental perils.

The latest politician to offer misleading information on drilling's impact was U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.). Speaking last week in the North Carolina port city of Wilmington, Dole -- who's facing a tough re-election challenge from Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan -- told reporters:

I think that we should drill offshore. The technology has improved enormously. ... During Hurricane Katrina with all those rigs there was no major, significant spill during that unbelievable hurricane.

That's simply not true.

As we've reported before, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita together caused 124 offshore spills that dumped a total of 743,700 gallons of pollution into the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, onshore spills from various sources including the pipelines, tanks and refineries associated with offshore drilling totaled 9 million gallons -- not much less than the the 10.8 million gallons released in the undeniably major Exxon Valdez disaster.

In Katrina's wake, a single spill of 1 million gallons from the Murphy Oil refinery in Chalmette, La. spread over one square mile and contaminated some 1,700 homes -- one of the worst residential oil spills in U.S. history.

How in the world can anyone claim these spills were not "major" or "significant"?

The American people face a critical decision over whether to expand offshore drilling along ecologically vulnerable coastlines. This decision must be based on facts -- not the nonsense being pushed by Dole and other politicians who refuse to acknowledge drilling's serious environmental risks.

For more information about oil industry pollution in the wake of the 2005 Gulf storms, see the Sierra Club fact sheet titled "The Truth About Oils Spills and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita" (pdf).

Labels: Elizabeth Dole, Elon Poll, north carolina, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

Nuclear power foes are celebrating a small victory this week: In the wake of last Wednesday's national call-in day against unlimited taxpayer loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors, the so-called "Gang of 20" senators who were pushing a bipartisan compromise energy bill containing those giveaways have announced that they will not introduce the measure before Congress adjourns for elections.

Besides boosting the nuclear industry, the measure also would have transitioned most of the country's automobiles to non-petroleum fuels within 20 years, repealed billions in tax breaks for oil companies, and allowed Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia to decide whether to allowing drilling off their coasts.

Michael Mariotte, the executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, reports that several Senate offices reported "very large volumes" of calls on the bill. NIRS opposed the bill because of the nuclear giveaways and was one of the organizers of the call-in day.

Other likely factors behind the measure's demise include the federal government's recent commitment to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money to bail out companies impacted by the housing market crisis, Mariotte notes. In addition, Constellation Energy -- the parent of UniStar, the first company to apply for a nuclear loan guarantee -- collapsed last week and was bought by billionaire Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy for less than a quarter of what it was worth at the beginning of this year.

But not all cleaner-energy advocates are celebrating the bill's demise. Writing at the Huffington Post, Dr. Joseph Romm -- a former Department of Energy official in the Clinton administration who's now with the Center for American Progress -- calls the bill's failure a "huge triumph for McCain and major political blunder by Congressional Democrats." Noting that the existing moratorium on expanded offshore drilling is set to expire at the end of this month if no action is taken, Romm accuses the environmentalists who opposed the compromise bill of allowing the allies of Republican presidential candidate John McCain to kill the measure "without leaving obvious fingerprints."

TheHill.com reports that the so-called Gang of 20 will instead offer a statement of principles outlining their agreement on divisive energy issues, including expanded offshore drilling:

They plan to offer legislation once the political season has ended, according to an aide to a Democrat involved in the discussions. The aide said that the election-year environment has poisoned the atmosphere and hampered the chances of passing a bill on such a controversial campaign topic.

Labels: energy policy, nuclear power, offshore drilling

The U.S. House of Representatives passed compromise legislation this week that would allow oil and gas drilling past the 50-mile mark off the nation's coast with the agreement of the state involved. It would also boost funds for alternative energy sources and end certain tax breaks for oil companies.

The vote on the proposal fell largely along party lines, with 221 Democrats and 15 Republicans voting "yes," and 176 Republicans and 13 Democrats voting "no." The measure now heads to the Senate, where other legislation to lift the longtime moratorium on new offshore drilling has been introduced.

With the push to open up more of the U.S. coastline to drilling, state officials with a stake in the oil game are stepping up to make their own demands. Yesterday, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley told his state's congressional delegation that he wants his state -- not oil companies -- to hold any leases for offshore drilling:

We must realize that these are precious resources which affect our economic and national security. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the states and the United States to maintain control over these resources. The proposed legislation as written would simply allow private oil companies to take this resource and blend it into the world oil supply. No legislative language can prevent this fungible product from entering the international market, leaving American economic and security interests vulnerable.

North Carolina's intention is to maintain control over the exploration, drilling and production of this petroleum to guarantee that it benefits our people. We are in the best position to know when this reserve is most needed.

Otherwise, in the current legislation, private oil companies could drill and drain these last reserves off our coast long before they have exhausted the supply elsewhere. This would leave America inexplicably vulnerable, as other nations emerge economically and demand more of the world’s oil supply.

Whether we oppose or support offshore drilling, Congress is moving forward on this legislation. I believe it is imperative that we maintain control over these final reserves as we transition to alternative fuels.

Quite simply, American oil must be used for American interests.

To read Easley's full statement, click here and refer to the news release dated Sept. 17, 2008.

Labels: Mike Easley, north carolina, offshore drilling, oil industry

This image, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Response and Restoration, shows oil streaming south from point sources in an Ike-inundated wetland near Galveston, Texas. OR&R says that while it's still early in the damage assessment phase, preliminary indications suggest there were at least 40 -- and as many as 100 -- releases of hazardous materials in the area hit by the storm. The incidents don't appear to be limited to fuels, crude oil and refined oil products, but also include hazardous refining wastes such as acidic process water. Wonder if U.S. House members gave any thought to this sort of thing today when they voted to expand offshore drilling to areas near now-pristine coastal wetlands?

Labels: chemical spills, hurricane ike, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills, texas, toxics

The U.S. House of Representatives opens debate today on compromise legislation that would end the almost 40-year-old moratorium on new offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. The measure, which would allow drilling 50 miles offshore with a state's approval, also calls for the elimination of about $18 billion in tax breaks for big oil companies, with the money going to support alternative energy sources.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had at first suggested opening only parts of the southeastern Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico to drilling, but the final version of the legislation would allow drilling off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, with only the area off Florida's west coast remaining off-limits, the Washington Post reports.

Separate legislation introduced in the Senate, developed by a group of about 20 Democrats and Republicans, would limit new Atlantic drilling to offshore areas of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia while allowing no new drilling in the Pacific. However, it would allow drilling of Florida's west coast -- leading Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) to promise a filibuster in order to protect his state's tourism industry and sensitive military testing areas.

Congressional leaders are under intense pressure to come up with some sort of compromise in the next two weeks before adjournment. A failure to act would mean the end of the moratorium, which would open up the entire U.S. coast within three miles of the shoreline to drilling. President Bush lifted the executive ban on new drilling earlier this summer.

But Congress faces stiff opposition on drilling from environmental watchdogs. Says Ocean Conservancy Executive Vice President Dennis Kelso:

To protect our economy and our ocean, an effective energy plan should emphasize solutions that are cheaper, faster and safer than offshore drilling by emphasizing renewable energy resources, alternate fuels and energy efficiency. Many of these important initiatives were included in the House bill, but an agreement to open up more drilling along the entire coastline of the contiguous 48 states is a step in the wrong direction.

One of the aspects of the Senate's offshore drilling legislation that has not received a great deal of attention so far is its unprecedented subsidies for the commercial nuclear power industry.

The measure would offer unlimited loan guarantees for the construction of new reactors, a provision that could eventually cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. According to an analysis by Physicians for Social Responsibility, the measure would require that the loan guarantees cover 100 percent of the debt for as much as 80 percent of the facility's cost while expanding the definition of project costs to include development, planning and permitting.

Though taxpayers would be obliged to cover the costs only if borrowers default, a 2003 Congressional Budget Office analysis found the default rate on nuclear construction debts might be as high as 50 percent because of the projects' soaring costs.

The industry has promoted nuclear power as a solution to man-made global warming. But when the entire fuel chain is taken into consideration, nuclear power is actually a net producer of greenhouse gases, according to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. At the same time, adding enough nuclear power to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions of dollars that could otherwise be spent on alternatives that don't create thousands of tons of deadly waste or risk terrible accidents like those that occurred at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

In an effort to get the nuclear subsidies taken out of the bill, PSR, NIRS and other national groups are holding a National Call-In Day to the Senate tomorrow, Sept. 17. They're hoping to spur at least 10,000 calls and hope to keep the phones ringing all day. If you'd like to participate, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask your Senators to take the taxpayer loan guarantees for nuclear power out of the bill. For more details on the call-in day, click here.

Labels: Congress, nuclear power, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills, politics

Philip Mattera
Guest blogger

The phrase repeatedly chanted at the recent Republican convention — “Drill, Baby, Drill” — now sounds pornographic in the wake of the new sex and money scandal involving oil drilling companies and the federal agency that is supposed to oversee them.

The Interior Department’s Inspector General has just come out with allegations that more than a dozen current and former staffers at Interior’s Minerals Management Service received improper gifts from industry representatives, who also put on wild parties for MMS employees. Gregory Smith, former director of the royalty-in-kind program at MMS, was also accused of having an illicit sexual relationship with an subordinate and paying her to buy cocaine.

The three reports just submitted by Interior IG Earl E. Devaney may be the most salacious government documents since the 1998 Starr Report on President Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes.

Although the Interior Department website prominently features Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s outraged response to the revelations, it does not see fit to provide the reports themselves. Fortunately, ProPublica, the online investigative reporting site, has posted the reports for all to view. Here are some highlights:

First there is a cover memo from Devaney decrying what he calls “a culture of ethical failure” in which some MMS employees adopted a “private sector approach to essentially everything they did. This included effectively opting themselves out of the Ethics in Government Act.” The private sector itself also comes in for criticism. Devaney suggests that the oil companies overseen by MMS were not especially helpful in an investigation that took more than two years and cost nearly $5.3 million. Chevron, Devaney states, refused to cooperate with the probe.

The first of the three reports focuses on Smith, who seems to have been confused about who was actually employing him. The report says he spent a substantial amount of his paid time doing work not for the federal government but for a private firm called Geomatrix Consultants that worked for oil industry clients. Smith also is said to have received improper gifts from employees of Chevron, Shell and a small operator called Gary Williams Energy Company.

The second report focuses on the people who worked under Smith. Apparently following his lead, many of them, according to Devaney, “developed inappropriate relationships with representatives of oil companies doing business with” MMS. Some of these relationships were pecuniary: two staffers were said to have received prohibited gifts from major oil companies on at least 135 occasions. Here, too, the gifts came from Chevron, Shell and Gary Williams as well as Hess.

The report also reports on some brief “intimate” sexual relationships a couple of MMS employees had with oil industry people. The sexual misconduct seems to have been a lot more limited than the other hanky panky, but it is irresistible to talk about regulatory agency employees’ being literally in bed with the industry at a time when some major oil companies are involved in a multi-billion-dollar dispute with MMS.

The final report focuses on Lucy Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management and the highest-ranking MMS staffer to have been caught up in the scandal. Denett is mainly accused of being overly generous to her Special Assistant Jimmy Mayberry as he was getting ready for retirement. According to the report, she improperly arranged a lucrative consulting contract for the firm Mayberry was going to set up after he left the agency.

Mayberry is said to have pleaded guilty to a criminal charge. The cases against Smith and Denett were referred to the Justice Department. Devaney asks Interior Secretary Kempthorne to take disciplinary action against the remaining employees involved. It would be nice if someone thought to take some action against those drilling companies, which seemed to have had no hesitation in corrupting federal employees. But then again, “ethical failure” is nothing new in the oil industry.

Philip Mattera runs the Dirt Diggers Digest blog and heads the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First

Labels: department of interior, energy policy, offshore drilling, oil industry, scandals, sex scandal

When the contentious issue of offshore oil drilling came up during last night's debate between the two leading candidates for North Carolina governor, Republican Pat McCrory made a claim that surprised me. It came in response to Democratic opponent Beverly Perdue's repeated description of North Carolina as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," a nickname given to the treacherous waters off the state's Outer Banks:

Pat McCrory: What you keep calling the Graveyard of the Atlantic...

Moderator Pam Saulsby: Is that not correct?

McCrory: We have hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, we have hurricanes off the coast of Europe and Scotland where they're currently [drilling]. Ladies and gentlemen, we need to do it now.

Hurricanes off the coast of Europe and Scotland? Really?

As it turns out, McCrory's correct. There are severe cyclonic storms known as European windstorms that track across the North Atlantic during the winter months. While they usually hit the north coast of Scotland, such storms have veered south to affect the European mainland, sometimes with hurricane-force winds. Several European languages refer to them as "Orcans," which is derived from the name of the Mayan storm god Huracan -- also the source of the English word "hurricane."

Sadly, there is evidence that these European storms, along with Caribbean and North American hurricanes and Asian typhoons, may be intensifying due to climate change -- which in turn is exacerbated by the greenhouse gas emissions that result from burning oil and gas.

For example, a 2004 presentation (pdf) by the Munich Re Group, the world's largest reinsurance company, listed climate change as one of the factors behind the observed trend of increasing numbers of and economic losses from European windstorms. And a 2005 report (pdf) by the Association of British Insurers titled "Financial Risks of Climate Change" found that rising carbon dioxide emissions could boost average annual economic losses from U.S. hurricanes, Japanese typhoons and European windstorms by $27 billion a year -- a two-thirds increase -- by the 2080s.

Labels: climate, Election 2008, European windstorms, global warming, hurricanes, offshore drilling, Pat McCrory

The televised debate last night between the two front-running candidates for governor of North Carolina -- Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat, and Republican Pat McCrory, mayor of Charlotte and a Duke Energy consultant -- delivered an interesting and contentious exchange on offshore drilling. WRAL-TV excluded Libertarian candidate Mike Munger, who chairs Duke University's political science department, because of low poll numbers.

With Congress expected to take up a proposal this week to allow limited additional offshore drilling in exchange for an elimination of oil company tax breaks and support for alternative energy sources, members who've flip-flopped on the issue and now support expanded drilling might find instructive the unfortunate the experience of Perdue, who got hammered by McCrory for saying just three weeks ago that she was "100 percent" opposed to offshore drilling for North Carolina but now says she supports it. McCrory has also been airing campaign ads criticizing her for the shift.

Perdue's dancing around the issue during the debate was annoying. It clearly exasperated moderator Pam Saulsby, a popular WRAL news anchor, who during an exchange about Perdue's shift on drilling over the course of three weeks finally exclaimed, "Either it happened or it didn't happen!" Perdue's answer on drilling also got a thumbs-down from reporter and commentator Laura Leslie at WUNC, who accused her of "fumbling" the question.

Here's my transcript of yesterday's discussion on drilling between, as seen in the still image above, Perdue, Crabtree, Saulsby and McCrory. When Perdue refers to "Gov. Martin," she's talking about James G. Martin, a Republican who led the state from 1985 to 1993 and who opposed offshore drilling.

Crabtree: The mayor touched on offshore drilling, on energy -- let's talk about that. Gov. Easley today even said, Look, I'm not really for this, but if Congress is going to pass it, we may as well make sure that we are protecting what would be ours. [Turns to Perdue.] You have taken somewhat of a different approach.

Perdue: My approach is very clear, David. I am for offshore drilling. I think that the federal government should require all of these companies that have oil leases or natural gas leases now -- 68 million acres of land under lease, 33 million of those are offshore -- they need to begin drilling tomorrow morning.

Crabtree: What changed your mind?

Perdue: The whole discussion. I've always been for offshore. Always. The mind change is on the fact of North Carolina -- and it's not a mind change, it's always been my position since the late '80s with Gov. Martin. And I really do believe that as Congress goes back, and I have contacted some of our congressional delegation -- if you do offshore, and I think the Congress will work on the Gang of 10 proposal. You know, I've read a lot about it and studied it, and I agree that you have to have this discussion. I know that it's not the end-all and be-all; you've got to have this kind of capacity right now. If we find resources in America, they should stay in America. They should not be offshored, whether it's on the inshore or offshore leases.

And then the thing about the discussion they're having, David, is that the only states that are in the play right now, the mix, are the Southeastern states. I've asked our Congressional delegation to include all of the states in the country that have ocean boundaries. That's fair. That's the way it should be. You should look everywhere rather than just targeting North Carolina.

And then I've asked our delegation that if they go forward with this to be sure that the governor of each state involved has the ultimate right, the authority, to plan the pathway. I would put together as Martin did a team of scientists and engineers -- bright, thoughtful people. They can look at the technology of the 21st century. And the minute they say to me, "Bev, this is safe. We can do it in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, off the shore of North Carolina," we will say, "Katy, bar the door! And do it, and do it safely."

But I do believe -- and I think the mayor of Charlotte agreed with me in the last debate -- you need these permittings, you need these studies, you need to be sure it's done safely.

[McCrory chuckles audibly.]

Saulsby turns to McCrory: All right, you were mentioned.

McCrory: I still don't know where she stands on offshore drilling in North Carolina.

Saulsby: Well, then, ask her a specific question.

McCrory: The issue is offshore drilling in North Carolina. We're running for governor of North Carolina, not governor of the Gulf Coast or governor of Texas. Our decision as the next governor is, "Will you support offshore drilling in the state of North Carolina, off the coast?"

Saulsby, sounding irritated: This is already established.

McCrory: My answer is 100 percent yes. Beverly just three weeks ago, because I was in the room when she said it, said she was 100 percent opposed to offshore drilling in North Carolina, and in fact said it won't happen on her watch. Now we're getting in this word for word: 'Well, of course I'm for offshore drilling.' But she's talking about somewhere else. We need to do it now, not just...

Saulsby sharply: Mayor.

McCrory continuing: ...not to be dependent on Venezuela and Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. We need to do it to create jobs in North Carolina. I was in the room ...

Crabtree interrupting: Let's clear this up.

Saulsby, also interrupting: That's right.

McCrory continuing: ... when you said it won't happen on your watch.

Perdue: Let me be clear with you...

Saulsby: Either it happened or it didn't happen!

Perdue: Let me be clear with you. I went back and I read all of the papers from the late '80s with Gov. Martin. He's a chemist, a scientist. I read what Gov. Hunt did in the '90s. ..

Saulsby, exasperated: I know, but can you just answer the question? We have an hour. Did you say it three weeks ago or did you not?

Perdue: If we have the ability to do it safely and the technology is there, the decision that I made in the late '80s and early '90s was based on the technology at the time. My original statement was based on the technology at the time. And if the studies show that in North Carolina, in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, is safe, we will do it. We will do it as quickly and as safely as we can.

McCrory: Well, this is what you didn't say just three weeks ago, and the technology didn't change in three weeks. We've known the technology. This was just three weeks ago when you said it will not happen on your watch and you're 100 percent opposed to it. Now, in math, in math...

Perdue, interrupting: Now, let me be clear with you: We will do it on my watch if we can do it safely in the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

Perdue perhaps unintentionally communicates with the audience that she's still uneasy with the idea of offshore drilling when she says "Katy bar the door," an expression that actually means "trouble ahead." At any rate, there's certainly trouble ahead for Perdue, who's now trailing McCrory in the latest Democratic poll.

Labels: bev perdue, Election 2008, north carolina, offshore drilling, Pat McCrory, wral

Since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast three years ago, we've reported extensively on the factors that contributed to making the storm one of the worst disasters ever to afflict the United States. One of the themes that's come up time and again is land loss -- the disappearance of the region's critical coastal wetlands into the Gulf of Mexico.

For decades, Louisiana has been losing up to 40 square miles of wetlands each year, an amount that represents about 80 percent of the entire nation's annual coastal wetlands loss. If nothing is done to slow the current rate of coastal erosion, an additional 800,000 acres of Louisiana wetlands will vanish into the sea by the year 2040, and the state's shoreline will move inland as much as 33 miles in some places. Because coastal wetlands play an important role in absorbing the impact of approaching storms before they hit populous areas, their disappearance will continue to intensify hurricanes' impact on the region.

Coastal erosion is also having a devastating effect on communities and cultures across the Gulf, as spotlighted in today's New York Times story about the impact of land loss on Louisiana's historic Cajun shrimping communities.

The Times report attributes Louisiana's land loss solely to the building of the levee system. And it's certainly true that levees have worsened wetlands losses by preventing the routine deposit of land-building sediments. But there are other critical factors exacerbating Louisiana's land loss that the Times fails to mention.

Like offshore drilling for oil and gas.

Offshore drilling operations carve out channels in coastal wetlands for exploration as well as for transporting resources back to the mainland. Those channels in turn provide a route for Gulf waters to wash inland, the salinity eventually killing trees and other plants that help stabilize land, further exacerbating its erosion.

To date, oil and gas companies have dug an estimated 10,000 miles of canals across the state's wetlands. Since 1983, Shell Oil alone has dredged about 22,000 acres of Louisiana wetlands for placement or maintenance of pipeline canals and other production facilities. Environmental advocates recently tried to present the company with a bill for $362 million for the damage.

At the same time offshore oil and gas operations are eroding coastal wetlands, ocean levels are rising due to global climate disruption, while a warmer atmosphere is intensifying tropical storms and hurricanes. The situation has resulted in an ongoing disaster for Louisiana.

The current bipartisan push to expand offshore drilling along the Southeast coast risks bringing to other states the same problems Louisiana is grappling with. One of the hard-learned lessons of Katrina is that we ignore offshore drilling's destructive impact on our fragile coastal wetlands at our peril.

(Photo from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Labels: coastal protection, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, Hurricane Katrina, louisiana, offshore drilling

As Facing South previously reported, Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal made an important commitment last week to spending a billion dollars in state funds on coastal restoration and protection projects in the coming years.

But many coastal activists continue to point out that in order to restore the coast and to fully protect Gulf communities, much larger investments will have to be made. Since oil and gas companies have played an integral part in destroying Louisiana’s coastline, these activists argue that these companies should have to pay up to restore it.

Yesterday, a group of environmentalists demanded that Shell Oil Co. “fix the coast you broke” when they attempted to deliver the corporation a bill for $362 million for the cost of restoring wetlands that the company has destroyed, reports the Times-Picayune.

Dredging by oil companies such as Shell has contributed to erosion of the coast, leaving the region more vulnerable to hurricanes. The coalition of activists from grassroots groups such as Gulf Restoration Network and Advocates for Environmental Human Rights called on Shell to pay the money to the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Trust Fund, where it could be added to other offshore drilling revenue to help rebuild wetlands and build levees.

The Gulf Restoration Network reported in their blog:

The current estimate to fix Louisiana’s coast and secure our communities is $50 billion, but taxpayers can’t and shouldn’t shoulder that burden alone. Coastal scientists estimate that oil and gas companies have caused 40-60% of the coastal land loss Louisiana is experiencing. Shell has played a major role in placing us in this precarious position, and should be a part of the financial solution.
…
According to records from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, Shell Oil has dredged 8.8 million cubic yards of pipeline since 1983. These activities alone have caused the loss of 22,624 acres of wetlands in the last 25 years.
…
We feel the current situation in southern Louisiana informs the national debate around expanding offshore drilling on the Atlantic and Pacific Coast. Increased off-shore drilling would be detrimental to coastal communities, which is clear in the case of Louisiana. Decades of oil and gas activity along the coast have left the Mississippi River’s once mighty delta a pale comparison of its former glory.

Labels: coastal protection, environment, environmental health, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, louisiana, offshore drilling, oil industry, shell oil, wetlands

Chris O'Brien, reporter for the San Jose Mercury News has posted excerpts from his interview with T. Boone Pickens, the Texas-based oil-man-turned-wind-energy-advocate.

The Pickens Plan, as O'Brien lays it out:

In short, Pickens wants to build massive wind farms to generate 22 percent of our electricity. He would use that to free up natural gas which would then be used to power new fleets of trucks and government-owned vehicles.

Such views have brought Pickens attention from the media and environmentalists. But the interview reveals that Pickens hasn't turned entirely green. When O'Brien asks him about the hot issue of offshore drilling, Pickens doesn't flinch:

You oughta drill off the West Coast, the East Coast, ANWR, Florida, the whole thing.

Watch the video here; listen to the audio here.

Labels: energy policy, offshore drilling, oil industry, renewable energy, t. boone pickens, the pickens plan, wind energy

This past weekend, Louisiana Environmental Action Network technical supervisor Wilma Subra toured the banks of the Mississippi River through Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes to witness firsthand the effects of last week's devastating oil spill. She has posted her report to LEAN's website here.

Three days after Wednesday's accident, the broken barge was still in the river near New Orleans, propped up against a bridge and leaking fuel oil, she reports. Crews are still working to pump out the remaining oil and salvage the barge, a task that could take days, according to the Times-Picayune. However, the Coast Guard expects the river to be fully open to traffic today.

Meanwhile, booms that have been placed along the Mississippi's banks to keep the oil away are in many cases trapping the pollution against the shore, Subra says. The smell of petroleum hangs heavy over the entire river, the banks of which are coated with tarry oil, as seen in this LEAN photograph taken on the border of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes:


Of the more than 400,000 gallons of oil spilled, only about 72,000 gallons have been cleaned up so far, the Times-Picayune reports. As feared, the pollution is affecting local wildlife, like this oil-stained egret Subra photographed near the Oakville, La. community:


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services says it has reports of almost 100 oil-contaminated creatures. Besides egrets, they include ducks, herons, black vultures, beavers, muskrats and American alligators. Field teams are using propane cannons and large balloons resembling predators in an attempt to ward off birds. People who spot oiled wildlife are asked to call the agency's hotline at (504) 393-0353. A wildlife rehabilitation team has been set up in Venice, La.

As the disaster continues to play out, LEAN and the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper are calling on state and federal agencies to take a number of urgent steps to protect environmental and public health. They include:

* make sure the environment is completely restored;

* assess the extent of environmental contamination and associated economic impacts over the short and long term;

* carefully examine drinking water taken from the Mississippi River downstream from the spill;

* monitor environmental damage -- and specifically effects to wetland ecosystems -- over the long term; and

* assess the disaster's implications for the Gulf of Mexico including its Dead Zone, an 8,000-square mile area off Louisiana's coast where pollution runoff has made life unsustainable.

To read Subra's full report and see more photos, click here. There are also photos of the incident at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website.

(Photos from LEAN's website)

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

The Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper and Atchafalaya Basinkeeper patrolled the air yesterday to check on the section of the Mississippi River affected by Wednesday's oil spill. What they found was "not encouraging," they report:

Oil continues to leak from the wreckage of the barge and there were extensive oil slicks on the river from the wreckage to the extent of our patrol (near Carlisle).

A pilot we spoke to said that it was like this all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It appears that oil has been continuously leaking from the barge in substantial quantities since the wreck occurred. Disturbingly, there appears to be little effort to contain and collect the leaking oil. While many areas on the river have been boomed off to prevent the oil from getting into things like intakes, diversions and other waterways, there seems to be little real attempt to collect the spilling oil. It appears that the oil is simply being allowed to escape into the Gulf of Mexico.

In response to the ongoing disaster, the groups are calling for systemic changes, including:

* a review of the safety practices for the shipping of dangerous cargo in Louisiana;

* labeling of barges so first responders can tell from a distance what materials they're dealing with;

* a requirement that petroleum products and other hazardous materials be transported in double-hulled containers;

* an additional vessel to accompany hazardous cargo, as with oversized loads on highways; and

* better communication during an incident so local officials can take steps to protect drinking water supplies and evacuate residents if necessary.

The full report with more photos is online here.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports, the company that owned the tugboat implicated in this week's accident was involved in another collision on the Mississippi River near New Orleans just 11 days earlier.

On July 12, DRD Towing's Ruby E sank after colliding with the Martin Challenger about four miles upriver from the site of this week's accident. The towing firm also owns the Mel Oliver, which was moving the oil-bearing barge that collided with the Tintomara Wednesday.

In the earlier incident, the tugboat crew was properly licensed. In this week's collision, however, none of the Mel Oliver crew members had the proper credentials to operate on the river.

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

The massive oil slick from the crash that occurred yesterday on the Mississippi near New Orleans has now spread 100 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, it's come to light that the barge carrying the 400,000 gallons of fuel oil that spilled was being moved by a tugboat when it was struck by the Liberian-flagged tanker Tintomara -- and the tugboat operator had only an apprentice mate's license, and no one else on board was properly licensed to operate the boat. The Coast Guard's investigation continues.

So far cleanup crews have contained only about 140 barrels of oil out of the more than 9,900 spilled, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Several birds and a beaver have been found coated in oil, and wildlife officials continue to search the area around the spill. Staff at the Delta National Wildlife Refuge are overseeing the placement of oil-collecting booms in an efforts to keep the pollution from entering wetlands, where it's feared the oil could contaminate important food sources for migrating birds.

The disaster has shut down traffic along the Mississippi, with some 90 vessels stuck at various points along the river this morning. The river could be closed for days or weeks for cleanup operations, which would have an enormous economic impact. Click here for more details and updates from the Times-Picayune.

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

As politicians from across the South clamor to lift the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, the disaster that took place early this morning near New Orleans highlights the very real dangers faced by oil-producing communities.

Around 1:30 a.m., a chemical tanker collided with a fuel barge on the Mississippi River, ripping the barge in two and spilling over 400,000 gallons of unrefined, tar-like fuel oil into the water. The U.S. Coast Guard has shut down a 29-mile stretch of the river around the city, and an oil slick at least 12 miles long has spread along the water.

Drinking water intakes have been closed along the river's West Bank in Algiers, Gretna, St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish, and residents have been asked to conserve water. Water flowing through the tap is from reserve supplies, which could run out in many areas by tonight, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Fortunately, the East Bank's water intakes are upriver of the crash site.

The owner of the barge that way carrying the oil -- American Commercial Lines of Jeffersonville, Ind. -- is reportedly paying for the cleanup effort even though it has not been found responsible for the collision. State environmental officials are coordinating a massive effort to keep the oil from leaching into wetlands south of the crash site.

The spill apparently occurred when a 600-foot tanker called "Tintomara" -- owned by Laurin Maritime of Houston and sailing under the Liberian flag -- crashed into the barge carrying the fuel oil. The tanker, which did not leak, was carrying about 4.2 million gallons of biodiesel and nearly 1.3 million gallons of styrene, according to the Associated Press. The Coast Guard is still investigating the cause of the crash.

A heavy stench of petroleum has been hanging over New Orleans all day. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has dispatched emergency responders with portable air monitors to patrol areas around the city's Riverwalk and French Quarter, but they say they're detecting hydrocarbons at levels too low to require any action.

(Photo of wrecked barge and tugboats near the Crescent City Connection Bridge courtesy of DEQ)

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

North Carolina is one of the last Southern states to still support the federal ban on new offshore oil drilling, but lifting that ban has now become an issue in the governor's race.

This week, Republican nominee and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (photo right) announced that he would issue an executive order allowing "safe, technologically sound" exploration and drilling -- and he criticized his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, for her opposition to new drilling:

"Too many of our elected officials simply reject the possibility of offshore drilling with scare tactics. Lt. Gov. Perdue says she is '100 percent opposed' to the idea of examining deep sea drilling, claiming one 'Exxon Valdez could destroy North Carolina coastline forever.' (Maybe someone should inform the lieutenant governor that the Exxon Valdez was a boat with a drunken captain, not a rig.) Instead of a balanced and comprehensive approach, she endorses 'green energy alternatives' as the only solution."

Let's ignore for a moment the fact that McCrory is wrong about Captain Joseph Hazelwood being drunk at the time of the accident, a charge the longtime Exxon employee successfully defended himself against during his trial.

Instead, let's consider what McCrory values: balance.

What's the balance between what we stand to gain through drilling offshore versus what we stand to lose?

Because despite McCrory's downplaying of them, the potential environmental losses of offshore oil drilling are considerable. Even if pipelines are used to transport oil ashore, there's still a very real risk of leaks and spills -- and these can be catastrophic. In 2000, for example, a broken pipeline dumped about 1,300 tons of oil into the waters off Brazil, and a pipeline break off Nigeria's coast two years earlier spilled some 14,300 tons of oil into the sea, according to the United Nations Environmental Program.

There can also be spills related to the drilling process itself, including "blowouts" that result in the uncontrolled flow of fluids from an oil well. A blowout at the Ixtoc I exploratory oil well off the Mexican coast (pictured left) that took place over a nine-month period from 1979 to 1980 resulted in the dumping of some 475,000 tons of oil, while a blowout near Nigeria in 1980 spilled 54,000 tons of oil and destroyed more than 800 acres of mangroves.

There's also potential risk to offshore oil facilities from hurricanes -- a serious problem for the North Carolina coast.

In recent weeks, proponents of expanded offshore drilling have been downplaying the effect that hurricanes Katrina and Rita had on oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Speaking in favor of expanded drilling last week on Fox News, Louisiana Gov. Bobbie Jindal claimed there had been "no major spills" after Katrina and Rita. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain delivered the same message earlier in the month.

But Jindal, McCain and the other politicians deploying this talking point are simply wrong.

In fact, Katrina and Rita caused 124 offshore spills that dumped a total of 743,700 gallons of pollution into the ocean, as Think Progress reports. At the same time, onshore spills from pipelines, tanks and refineries totaled 9 million gallons, as compared to the 10.8 million gallons released by the Exxon Valdez. A single spill of 1 million gallons from the Murphy Oil refinery in Chalmette, La. (photo right) spread over one square mile and contaminated some 1,700 homes.

Clearly, the environmental risks of drilling for oil off North Carolina's coast are considerable.

So how much do we stand to gain from expanded offshore drilling?

The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that production from currently protected areas would reach 200,000 barrels per day in about 20 years. And that's for the entire U.S. continental shelf -- not just North Carolina's coast.

That amount represents a drop in the bucket of demand, as the United States now consumes about 21 million gallons of oil per day day.

Meanwhile, the "green energy alternatives" McCrory scoffs at could have a bigger impact on boosting the availability of oil. For example, a new analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that if the federal government had simply increased vehicle mileage standards after 1985 at the rate of just 0.4 miles per gallon per year for both cars and light trucks, the savings would be equal to 3.3 million barrels of oil per day through 2027, when offshore drilling is expected to reach peak capacity.

(Pat McCrory photo from the Charlotte Mayor's Office website, Ixtoc I oil spill photo from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Response and Restoration, and Murphy Oil spill photo from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.)

Labels: energy policy, environment, environmental politics, north carolina, offshore drilling, Pat McCrory

The U.S. Supreme Court has slashed the punitive damages awarded in the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster from $2.5 billion to $500 million. The 1989 tanker accident fouled Alaska's Prince William Sound with 11 million gallons of crude oil, causing the collapse of the local marine ecosystem and leading to the bankruptcy of the native Chugach people.

Today's high court decision marks a win for Texas-based Exxon, which was originally ordered by a jury to pay $5 billion in punitive damages. During the time the matter has been making its way through the courts, more than 3,000 of the original plaintiffs died.

Greenpeace USA Executive Director John Passacantando criticized the ruling as a "mockery of justice":

"The worst environmental calamity in U.S. history will continue to haunt the Prince William Sound and those dependent upon it for their livelihoods. Crude oil still can be found under rocks along the Sound’s shores, and fishery scientists estimate that only ten percent of the oil was ever cleaned up.

"As long as America maintains its addiction to oil, the country will remain at risk of environmental disasters such as the one caused by the Exxon Valdez."

In a statement released after the ruling, Exxon said it deeply regretted the incident and noted that it's paid $3.4 billion as a result -- an amount that covers compensation, cleanup, settlements and fines. Last year the company recorded a profit of more than $40 billion.

The court's decision comes as President Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain are pushing to lift the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling, which would increase the likelihood of coastal spills.

(Photo of birds killed by Exxon Valdez spill from the online photo gallery of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council)

Labels: Exxon Mobil, Exxon Valdez, offshore drilling

President Bush echoed the call of Republican presidential candidate John McCain this week in calling for an end to the 27-year-old federal ban on offshore oil drilling along the East and West coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The proposal comes amid soaring gas prices and rising levels of consumer anxiety, with drilling proponents making the case for increasing domestic supplies -- even though the American Petroleum Institute says opening U.S. coastal waters to drilling won't provide Americans with more oil for at least seven to 10 years.

McCain's call prompted his friend Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to reverse his longtime support for the drilling moratorium, which Crist now says is a states' rights issue. Elsewhere in the South, Virginia, Mississippi and South Carolina support lifting the moratorium, while North Carolina remains opposed.

Crist is not the only Florida leader to change his stance on the contentious issue. U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said he would now consider drilling as long as it was at least 50 miles off the coast. And Florida state Sen. Burt Saunders, chair of the Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, told the New York Times that he began changing his mind on the issue after Hurricane Katrina, when no major spills from offshore drilling operations reached the coast.

But as the paper noted, Saunders neglected to mention that the back-to-back wallops of Katrina and Hurricane Rita caused 124 spills that released more than 700,000 gallons of petroleum pollution into the environment.

Furthermore, the problem of drilling-related pollution is not limited to the aftermath of natural disasters. Offshore oil production also brings with it the risk of spills from tanker accidents, which are devastating to ocean and shore life as well as seaside tourist economies. Then there's the chronic pollution from drilling operations. The Rainforest Action Network estimates that over its lifetime one normally operating oil drilling rig will:

* dump more than 90,000 metric tons of toxic drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the ocean;

* drill between 50 and 100 wells, each of which will dump as much as 25,000 pounds of toxic metals including lead, chromium and mercury, and potent carcinogens like toluene, benzene, and xylene into the ocean; and

* pollute the air as much as 7,000 cars driving 50 miles a day.

(Photo of a beach after an offshore oil spill courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Labels: charlie crist, Florida, george bush, john mccain, mel martinez, offshore drilling, oil industry