The Wall Street Journal reports the SEC of all government agencies is interjecting itself into the fracking debate:
"The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking oil and gas companies to provide it with detailed information—including chemicals used and efforts to minimize environmental impact—about their use of a controversial drilling process used to crack open natural gas trapped in rocks.
The federal government's investor-and-markets watchdog is stepping into the heated environmental debate surrounding hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," according to government and industry officials, even as state and federal environmental officials have begun to bring greater pressure on the industry. The process, which involves pumping water, chemicals and sand underground to free difficult-to-reach natural gas in shale basins, has come under criticism from environmental groups ad some lawmakers over concerns toxins in the mix may contaminate air and water.
The SEC move shows the broad interest among Washington regulators in taking a closer look at fracking and suggests companies that are betting billions of dollars on the technology will increasingly need to weigh disclosing techniques they often consider proprietary. Battles over disclosure have already broken out at the state level, including in states such as New York and Pennsylvania that sit on the giant Marcellus Shale, an underground formation that has become a fracking hotbed because of the large quantities of natural gas there. Just last week, Noble Energy Inc. paid $3.4 billion for a stake in developing 663,350 acres there....
In the past, the SEC has trained its attention on other areas of concern, such as subprime mortgages and credit-default swaps, and has asked companies to provide additional information to investors. Government officials said the SEC's interest in fracking is in ensuring investors are being told about risks a company may face related to its operations, such as lawsuits, compliance costs or other uncertainties. Other federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency are collecting information about fracking, but those efforts are separate from the SEC.
For the moment, the SEC isn't requiring broad, standardized disclosure of fracking information to the public. Instead, oil and gas companies are being asked by the agency's office that oversees corporate disclosure to supply information confidentially to the SEC, and the agency, in turn, will likely require them to publicly disclose some of that information, according to government officials.
"If there's something in [a company's] field of operation that creates uncertainty, that's something they may want to talk about" with investors, said a government official.
The SEC's requests drew criticism from some in the industry about potential regulatory overkill.
"While our industry absolutely supports common sense disclosure and transparency measures, such duplicative inquires that may fall outside of an agency's core mission, are troubling and counter to what our nation needs at this time," said Kathryn Klaber, president of Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group.
An SEC spokesman said "in the course of our filing reviews staff will ask questions related to the areas disclosed in the company's filings." The EPA didn't respond to requests for comment.
The SEC's foray into the issue comes as the Obama administration is trying to find a middle ground between environmental concerns over fracking and an industry that is creating jobs and increasing domestic supplies of an alternative energy source to coal. Natural gas currently provides about 25% of total U.S. energy and is projected to increase to 45% by 2035, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In addition to a fracking study being conducted by the EPA, the Department of Energy and the Interior Department have also been examining the practice. Some states have fined drilling companies for environmental problems." Article
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Obama war on energy continues
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22 comments:
"In the past, the SEC has trained its attention on other areas of concern, such as subprime mortgages and credit-default swaps..."
And we know there was nothing to worry about with either of those things. Freakin' nosy government.
We'll send him packing next year.
This is a tough one.
Not sure if Obama can really do anything about it.
Let's start here, captured government. Since TARP, there has been an argument that WS has successfully "captured" government through means of controlling debt, eliminating competition, and holding a large number of very influential positions within government (Goldman Sachs).
The war on Natural Gas has been waged for years, this is just one more step in the battle to prevent this energy source from becoming truly commercialized.
"Fracking" as an issue, is a smoke screen for the oil interests to amass more time to acquire larger interests in the Natural Gas arena before the market is opened and let loose.
Ask any landman who has been acquiring mineral rights over the past 10 years, they will tell you the breakout of NG is eminent. Big Oil and those who hold a lot of their securities (read WS) need to make sure their money is in the right place.
Just a thought.
If you haven't seen "Gasland," you should.
Of course all of that 'higher knowledge' (read show-off) is lost on the common man, 98% of Americans and all illegals.
I reckon its all a Masonic plot.
Addendum: Obama can't 'do anything' about anything. However, the tone of confidence (or not) that he CAN set, is a significant driver. Don't look for any bar graphs to spike as long as this poser is in office.
I agree with the tone comment. But if you can't back it up with some action, one is basically powerless.
GOD FORBID that the SEC ask for information! And who does Obama think he is by trying to find a middle ground between environmental concerns and creating jobs! The nerve!
Kingfish's overblown headline in no way matches what is actually happening, but of course his hatred of all things Obama blinds him to this.
When you've exceeded Jimmy Carter for incompetence and ineptitude I don't think you can use the term 'overblown' when referring to President Hopey Dopey.
I think the headline is more indicative of Obama's unwillingness or frankly inability to remove barriers to growth within the economy.
Did any of you geniuses actually read the article? Please explain what Obama did that constituted a 'war on energy'.
His inaction/inability to stop this intrusion into the operations of a business when the SEC's job is to regulate securities and oversee the reporting requirements to exist as a publicly traded company - NOT to investigate the environmental impact or the operational processes for how a business makes money.
The question is why the Chief Executive of the US of this country facing one of the largest economic hurdles in almost a century can't or won't remove the barriers to a business that can lower the effective costs of the nation through development of Natural Gas (which is environmentally green) and spur economic development.
I do appreciate your insinuation you made in your question.
As to your question I defer to history:
Sun Tzu said it best...
He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot fight will be victorious. (3.25)
I hope you know what Sun Tzu wrote. If not, I don't know what to tell you.
Obummer's war on energy is fully illustrated by his moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. Talk to the thousands of oil workers that are no longer "oil workers". Not only that, how about his fully documented belief that we need to raise the price of fuel to the European levels? Everything this pinhead has done has been to drive fuel prices, and the price of anything and everything that uses fuel to manufacture or deliver, as high as possible. Why don't you Obama sheeple say just what YOU think he's doing all that for? Drink a little more Koolaid, praise the anointed one a little bit more, try and pull your heads out of your collective asses.
If you keep the air levels in your tires at the recommended level, you'll save an inestimable amount on your fuel costs.
10:51 said: "If you haven't seen "Gasland," you should."
I worked on the Marcellus Shale in NE PA from Nov of 2009 until Dec of 2010. I saw the program you are talking about and although it was very interesting, it was highly sensationalized and shot by an amateur who was extremely biased. That video has all but been discredited by the industry since then. I can go out and shoot an amateur hour documentary on just about an topic out there, present it to people who don't or wouldn't know any better, and have most of them believe exactly what I want them to. The debate over fracking is a smoke screen and a sham and within time, will be proven or forgotten.
Gasland was "discredited," eh? By the oil industry, no less. What do the folks who ahve natural gas shooting out of their kitchen sinks have to say about this "discredited" documentary?
Also: what are the ingredients of driling fluid? Answer: The oil industry won't tell anyone, claiming that it is a "proprietary trade secret."
Darwin was right. Fracking is just another evolution. Wait, it produced 10:40AM. Thats what I meant.
Obama, McCain, Romney, Pelosi, blah, blah...why not name the real culprits? The dumbasses who keep putting these bought and paid for tool bags in office.
The system is captured.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXpdJLJqG9U
OH NOES! Obama has declared war on energy again:
"The State Department gave a crucial green light on Friday to a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oil from oil sands in Canada across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast.
The project, which would be the longest oil pipeline outside of Russia and China, has become a potent symbol in a growing fight that pits energy security against environmental risk, a struggle highlighted by last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."
Kingfish should really focus on things he knows something about, i.e., how much lint is in his belly button, and leave the bigger issues to more knowledgeable folks.
From the WSJ editorial page Friday:
As Winston Churchill once quipped about America, so it often goes with the Obama Presidency: You can count on it to do the right thing—after it's tried everything else. Yesterday's State Department decision to move one step forward with the construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico would illustrate the point—except it's still trying everything else.
The proposed TransCanada pipeline, known as Keystone XL, should someday be able to deliver 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. That's a bit more than what the Sultanate of Oman, on the Arabian peninsula, produces. TransCanada also estimates that the project would bring $20 billion in investment and 13,000 new (union) jobs to the U.S., along with some 118,000 "spin-off" jobs. But TransCanada needs State Department approval because the pipeline crosses the 49th parallel.
Getting that approval has turned out to be harder than building the 1,711-mile underground pipeline would be. TransCanada first filed its application in September 2008. After dozens of public meetings, hundreds of thousands of comments, and extensive consultations with the EPA, DOT, USDA, DOI, DOE as well as several other federal and state agencies, State produced a draft environmental impact statement that said the pipeline posed little risk to the environment.
That was in April 2010. But the EPA cried foul, and State went back to work. Sixteen months later, State has now produced its latest impact statement. Volume One alone runs to more than 500 pages, taking in such considerations as "direct impacts to beetles"—and there are eight volumes in all. But the bottom line is that the pipeline poses "no significant impacts" to the environment.
Alas, the saga is far from over. As State noted in a press release yesterday, the impact statement will now be followed by a 90-day review "to determine if the proposed project is in the national interest. This broader evaluation of the application extends beyond environmental impact, taking into account economic, energy security, foreign policy and other relevant issues. During this time the Department will consult with, at least, the eight agencies identified in the Executive Order to obtain their views. The Department will also solicit public comments, both online and in public meetings in the six states the proposed project would traverse and in Washington D.C."
We quote at length because you can't make this stuff up.
Meanwhile, our friends in the green movement are gearing up for a brawl with an Administration they feel has betrayed them. Days of protest outside the White House have led to the arrest of such environmental experts as actress Margot Kidder of Lois Lane fame, who says the pipeline "is bound to leak." The Sierra Club is warning President Obama that it won't "mobilize the environmental base" if he approves projects like Keystone XL. Thus the President finds himself in his usual sour spot of having to choose between new jobs or placating his implacable leftist base.
Your guess is as good as Ms. Kidder's about where Mr. Obama comes down—and it's a pity that the decision will have at least as much to do with his re-election calculations as it does with U.S. energy security and job creation. But as a case study in how political indecision and bureaucratic delay contribute to the sickly economy we have today, the Keystone XL drama has few equals.
Okay, the article references timing of this project, so yes, it is true that each end of the windbag panders to different sets via timing on political issues.
But do you really think that petrodollars being stuffed into campaigns will go unrewarded? If so, pay the bills in your house but don't expect to make the rules. Be sure and post your address; I could use a place to crash.
It's all pandering-no war on anything except on the people who can't afford influence on the American political system.
At times like this, I hate that I'm an optimist.
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