The House on Wednesday passed legislation that would accelerate offshore drilling in the Arctic by curtailing environmental reviews of coastal oil exploration projects.
The measure, sponsored by Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, aims to remove legal and regulatory barriers that have stalled Shell Oil Co.’s bid to drill in Arctic waters near Alaska. But the bill’s reach extends beyond the Arctic, and Democrats said the legislation could chip away at the power of California and other states to regulate air pollution.
Bill backers said the legislation would fix “a broken bureaucracy” that has mired critical Clean Air Act permits in tussles between the Environmental Protection Agency and its administrative review panel, the Environmental Appeals Board.
“The EPA needs to have a permit approval system in place that is predictable (and) workable,” Green said. Instead, “we continue to see air permits for offshore exploration wells go back between the EPA, the producer and the Environmental Appeals Board with no movement to a solution.”
Although Shell hoped to launch work on its first exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea near Alaska after ice cleared this summer, the company scrapped those plans in February, after the appeals board revoked two EPA-issued air quality permits. The panel faulted the EPA for not fully reviewing potential emissions from a drill ship and support vessels.
The legislation would set a six-month deadline for the EPA to take final action on air permit applications, and it would bar the appeals board from reviewing permits for exploratory drilling.
Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, said those changes would “improve EPA’s decision making and air permitting . . . and restore much-needed certainty to that regulatory process.”
The legislation also would:
- block the EPA from regulating emissions from vessels that service offshore drilling operations.
- limit Clean Air Act reviews of offshore drilling projects to their impacts they would have on air quality onshore, effectively stopping those reviews at the shoreline.
The bill would not affect permitting in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Interior Department, not the EPA, is in charge.
The measure faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is advancing a similar proposal. Murkowski could push for such Arctic drilling provisions as part of broad offshore drilling legislation the panel is on track to advance this summer.
Several key House Democrats, including Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., acknowledged the current air permit process could be improved. But instead of making “sensible” changes, Waxman said, “this bill waives environmental requirements and short circuits public reviews.”
“It is a giveaway to the oil industry that will increase pollution along our nation’s coasts,” added Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Politics infused Wednesday’s debate.
Ahead of the vote, the Chamber of Commerce urged lawmakers to support the legislation and warned it might include the bill in its annual legislative scorecard. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans, targeted politically vulnerable Democrats with a news release describing them as having “anti-energy policies.”
Democrats fought back with amendments designed to put Republicans in a tough spot politically. But the GOP turned back all of the proposed changes, including one by Rep. Bill Keating, D-Mass., that would have required companies to disclose executives’ bonus pay in air permit applications. Another defeated proposal, by Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., would have forced the oil and gas companies to reveal their government subsidies.
Democrats dismissed the bill as political demagoguery by Republicans.
Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., insisted that the U.S. needs a real solution to its thirst for energy, instead of a sound bite approach and “drill baby drill” politics aimed at the 2012 elections.
Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., called the bill a “token of appreciation” to the oil industry whose political donations helped the GOP take over the House.
Oil and gas industry leaders cheered the bill’s passage.
“Streamlining the EPA air permit process is a necessary step for removing roadblocks to developing America’s energy resources,” said Marty Durbin, executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute. “We cannot leave exploration and production of critically needed resources in a perpetual state of limbo.”
But the Obama administration came out strongly against the bill, saying it would “curtail the authority of the EPA under the Clean Air Act to help ensure that domestic oil production on the outer continental shelf proceeds safely, responsibly and with opportunities for efficient stakeholder input.”
Shell is now seeking to drill up to four exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea and six wells in the nearby Chukchi Sea. It has filed exploration plans for those sites with federal offshore drilling regulators. At the same time, the company and EPA are working on refining a new set of air permits. Assistant EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told a congressional panel in May that Shell and the EPA were close to developing “a strong permit” that would withstand any future appeals board scrutiny.
Other companies, including Conoco Phillips and Statoil, also hold oil and gas leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
Glad see there is no bias associated with this story. The picture of the Polar Bear is just a coincidence. Drill baby, drill.
I don’t agree with this. Develop ALTERNATIVE ENERGY!! Don’t abuse the Alaska’s nature!
And not a word about how much money Shell has already sunk into these projects, that so far, haven’t been allowed to advance.
…don’t tell me… and the Senate will vote it down 52-48. OR, if the Senate were to sneak it through, the President will veto it. Yeah, I’ll bet on one of those two.
Hey PEOPLE, ALASKANS WANT TO DRILL! It is the politicians, DEMOCRATS from the LOWER 48 who BLOCK them! There comes a POINT where those politicians who HURT rather than HELP our country and it’s CITIZENS need to be REMOVED! And WHY is the ARTIC COAST regulated by a DIFFERENT ENTITY than the GULF COAST? Is this MORE DEMOCRATIC TOM FOOLERY? Shouldn’t the Dept. of the Interior be ultimately responsible with INPUT from the EPA? The EPA has been given WAY TOO MUCH POWER and needs to be SCALED BACK in POWER, AUTHORITY and ESPECIALLY INDIVIDUALS!
Yeah, lets go with ALTERNATIVE ENERGY like the ELECTRIC CAR that uses COAL and/or NUCLEAR for ELECTRICITY! Plus the cars are UNAFFORDABLE by the MAJORITY of American Citizens! It is TIME we STOP the IDEOLOGY that we can get OFF OIL RIGHT NOW! WE CAN’T! IDIOTS!
Oil spill baby! Oil spill!
Yeah, we need to do this. Not for ourselves, of course, as there is an oil glut here and the price is up only because of speculators powered by Bernanke’s QE2. But, the Japanese and Chinese need the oil. We won’t see any of it, except on TV as it gushes across that useless Arctic when a BP pipeline breaks because of no maintenance.
Why is it biased to include a picture of a polar bear? They live in the Beaufort Sea where this drilling will occur. It’s not like this is Lousiana and they are including a picture of a polar bear. Or would you simply prefer a picture of a walrus? I think the folly of the “drill baby, drill” mantra was proven last summer.
Its about time! The children have run this country for far too long.
On the topic of the photo I would think it to be more appropriate for the Chronicle to run a picture of the horrible poverty and corruption and pollution in places like Nigeria with stories like this.
While I personally generate more than my families electical needs with solar and have two hybrid (traditional as in Prius like) cars and fully accept the fact we need to move towards renewables, this ain’t going to happen overnight.
In addition to reducing demand can we please stop the blood for oil policy being practiced even by the current administration (the wikileaks should not be a surprise to anybody) and can we please produce the oil we do use in stable, human rights loving countries like the US and Canada?
To those folks who claim to be environmental advocates what is your carbon foot print and what are you doing to reduce it? As somebody who works in energy production (and my home is pretty self-sufficient with renewables) my general experience is that those who whine about the environment are really freeloaders….
Like Al Gore with his huge carbon footprint.
Our little old house generates more solar than Al Bore’s monstrosity that still requires (check out scopes) about 200,000 kWH per year of electricity (mostly to feed the internet servers)…
But Bob ………. the polar bear , just uhhhh , soooooo tugs at the heart ……..
Oh my, where would the world be when all the polar bears are gone. They are sooooo cute .
And we must think with our emotions ….. that’s the best way to determine these issues.
Not.
Indianpaintbrush: Links in this story will take you to some of our previous detailed coverage of Shell’s five-year quest to drill in U.S. Arctic waters, including a piece in February and another from November that cite exactly those financial stats.
Bill backers noted on the House floor that Shell has spent more than $3 billion on its Arctic holdings (including about $2 billion to purchase the leases and another $1.5 billion preparing for drilling).
But bill critics called that disingenuous, because, they observed, Shell has repeatedly revised its drilling plans, including changing planned ships and technology for the job — and each revised or new permit application triggers an EPA review. Blaming the EPA or its administrative appeals board for “five years of delays” doesn’t recognize that Shell also has played a role in extending the time frame.
DRILL for oil Alaska.
Better than buying oil from the Islamic fanatics.