Original Story: huffingtonpost.com
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Persian Gulf War.
It was fought in late 1990 through early 1991 by a U.S.-led coalition of 34 countries against Iraq in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Was there a problem with a chemical storage tank leaking?
It also was the first U.S. war to be waged after the advent of the 24-hour cable television news cycle.
The conflict was accompanied by memorably intense and round-the-clock coverage on CNN.
But there’ve been few recognitions of the war’s 25-year milestone on the cable news networks, let alone in broadcast or print media.
For David Winnett, a Gulf War combat veteran who climbed the ranks from private to captain during his 20-year career in the U.S. Marines, it’s just the latest in a succession of insults to the men and women who served in this largely forgotten war. This may need the services of a Los Angeles Toxic Torts Lawyer.
“It’s no surprise that many people could easily forget ‘our war.’ It was far too fast by any historical measure,” Winnett told Healthline. “Perhaps things would be different had we continued our advance all the way to Baghdad, but the fact is, we didn’t. So regardless of whether or not we think our war has been unfairly set aside in the history books, it is what it is.”
Toxic Aftermath
While ground combat in the Persian Gulf War only lasted days, Winnett said, the toxic legacy of the war has been just as devastating for the postwar health of Gulf War veterans as the defoliant Agent Orange has been for those who served in Vietnam.
Winnett is just one of hundreds of thousands of Gulf War vets who suffer from Gulf War Illness (GWI), also known as Gulf War Syndrome, the panoply of chronic and often debilitating symptoms reported by veterans of that conflict.
The acute symptoms, which for many veterans never go away, include extreme fatigue, neurological issues, insomnia, migraines, joint pain, persistent coughing, gastrointestinal issues such as diarrhea and constipation, skin problems, dizziness, respiratory disorders, and memory problems.
The National Academy of Sciences estimates that as many as 250,000 of the 700,000 U.S. troops who served in the Persian Gulf War have been affected by GWI, which studies have shown is the result of a litany of toxic exposures that troops like Winnett endured while serving.
Troops were exposed to toxic smoke from the fires of thousands of military burn pits in the war zone. The fires involved tires and other things that contain harmful chemicals.
There was also sarin and other toxic chemicals dropped on U.S. troops.
Two peer reviewed scientific research studies released in 2012 concluded that weather patterns carried massive toxic chemical cloud that fell on U.S. troops. The cloud was created by the U.S. bombing of Iraqi chemical weapon storage facilities
The first study concluded that nerve and blister agents, which were supplied to Iraq by the U.S. before the Gulf War when Hussein was an uncomfortable ally, were bombed by U.S. forces. The toxic substances were swept into the atmosphere and subsequently dropped on U.S. troops.
The second study confirmed the number of GWI reports was in fact higher at the places where the sarin fell.
“Our peer reviewed scientific findings bring us full circle by confirming what most soldiers believed when they heard the nerve gas alarms. The alarms were caused by sarin fallout from our bombing of Iraqi weapons sites,” James Tuite, who led the first study, said in a statement.
The VA’s Position
Despite the scientific evidence and a mandate from Congress that Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recognize several of the symptoms as connected to service in the Gulf War, the VA maintains that there are no definitive scientific studies that link symptoms and diseases associated with GWI to toxic exposures during the war.
According to a 2015 report, about 80 percent of Gulf War veterans who file disability claims citing presumptive chronic multisymptom illnesses connected to toxic exposures are denied by the VA.
A written statement from the VA’s Post-Deployment Health Services team to Healthline stated that in the past few years the VA has “ramped up educational efforts to VA providers on Gulf War Illness.” However, the statement read, “there are times when referral to a psychiatrist is indicated due to a co-morbid condition such as severe depression or another severe mental health condition.”
In another email to Healthline, VA officials said a claim could be denied for a number of reasons, including the belief an ailment was caused by something other than military service or the ailment could be “less than 10 percent disabling.”
Most often, say multiple sources for this story, veterans who say they have these symptoms are sent to the psychiatric departments of VA centers, where they are typically given psychotropic drugs that don’t help them, and in many cases make things worse.
The VA acknowledges the following in a statement on its website: “Rockets filled with sarin and cyclosporine mixes were found at a munitions storage depot in Khamisiyah, Iraq, that had been demolished by U.S. service members following the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire. An undetermined amount of these chemicals was released into the atmosphere. The Department of Defense concluded about 100,000 Gulf War Veterans could have been exposed to low levels of these nerve agents.”
The VA also adds that “research doesn’t show long-term neurological problems from exposure to low levels of sarin. A low level of sarin is an amount that doesn’t cause noticeable symptoms during the exposure.”
Regarding the burn pits, a VA statement on its burn pits registry page reads, “At this time, research does not show evidence of long-term health problems from exposure to burn pits.”
Did the Gulf War Cause Cancer, Too?
Benjamin Krause is a Gulf War veteran who went to law school after he retired from the military, and dedicates his practice to helping his fellow veterans.
He told Healthline that burn pit exposures are associated with an increasing number of diseases, including cancer.
“There’s growing evidence showing a link between burn pits and certain cancers like pancreatic cancer, for example,” Krause said. “VA is working to create a registry to help with service connection and health benefits for these veterans, but history has shown us that such initiatives take much longer to perfect while sick veterans die.”
Compounding the problem, Krause said, are non-VA healthcare providers who are simply unaware of the health risks of military service.
“They don’t ask the right questions and risk deadly misdiagnosis of symptoms because of a lack of awareness of the harms of burn pits, among other things,” Krause noted. “Veterans are getting sick and dying now. We need our VA to pick up the pace before more veterans get sick and die from burn pit exposure related illnesses.”
Congress Steps In
Anthony Hardie, a staff sergeant in the Army who served in combat deployments in the Gulf War and Somalia, has worked for years to get laws passed that set the framework for Gulf War veterans’ healthcare, research, and disability benefits.
The director of Veterans for Common Sense and chair of the programmatic panel of directors for the Gulf War Illness Research Program, Hardie’s work with fellow veteran advocates on both sides of the aisle led to the passage of the Persian Gulf War Veterans Act of 1998 and the Veterans Programs Enhancement Act of 1998.
Hardie told Healthline that these laws gave Gulf War veterans hope for new treatments and recognition by the VA that their persistent symptoms were related to their service.
“But when veterans suffering from Gulf War Illness walk through the door at VA centers and clinics in 2016,” he said, “there are still no evidence-based treatments for them. And most of them are just shuffled off to psychiatric care.”
Winnett added that while Congress deemed three symptoms to be “presumptive” to service in the Gulf War, the VA continues to largely ignore that.
“The most widely reported symptoms of Gulf War Illness are profound fatigue, excruciating bodywide muscle pain, and chronic GI problems,” said Winnett. “The VA, despite its own regulations that are supposed to give the benefit of the doubt to veterans with symptoms considered ‘presumptive’ to service in the Persian Gulf War, instead continue as an organization to view Gulf War Illness as a psychosomatic illness.”
Winnett explained that if a veteran can’t get their symptoms rated as service-connected, “their chance of receiving medical care relative to their symptoms is slim to none. This is a national tragedy of the highest order.”
Reasons for Optimism
Despite the frustrations, every veteran advocate interviewed for this story said there is reason for optimism.
For one thing, Congress recently decided to continue funding GWI treatment research at $20 million for the next year.
“[This] is just what we asked for,” said Hardie. “It shows that Congress continues to take Gulf War veterans’ health issues far more seriously than the Department of Defense or the VA.”
In addition to the two House hearings earlier this year, the Senate has also taken up the GWI issue.
Last month, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, announced that reforms and investments she fought for to improve veterans’ care were passed by the Senate as a part of the fiscal year 2017 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs funding bill.
Among Baldwin’s priorities stated in the bill is “better treatment for veterans suffering from Gulf War Illness.”
Baldwin’s provisions, which have received virtually no media coverage, would “improve the approval rates of veterans’ disability claims; enhance ongoing studies and research into the causes of and treatments for Gulf War Illness; and strengthen the membership and work of the Research Advisory Committee, which oversees the government’s research agenda.”
A spokesperson for the VA told Healthline, “The Department of Veterans Affairs is currently working on responding directly to Senator Baldwin, and will include relevant post-deployment health information.”
Promising New Science
The science surrounding GWI also continues to progress.
Two major, four-year, $5 million treatment development research projects at Nova Southeastern University and Boston University are about halfway completed and are expected to break new ground for possible GWI treatment recommendations.
And while there are no evidence-based treatments yet for GWI, some natural supplements have been shown in studies to effectively lessen some of the symptoms.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, concluded a few years ago that 19 of the most common GWI symptoms improved after taking supplements.
“We found in our research that there was significant benefit to the veterans’ physical function,” Beatrice Golomb, professor of medicine at the school and principal investigator on the study, told the Bergmann & Moore veterans law firm. “And that is a huge issue with these veterans, whose physical functions often decline. Some of them used to run 20 miles. Now they can’t jog a couple of blocks.”
About 80 percent of veterans with GWI who took coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) saw improved physical function, and the improvement correlated to higher levels of CoQ10 found in the blood, according to research published in Neural Computation.
“This is not a cure, but we think maybe if we give the veterans more of a mitochondrial cocktail they will see an even greater benefit,” Golomb said.
Forgotten After 9/11
Winnett said he felt a “moral obligation” to help his fellow vets after making a 2008 trip to Washington for a VA hearing on Gulf War veterans’ health.
“I was taken aback by the physical condition of the veterans I saw there,” Winnett recalled. “I was older than most Gulf War veterans because I had 16 years of service under my belt when the war began. In Washington, I saw veterans in their 40s who couldn’t walk without assistance. Some were in wheelchairs.”
Winnett said that after 9/11, many people in America, including legislators, just forgot about the fact that many thousands of 1991 veterans were sick.
“We moved on as a country following 9/11 to more pressing matters,” he said. “I would guess that Korean War veterans experienced a similar phenomenon as the Vietnam War ramped up in the mid 1960s. There comes a time when you’re no longer the flavor of the day.”
Thomas Bandzul, an attorney and veterans advocate who’s testified numerous times before Congress on Gulf War health issues, said the American public to this day simply does not have a good understanding of the effects the Gulf War had on the troops.
“The VA has downplayed the significance of Gulf War Illness and has successfully delayed the research that help veterans with their physical ailments,” Bandzul said. “VA still refuses to treat or allow these veterans a disability claim. The unspecific term of ‘general illness’ is still applied to most Gulf War veterans, and their claims are usually denied. This callous and capricious manner in dealing with veterans is a shame.”
Veterans Have Each Other’s Backs
But what stands out most among the Gulf War veterans who agreed to talk to Healthline for this piece is their relentless support of each other.
Last year, Larry Cockrell, a combat veteran who served with the 7th Marines in Task Force Ripper during the first Gulf War, was rated 100 percent disabled by the VA and retired from a successful career as an investigator for several Fortune 500 companies.
Cockrell has several serious health issues as a result of his service, but he’s dedicated his life to assisting his fellow combat veterans as well as their families on their ranch in Lake Mathews in Southern California.
“We assist combat veterans with file claims or file disagreements with VA,” he told Healthline. “Honestly, the Gulf War was forgotten when the parades ended. We fought the largest tank battles, birched the largest minefields, and injected our troops with experimental vaccines, all while fighting on the most contaminated battlefield in the history of warfare.”
Cockrell said “everyone dropped the ball” when Gulf War veterans came home and could not get the healthcare they needed. But he said he has gotten new strength and has never felt a stronger sense of purpose than he does now by helping his fellow veterans on his ranch.
“We love having the spouses and partners here enjoying the ambience and horses and giving their kids rides,” he said. “Ironically, I’ve only had a few veterans jump on a horse and ride. But as Winston Churchill once said, ‘the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.’ Just being around them assists veterans. It’s a given that our health issues are not going to get better as we get older. It’s time to give these combat veterans a 100 percent disability rating and a chance to manage their disabilities.”
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
50k Pounds Of Potatoes Across I-77 Shuts Down Traffic
Original story: wsoctv.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. —
A portion of Interstate 77 was shut down for hours Friday after a tractor-trailer crashed, spilling thousands of potatoes across the highway. It is likely that a Charlotte truck accident lawyer will be contacted.
A Channel 9 photographer was traveling behind the truck and witnessed the crash around 2 a.m. in the southbound lanes of I-77 near West Boulevard.
The impact was so violent that the engine flew out of the big rig.
Two other drivers who were following the truck jumped out and rescued the truck driver, who was rushed to Carolinas Medical Center. Officials said he'd be OK.
“Maybe he fell sleep, and sadly hit the guard rail,” said rescuer Garrett Bonacci. “Thank the Lord he's all right.”
"We stopped immediately and saw a guy try to crawl out of the cab,” said Grant Wales. “Saw a lot fire going on, so I ran to him. His leg was pinned, tried pulling him out.”
The two rescuers and state troopers told Channel 9 that the driver said he fell asleep behind the wheel. A Charlotte trucking lawyer says that this unfortunately happens more than we would like to think.
No other vehicles were involved in crash, which damaged about 20 feet of guard rail and concrete barrier.
Officials said the interstate would be closed through the morning rush hour while crews worked to clean-up the 50,000 pounds of potatoes that scattered for hundreds of yards across the road.
Some potatoes were soaked in diesel fuel and clean-up crews had to separate the clean potatoes from the one's contaminated with fuel and oil.
Thousands of clean potatoes were hauled into trucks to be taken to a landfill.
Lee Shank, who is the president of Carolina Environmental, the company called to help clean up, said it could take days before they decide what to do with the potatoes mixed with fuel and oil.
"You basically had diesel fuel and oil petroleum products that are mixed with some of the potatoes," he explained. "Some of the potatoes we had to either clean or will be disclosed as off-spec food product food waste. It sounds simple but we actually go through them (the potatoes) and see where the diesel fuel stopped, and all the potatoes passed that are clean."
Drivers were advised to take the following detour: From I-77 south, take Exit 11 (I-277), follow I-277 and take exit 1-B to get back on I-77 south.
Clean-up crews initially hoped to have one lane open by 5 a.m. and all lanes open by 8 a.m. but DOT officials said all the lanes would not reopen until at least noon.
The far left lane was reopened just before 8 a.m. and a second lane was reopened around 11:30 a.m.
All lanes were reopened around 4 p.m.
Highway Patrol has not identified that driver but said he is expected to recover.
Sgt. Jeff Nash said they will decide later if he will be charged. If a Charlotte truck crash lawyer is involved then charges were made.
“I'm sure you've got failure to maintain lane control. Why he ran off the roadway, we're still investigating that,” Nash said.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. —
A portion of Interstate 77 was shut down for hours Friday after a tractor-trailer crashed, spilling thousands of potatoes across the highway. It is likely that a Charlotte truck accident lawyer will be contacted.
A Channel 9 photographer was traveling behind the truck and witnessed the crash around 2 a.m. in the southbound lanes of I-77 near West Boulevard.
The impact was so violent that the engine flew out of the big rig.
Two other drivers who were following the truck jumped out and rescued the truck driver, who was rushed to Carolinas Medical Center. Officials said he'd be OK.
“Maybe he fell sleep, and sadly hit the guard rail,” said rescuer Garrett Bonacci. “Thank the Lord he's all right.”
"We stopped immediately and saw a guy try to crawl out of the cab,” said Grant Wales. “Saw a lot fire going on, so I ran to him. His leg was pinned, tried pulling him out.”
The two rescuers and state troopers told Channel 9 that the driver said he fell asleep behind the wheel. A Charlotte trucking lawyer says that this unfortunately happens more than we would like to think.
No other vehicles were involved in crash, which damaged about 20 feet of guard rail and concrete barrier.
Officials said the interstate would be closed through the morning rush hour while crews worked to clean-up the 50,000 pounds of potatoes that scattered for hundreds of yards across the road.
Some potatoes were soaked in diesel fuel and clean-up crews had to separate the clean potatoes from the one's contaminated with fuel and oil.
Thousands of clean potatoes were hauled into trucks to be taken to a landfill.
Lee Shank, who is the president of Carolina Environmental, the company called to help clean up, said it could take days before they decide what to do with the potatoes mixed with fuel and oil.
"You basically had diesel fuel and oil petroleum products that are mixed with some of the potatoes," he explained. "Some of the potatoes we had to either clean or will be disclosed as off-spec food product food waste. It sounds simple but we actually go through them (the potatoes) and see where the diesel fuel stopped, and all the potatoes passed that are clean."
Drivers were advised to take the following detour: From I-77 south, take Exit 11 (I-277), follow I-277 and take exit 1-B to get back on I-77 south.
Clean-up crews initially hoped to have one lane open by 5 a.m. and all lanes open by 8 a.m. but DOT officials said all the lanes would not reopen until at least noon.
The far left lane was reopened just before 8 a.m. and a second lane was reopened around 11:30 a.m.
All lanes were reopened around 4 p.m.
Highway Patrol has not identified that driver but said he is expected to recover.
Sgt. Jeff Nash said they will decide later if he will be charged. If a Charlotte truck crash lawyer is involved then charges were made.
“I'm sure you've got failure to maintain lane control. Why he ran off the roadway, we're still investigating that,” Nash said.
Iowa City Resident Killed In Tractor Vs. Semi Accident
Original Story: press-citizen.com
A collision Thursday between a semi-truck and a tractor killed an Iowa City resident and injured a Tipton resident.
The fatal collision took place at 12:15 p.m Thursday just northwest of Morse in rural Johnson County, near the intersection of Morse Road Northeast and Vincent Avenue Northeast, according to crash report from the Iowa State Patrol. An Iowa truck accident lawyer is looking into the case.
The John Deere tractor was traveling eastbound while the semi was traveling westbound on Morse Road when the tractor started turning left, according to the crash report. The semi hit the tractor and the tractor driver was ejected from the vehicle.
The driver of the tractor was not wearing a seat belt, the report said.
The report did not release the names of those involved in the accident, but the driver who was killed was reported to be 55 years old and from Iowa City. The driver of the truck, who was injured and taken to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, was 69 and from Tipton. A Des Moines truck accident lawyer may be called onto the case.
There was no additional information on the truck driver's injuries.
A collision Thursday between a semi-truck and a tractor killed an Iowa City resident and injured a Tipton resident.
The fatal collision took place at 12:15 p.m Thursday just northwest of Morse in rural Johnson County, near the intersection of Morse Road Northeast and Vincent Avenue Northeast, according to crash report from the Iowa State Patrol. An Iowa truck accident lawyer is looking into the case.
The John Deere tractor was traveling eastbound while the semi was traveling westbound on Morse Road when the tractor started turning left, according to the crash report. The semi hit the tractor and the tractor driver was ejected from the vehicle.
The driver of the tractor was not wearing a seat belt, the report said.
The report did not release the names of those involved in the accident, but the driver who was killed was reported to be 55 years old and from Iowa City. The driver of the truck, who was injured and taken to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, was 69 and from Tipton. A Des Moines truck accident lawyer may be called onto the case.
There was no additional information on the truck driver's injuries.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Dozens of Women Vanish on Canada’s Highway of Tears, and Most Cases Are Unsolved
Original Story: NYTimes.com
SMITHERS, British Columbia — Less than a year after her 15-year-old cousin vanished, Delphine Nikal, 16, was last seen hitchhiking from this isolated northern Canadian town on a spring morning in 1990.
Ramona Wilson, 16, a member of her high school baseball team, left home one Saturday night in June 1994 to attend a dance a few towns away. She never arrived. Her remains were found 10 months later near the local airport.
Tamara Chipman, 22, disappeared in 2005, leaving behind a toddler. “She’s still missing,” Gladys Radek, her aunt, said. “It’ll be 11 years in September.”
Dozens of Canadian women and girls, most of them indigenous, have disappeared or been murdered near Highway 16, a remote ribbon of asphalt that bisects British Columbia and snakes past thick forests, logging towns and impoverished Indian reserves on its way to the Pacific Ocean. So many women and girls have vanished or turned up dead along one stretch of the road that residents call it the Highway of Tears.
A special unit formed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officially linked 18 such cases from 1969 to 2006 to this part of the highway and two connecting arteries. More women have vanished since then, and community activists and relatives of the missing say they believe the total is closer to 50. Almost all the cases remain unsolved.
The Highway of Tears and the disappearances of the indigenous women have become a political scandal in British Columbia. But those cases are just a small fraction of the number who have been murdered or disappeared nationwide. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have officially counted about 1,200 cases over the past three decades, but research by the Native Women’s Association of Canada suggests the total number could be as high as 4,000.
SMITHERS, British Columbia — Less than a year after her 15-year-old cousin vanished, Delphine Nikal, 16, was last seen hitchhiking from this isolated northern Canadian town on a spring morning in 1990.
Ramona Wilson, 16, a member of her high school baseball team, left home one Saturday night in June 1994 to attend a dance a few towns away. She never arrived. Her remains were found 10 months later near the local airport.
Tamara Chipman, 22, disappeared in 2005, leaving behind a toddler. “She’s still missing,” Gladys Radek, her aunt, said. “It’ll be 11 years in September.”
Dozens of Canadian women and girls, most of them indigenous, have disappeared or been murdered near Highway 16, a remote ribbon of asphalt that bisects British Columbia and snakes past thick forests, logging towns and impoverished Indian reserves on its way to the Pacific Ocean. So many women and girls have vanished or turned up dead along one stretch of the road that residents call it the Highway of Tears.
A special unit formed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officially linked 18 such cases from 1969 to 2006 to this part of the highway and two connecting arteries. More women have vanished since then, and community activists and relatives of the missing say they believe the total is closer to 50. Almost all the cases remain unsolved.
The Highway of Tears and the disappearances of the indigenous women have become a political scandal in British Columbia. But those cases are just a small fraction of the number who have been murdered or disappeared nationwide. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have officially counted about 1,200 cases over the past three decades, but research by the Native Women’s Association of Canada suggests the total number could be as high as 4,000.
Monday, March 14, 2016
AT $2 MILLION A DAY, PORTER RANCH RESIDENTS GET TO KEEP THEIR TEMPORARY HOUSING
Original Story: latimes.com
Southern California Gas Co. will have to continue paying for temporary accommodations for Porter Ranch residents who do not believe it is safe to move home in the wake of the largest methane leak in U.S. history, an appeals court ruled Wednesday. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer represents clients in energy matters of oil and gas.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the gas company's argument that residents should immediately vacate their hotels and other temporary homes now that the gas leak has been fixed.
Customers will now have until March 18 to move home.
The Aliso Canyon gas leak was first reported Oct. 23. Residents in Porter Ranch and surrounding communities complained of headaches, nausea and nosebleeds, symptoms that health officials believe were caused by odorants added to the methane to help detect a leak. A Tulsa energy lawyer is following this story closely.
Those health concerns and the temporary closure of two public schools prompted thousands of households to voluntarily relocate out of the area.
Crews sealed the leak Feb. 18. Residents had eight days to move home before the gas company would stop paying for their accommodations. But some residents complained that they did not believe it was safe to move home, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors sought a temporary restraining order to give customers more time before moving back.
Last week, an attorney for the gas company said relocation efforts cost the utility $2 million a day.
“While we are disappointed with the court's decision because it conflicts with independent scientific analysis and creates further uncertainty for the community, SoCal Gas will continue to comply with the decision to provide continued relocation for those who choose to stay relocated,” according to a statement from the utility. A Los Angeles environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this case.
Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, the interim director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health, has said it is safe for residents to return to the area if they do not smell fumes or feel ill.
Some who have returned home after the leak was sealed said they continued to suffer from maladies.
Health department officials do not expect there to be long-term health effects related to the leak, Gunzenhauser said.
The court case doesn't affect displaced residents who leased homes and apartments until as late as April 30.
Southern California Gas Co. will have to continue paying for temporary accommodations for Porter Ranch residents who do not believe it is safe to move home in the wake of the largest methane leak in U.S. history, an appeals court ruled Wednesday. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer represents clients in energy matters of oil and gas.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the gas company's argument that residents should immediately vacate their hotels and other temporary homes now that the gas leak has been fixed.
Customers will now have until March 18 to move home.
The Aliso Canyon gas leak was first reported Oct. 23. Residents in Porter Ranch and surrounding communities complained of headaches, nausea and nosebleeds, symptoms that health officials believe were caused by odorants added to the methane to help detect a leak. A Tulsa energy lawyer is following this story closely.
Those health concerns and the temporary closure of two public schools prompted thousands of households to voluntarily relocate out of the area.
Crews sealed the leak Feb. 18. Residents had eight days to move home before the gas company would stop paying for their accommodations. But some residents complained that they did not believe it was safe to move home, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors sought a temporary restraining order to give customers more time before moving back.
Last week, an attorney for the gas company said relocation efforts cost the utility $2 million a day.
“While we are disappointed with the court's decision because it conflicts with independent scientific analysis and creates further uncertainty for the community, SoCal Gas will continue to comply with the decision to provide continued relocation for those who choose to stay relocated,” according to a statement from the utility. A Los Angeles environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this case.
Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, the interim director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health, has said it is safe for residents to return to the area if they do not smell fumes or feel ill.
Some who have returned home after the leak was sealed said they continued to suffer from maladies.
Health department officials do not expect there to be long-term health effects related to the leak, Gunzenhauser said.
The court case doesn't affect displaced residents who leased homes and apartments until as late as April 30.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
COMMISSION PROBING PERMANENT CLOSURE OF ALISO CANYON GAS FIELD AMID MASSIVE LEAK
Original Story: latimes.com
The California Public Utilities Commission is studying the effects of permanently shutting down the Aliso Canyon natural gas field near Porter Ranch, an indication the agency is uncertain about the future integrity of the storage system that supplies 11 million customers in Southern California.
The commission wants to know whether Southern California Gas Co. can find alternative storage sites and delivery systems to make up for a possible shortfall of gas should the 3,600-acre field be taken off-line in the future. A California environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
Edward Randolph, energy division director at the PUC, said the regulatory agency is studying the issue for several reasons, “including that, with several investigations underway, policymakers in California want to know all possible short- and long-term options.”
“Until there are definitive answers on the future of Aliso Canyon, we want to do everything we can to assure reliability knowing that Aliso Canyon is not going to be able to provide the levels of service it historically has,” Randolph said.
A week ago, Timothy Sullivan, executive director of the PUC, ordered the utility to work with government agencies to develop alternatives to reliance on Aliso Canyon.
Gas company spokeswoman Stephanie Donovan declined to comment on the issue, except to say, “We’re not going to try to speak for the CPUC.” A Virginia environmental lawyer has experience with multiple industry types and implications of detrimental environmental practices.
Sustaining energy reliability without the 3,600-acre facility would be daunting. Existing pipelines lack the capacity to make up such a shortfall, according to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, and other storage facilities in the region are too small or too far away to provide gas quickly enough when needed.
Disruption of gas service requires technicians to visit homes and businesses to relight pilot lights on furnaces and water heaters — a process that could take weeks if the interruption is widespread. Curtailing gas for electric power generation could trigger blackouts during peak demand periods in summer.
Commission safety officials say their top priorities are stopping the leak that has displaced thousands of residents since it began spewing mostly methane Oct. 23 and ensuring that it never happens again.
“We hear loud and clear that many members of the local community want Aliso Canyon permanently taken out of service,” Elizaveta Malashenko, director of safety and enforcement at the PUC, said in a report to her agency Jan. 21. A Baton Rouge environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this case.
“First, we are working on analysis of how reliability issues can be addressed now and if Aliso Canyon is not operational during the upcoming summer,” Malashenko said. “Second, we are working on the analysis of how reliability issues can be addressed if Aliso Canyon is not operational next winter and beyond.”
Rep. Brad Sherman, a resident of Porter Ranch, said he does not believe the gas company has enough storage elsewhere to guarantee delivery to power generation plants during peak demands in the summer.
“If it is feasible, it ought to be shut down — but I’m not holding my breath,” Sherman said. “That’s because they’ve created a facility that is literally too big to fail.”
The gas company operates four underground storage fields in Southern California with a combined “working gas” capacity of about 136 billion cubic feet. Aliso Canyon is by far the largest, with a working gas capacity of 86.2 billion cubic feet. A Texas oil & gas lawyer represents landowners in negotiating the terms of seismic permits, option agreements, oil and gas leases, and easements.
The leak rate of the ruptured well has dropped by two-thirds to 18,400 kilograms per hour since its peak Nov. 28. The decline was achieved by increasing withdrawals of gas from the storage reservoir, which reduced the pressure that is pushing the gas up the well and leaking out, the gas company said. As a result, the reservoir has gone from being 90% full before the leak to at most 37% full Jan. 10.
The PUC has been working with state agencies including the California Energy Commission and California Independent System Operator to determine how far the amount of gas stored at Aliso Canyon can be reduced while keeping homes heated and gas-fired power plants running.
PUC executive Sullivan recently ordered the gas company to reduce the level of working gas at the facility to 15 billion cubic feet, which he described as “the greatest extent possible, while ensuring energy reliability requirements so that customers are not left without heat and hot water and electricity outages do not occur.” A Tulsa energy lawyer represents clients in energy law matters.
The utility believes plugging the ruptured 1950s-era well known as SS-25 could take until late February. On Wednesday, the company said it will temporarily plug 18 vintage wells to inspect for signs of weakness, corrosion and mechanical damage. The Aliso Canyon facility has 115 wells in all.
Among those who believe Aliso Canyon has outlived its usefulness is Robert G. Bea, a retired professor of civil and petroleum engineering and co-founder of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at UC Berkeley.
“My big question is this: Why must we wait for a system to fail before we are galvanized into action?” Bea said. “The tragic result is always the same: Tick. Tick. Tick.”
The California Public Utilities Commission is studying the effects of permanently shutting down the Aliso Canyon natural gas field near Porter Ranch, an indication the agency is uncertain about the future integrity of the storage system that supplies 11 million customers in Southern California.
The commission wants to know whether Southern California Gas Co. can find alternative storage sites and delivery systems to make up for a possible shortfall of gas should the 3,600-acre field be taken off-line in the future. A California environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
Edward Randolph, energy division director at the PUC, said the regulatory agency is studying the issue for several reasons, “including that, with several investigations underway, policymakers in California want to know all possible short- and long-term options.”
“Until there are definitive answers on the future of Aliso Canyon, we want to do everything we can to assure reliability knowing that Aliso Canyon is not going to be able to provide the levels of service it historically has,” Randolph said.
A week ago, Timothy Sullivan, executive director of the PUC, ordered the utility to work with government agencies to develop alternatives to reliance on Aliso Canyon.
Gas company spokeswoman Stephanie Donovan declined to comment on the issue, except to say, “We’re not going to try to speak for the CPUC.” A Virginia environmental lawyer has experience with multiple industry types and implications of detrimental environmental practices.
Sustaining energy reliability without the 3,600-acre facility would be daunting. Existing pipelines lack the capacity to make up such a shortfall, according to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, and other storage facilities in the region are too small or too far away to provide gas quickly enough when needed.
Disruption of gas service requires technicians to visit homes and businesses to relight pilot lights on furnaces and water heaters — a process that could take weeks if the interruption is widespread. Curtailing gas for electric power generation could trigger blackouts during peak demand periods in summer.
Commission safety officials say their top priorities are stopping the leak that has displaced thousands of residents since it began spewing mostly methane Oct. 23 and ensuring that it never happens again.
“We hear loud and clear that many members of the local community want Aliso Canyon permanently taken out of service,” Elizaveta Malashenko, director of safety and enforcement at the PUC, said in a report to her agency Jan. 21. A Baton Rouge environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this case.
“First, we are working on analysis of how reliability issues can be addressed now and if Aliso Canyon is not operational during the upcoming summer,” Malashenko said. “Second, we are working on the analysis of how reliability issues can be addressed if Aliso Canyon is not operational next winter and beyond.”
Rep. Brad Sherman, a resident of Porter Ranch, said he does not believe the gas company has enough storage elsewhere to guarantee delivery to power generation plants during peak demands in the summer.
“If it is feasible, it ought to be shut down — but I’m not holding my breath,” Sherman said. “That’s because they’ve created a facility that is literally too big to fail.”
The gas company operates four underground storage fields in Southern California with a combined “working gas” capacity of about 136 billion cubic feet. Aliso Canyon is by far the largest, with a working gas capacity of 86.2 billion cubic feet. A Texas oil & gas lawyer represents landowners in negotiating the terms of seismic permits, option agreements, oil and gas leases, and easements.
The leak rate of the ruptured well has dropped by two-thirds to 18,400 kilograms per hour since its peak Nov. 28. The decline was achieved by increasing withdrawals of gas from the storage reservoir, which reduced the pressure that is pushing the gas up the well and leaking out, the gas company said. As a result, the reservoir has gone from being 90% full before the leak to at most 37% full Jan. 10.
The PUC has been working with state agencies including the California Energy Commission and California Independent System Operator to determine how far the amount of gas stored at Aliso Canyon can be reduced while keeping homes heated and gas-fired power plants running.
PUC executive Sullivan recently ordered the gas company to reduce the level of working gas at the facility to 15 billion cubic feet, which he described as “the greatest extent possible, while ensuring energy reliability requirements so that customers are not left without heat and hot water and electricity outages do not occur.” A Tulsa energy lawyer represents clients in energy law matters.
The utility believes plugging the ruptured 1950s-era well known as SS-25 could take until late February. On Wednesday, the company said it will temporarily plug 18 vintage wells to inspect for signs of weakness, corrosion and mechanical damage. The Aliso Canyon facility has 115 wells in all.
Among those who believe Aliso Canyon has outlived its usefulness is Robert G. Bea, a retired professor of civil and petroleum engineering and co-founder of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at UC Berkeley.
“My big question is this: Why must we wait for a system to fail before we are galvanized into action?” Bea said. “The tragic result is always the same: Tick. Tick. Tick.”
Thursday, January 7, 2016
OKLAHOMA EARTHQUAKES ARE A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT
Original Story: bloomberg.com
In the months after Sept. 11, 2001, as U.S. security officials assessed the top targets for potential terrorist attacks, the small town of Cushing, Okla., received special attention. Even though it is home to fewer than 10,000 people, Cushing is the largest commercial oil storage hub in North America, second only in size to the U.S. government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The small town's giant tanks, some big enough to fit a Boeing 747 jet inside, were filled with around 10 million barrels of crude at the time, an obvious target for someone looking to disrupt America's economy and energy supply. A Tulsa environmental lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law.
The FBI, state and local law enforcement and emergency officials, and the energy companies that own the tanks formed a group called the Safety Alliance of Cushing. Soon, guards took up posts along the perimeter of storage facilities and newly installed cameras kept constant surveillance. References to the giant tanks and pipelines were removed from the Cushing Chamber of Commerce website. In 2004, the Safety Alliance simulated a series of emergencies: an explosion, a fire, a hostage situation.
After the shale boom added millions of additional barrels to Cushing, its tanks swelled to a peak hoard of more than 60 million barrels this spring. That's about as much petroleum as the U.S. uses in three days, and it's more than six times the quantity that triggered security concerns after Sept. 11. The Safety Alliance has remained vigilant, even staging tornado simulations after a few close calls. A North Dakota environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
Now the massive oil stockpile faces an emerging threat: earthquakes. In the past month, a flurry of quakes have hit within a few miles of Cushing, rattling the town and its massive tanks. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, more than a dozen quakes have registered 3.0 or higher on the Richter scale within a few miles of Cushing since mid-September. The biggest, registering at 4.5, hit about three miles away on Oct. 10.
This is all part of the disturbing rise in earthquakes in Oklahoma, which has corresponded to increased fracking activity and oil production in the state. Since 2008, Oklahoma has gone from averaging fewer than two earthquakes per year that measure at least 3.0 in magnitude to surpassing California as the most seismically active state in the continental U.S. This year, Oklahoma is on pace to endure close to 1,000 earthquakes. Scientists at the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado recently published a paper (PDF) raising concerns that the welter of moderate-sized earthquakes around Cushing could increase the risk of larger quakes in the future. An Austin mineral rights lawyer is following this story closely.
Seismologists believe the quakes are the result of wastewater injection wells used by the fracking industry. Horizontal oil wells in Oklahoma can produce as many as nine or 10 barrels of salty, toxin-laced water for every barrel of oil. Much of that fluid is injected back underground into wastewater disposal wells. It is this water, injected near faults, that many seismologists—including those at the U.S. Geological Survey—say has caused the spike in earthquakes.
The role that fracking plays in the rise of earthquakes has been hugely controversial in Oklahoma, where one in five jobs is tied to the oil and gas industry. This year, as Bloomberg reported, seismologists at the Oklahoma Geological Survey were pressured by oil companies not to make a link between the earthquakes and fracking-related wastewater injection wells. Under the weight of mounting scientific evidence, Republican Governor Mary Fallin's administration in April finally acknowledged the role fracking played in earthquake activity. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer has a deep understanding of oil and gas laws, including laws involving fracking, natural gas production, and petroleum production.
In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said that a woman injured in an earthquake could sue an Oklahoma oil company for damages. That company, Tulsa-based New Dominion, is one of the pioneers of a new breed of high-volume wastewater injection wells that can suck down millions of barrels of water and bury it deep underground. In April, Bloomberg Businessweek profiled David Chernicky, its charismatic founder and chairman.
Now that quakes appear to have migrated closer to Cushing, the issue of what to do about them has morphed from a state issue to one of natural security. The oil in Cushing props up the $179 billion in West Texas Intermediate futures and options contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Not only is Cushing crucial to the financial side of the oil market, it is integral to the way physical crude flows around the country. As U.S. oil production has nearly doubled over the past six years, Cushing has become an important stop in getting oil down from the Bakken fields of North Dakota and into refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. If even a couple of Cushing's tanks had to shut down, or a pipeline were damaged, the impact could ripple through the market, probably pushing prices up. That outcome is especially likely if a spill were to knock Cushing offline for a period of time—a scenario no less dangerous than a potential terrorist attack. A New Orleans environmental lawyer represents clients in environmental law matters.
"Induced seismicity is the most terrifying of all the fracking risks," said Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners, a Washington-based consultancy. The fact that more quakes appear to be getting closer to Cushing is "definititely concerning," said Book. "Anything that puts those tank farms at risk is very serious."
So far, no damage has been reported by companies that own the tanks. Michael Barnes, a spokesperson for Enbridge, a Canadian company that owns the largest tank capacity in Cushing, said employees checked for signs of damage around the facility after the Oct. 10 quake and found none. Enbridge has not made changes to its emergency or disaster plans in light of the quakes.
The local fire and police departments have updated their emergency response plans to include information related to earthquake safety. "We're fairly new to earthquakes in Oklahoma," said Chris Pixler, Cushing's fire chief. "We've always been good at preparing for fires and tornados, and now we're making some changes we felt were necessary in terms of getting information out to citizens about earthquake safety."
Each tank in Cushing is surrounded by a clay-lined berm designed to contain the oil in the event of a rupture. Thousands of miles of pipelines stretch beneath Cushing, connecting it to distribution hubs all over the country. It's those arteries that we should be most concerned about getting damaged in an earthquake, said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital, a hedge fund that focuses on energy. "Losing some of that pipeline infrastructure could be devastating for a time," Kilduff said. If enough damage occurred, "It could prompt an energy crisis if oil couldn't flow the way we need it to."
State regulators are already taking action. Last month the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees oil and gas, ordered wells within three miles to shut down entirely and those between three and six miles from the town to reduce their volume by 25 percent. On Oct. 19, the OCC put all wastewater injection wells within 10 miles of Cushing on notice. Getting to the bottom of the state's earthquake flurry poses a huge test for the embattled OCC, which is short on staff and has historically had close ties to the oil and gas industry it regulates. The regulator has typically dealt with environmental hazards such as oil spills, not issues of seismic activity. "They not only have to reassure their own constituents they are up to the job, but the federal government as well," said Book. "They're one big event away from a significant federal response."
The Obama administration has largely stayed out of the issue. Last month, however, the Environmental Protection Agency urged the OCC to "implement additional regulatory actions." The past week has been relatively calm around Cushing, with only a couple of minor rumblings that didn't hit nearby. For now, however, the threat of quakes has the city on higher alert than the threat of a terror strike.
In the months after Sept. 11, 2001, as U.S. security officials assessed the top targets for potential terrorist attacks, the small town of Cushing, Okla., received special attention. Even though it is home to fewer than 10,000 people, Cushing is the largest commercial oil storage hub in North America, second only in size to the U.S. government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The small town's giant tanks, some big enough to fit a Boeing 747 jet inside, were filled with around 10 million barrels of crude at the time, an obvious target for someone looking to disrupt America's economy and energy supply. A Tulsa environmental lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law.
The FBI, state and local law enforcement and emergency officials, and the energy companies that own the tanks formed a group called the Safety Alliance of Cushing. Soon, guards took up posts along the perimeter of storage facilities and newly installed cameras kept constant surveillance. References to the giant tanks and pipelines were removed from the Cushing Chamber of Commerce website. In 2004, the Safety Alliance simulated a series of emergencies: an explosion, a fire, a hostage situation.
After the shale boom added millions of additional barrels to Cushing, its tanks swelled to a peak hoard of more than 60 million barrels this spring. That's about as much petroleum as the U.S. uses in three days, and it's more than six times the quantity that triggered security concerns after Sept. 11. The Safety Alliance has remained vigilant, even staging tornado simulations after a few close calls. A North Dakota environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
Now the massive oil stockpile faces an emerging threat: earthquakes. In the past month, a flurry of quakes have hit within a few miles of Cushing, rattling the town and its massive tanks. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, more than a dozen quakes have registered 3.0 or higher on the Richter scale within a few miles of Cushing since mid-September. The biggest, registering at 4.5, hit about three miles away on Oct. 10.
This is all part of the disturbing rise in earthquakes in Oklahoma, which has corresponded to increased fracking activity and oil production in the state. Since 2008, Oklahoma has gone from averaging fewer than two earthquakes per year that measure at least 3.0 in magnitude to surpassing California as the most seismically active state in the continental U.S. This year, Oklahoma is on pace to endure close to 1,000 earthquakes. Scientists at the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado recently published a paper (PDF) raising concerns that the welter of moderate-sized earthquakes around Cushing could increase the risk of larger quakes in the future. An Austin mineral rights lawyer is following this story closely.
Seismologists believe the quakes are the result of wastewater injection wells used by the fracking industry. Horizontal oil wells in Oklahoma can produce as many as nine or 10 barrels of salty, toxin-laced water for every barrel of oil. Much of that fluid is injected back underground into wastewater disposal wells. It is this water, injected near faults, that many seismologists—including those at the U.S. Geological Survey—say has caused the spike in earthquakes.
The role that fracking plays in the rise of earthquakes has been hugely controversial in Oklahoma, where one in five jobs is tied to the oil and gas industry. This year, as Bloomberg reported, seismologists at the Oklahoma Geological Survey were pressured by oil companies not to make a link between the earthquakes and fracking-related wastewater injection wells. Under the weight of mounting scientific evidence, Republican Governor Mary Fallin's administration in April finally acknowledged the role fracking played in earthquake activity. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer has a deep understanding of oil and gas laws, including laws involving fracking, natural gas production, and petroleum production.
In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said that a woman injured in an earthquake could sue an Oklahoma oil company for damages. That company, Tulsa-based New Dominion, is one of the pioneers of a new breed of high-volume wastewater injection wells that can suck down millions of barrels of water and bury it deep underground. In April, Bloomberg Businessweek profiled David Chernicky, its charismatic founder and chairman.
Now that quakes appear to have migrated closer to Cushing, the issue of what to do about them has morphed from a state issue to one of natural security. The oil in Cushing props up the $179 billion in West Texas Intermediate futures and options contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Not only is Cushing crucial to the financial side of the oil market, it is integral to the way physical crude flows around the country. As U.S. oil production has nearly doubled over the past six years, Cushing has become an important stop in getting oil down from the Bakken fields of North Dakota and into refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. If even a couple of Cushing's tanks had to shut down, or a pipeline were damaged, the impact could ripple through the market, probably pushing prices up. That outcome is especially likely if a spill were to knock Cushing offline for a period of time—a scenario no less dangerous than a potential terrorist attack. A New Orleans environmental lawyer represents clients in environmental law matters.
"Induced seismicity is the most terrifying of all the fracking risks," said Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners, a Washington-based consultancy. The fact that more quakes appear to be getting closer to Cushing is "definititely concerning," said Book. "Anything that puts those tank farms at risk is very serious."
So far, no damage has been reported by companies that own the tanks. Michael Barnes, a spokesperson for Enbridge, a Canadian company that owns the largest tank capacity in Cushing, said employees checked for signs of damage around the facility after the Oct. 10 quake and found none. Enbridge has not made changes to its emergency or disaster plans in light of the quakes.
The local fire and police departments have updated their emergency response plans to include information related to earthquake safety. "We're fairly new to earthquakes in Oklahoma," said Chris Pixler, Cushing's fire chief. "We've always been good at preparing for fires and tornados, and now we're making some changes we felt were necessary in terms of getting information out to citizens about earthquake safety."
Each tank in Cushing is surrounded by a clay-lined berm designed to contain the oil in the event of a rupture. Thousands of miles of pipelines stretch beneath Cushing, connecting it to distribution hubs all over the country. It's those arteries that we should be most concerned about getting damaged in an earthquake, said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital, a hedge fund that focuses on energy. "Losing some of that pipeline infrastructure could be devastating for a time," Kilduff said. If enough damage occurred, "It could prompt an energy crisis if oil couldn't flow the way we need it to."
State regulators are already taking action. Last month the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees oil and gas, ordered wells within three miles to shut down entirely and those between three and six miles from the town to reduce their volume by 25 percent. On Oct. 19, the OCC put all wastewater injection wells within 10 miles of Cushing on notice. Getting to the bottom of the state's earthquake flurry poses a huge test for the embattled OCC, which is short on staff and has historically had close ties to the oil and gas industry it regulates. The regulator has typically dealt with environmental hazards such as oil spills, not issues of seismic activity. "They not only have to reassure their own constituents they are up to the job, but the federal government as well," said Book. "They're one big event away from a significant federal response."
The Obama administration has largely stayed out of the issue. Last month, however, the Environmental Protection Agency urged the OCC to "implement additional regulatory actions." The past week has been relatively calm around Cushing, with only a couple of minor rumblings that didn't hit nearby. For now, however, the threat of quakes has the city on higher alert than the threat of a terror strike.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
UTILITY IS INSTALLING SCREENS TO CONTAIN OILY MIST AT LEAKING WELL NEAR PORTER RANCH
Original Story: latimes.com
Southern California Gas Co. crews are erecting mesh screens around the utility's leaking natural gas injection well to prevent an oily mist from drifting off the site and across the nearby community of Porter Ranch, company officials confirmed on Monday.
The move comes as the company continues to fix a leaking natural gas well that has displaced thousands of residents, a process that is expected to take several more months. A Texas oil and gas lawyer is following this story closely.
The structures under construction on the west side of the well head are designed to capture airborne droplets of a brine solution that “may have contained trace amounts of oil naturally occurring within the leaking well's reservoir,” said Trisha Muse, a spokeswoman for SoCal Gas.
FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article said the mesh screens are 100 feet tall. The screens actually lie flat over the well site. The article also misidentified spokeswoman Trisha Muse as Tracy Muse. A Tulsa oil & gas attorney represents their oil & gas clients in federal and state matters and in federal and state courts.
The mist, she said, “may have been carried by the wind to properties immediately adjacent to the facility, particularly when very strong winds blow in that direction.”
The gas company used a massive crane Sunday to install a 60-foot section of the mesh, said Don Drysdale, a spokesman for the state Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources.
The problem first arose Nov. 13, when SoCal Gas used an automated call system to advise local residents to stay indoors because fluids pumped into the well had returned to the surface and created a mist. The company issued an all-clear the following day.
Now, a mixture of brine water and oil is rising up into the gas company's natural gas storage zone, then traveling up the well and into the air. A Pittsburgh environmental lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
As a result, local residents are finding droplets of dark brown residue on their homes, vehicles, fish ponds and gardens. Some are collecting samples on dinner plates, then forwarding photographs of the material to their lawyers.
On Dec. 21, the company posted an update on the massive gas leak that began Oct. 23, pointing out that it was spewing mostly methane, which is not considered to be toxic. It also acknowledged that some residents had asked about “dark brown spots on their property.”
“We sampled it and, according to our retained toxicologist and medical expert,” the company said, “the residue contained heavier hydrocarbons (similar to motor oil) but does not pose a health risk.”
The company has offered to provide cleaning services and reimburse property owners for cleanup costs.
SoCal Gas expects to have the leak fixed in about three months. Until then, the company is paying to relocate and house thousands of residents and pets sickened by fumes that health officials and independent experts say can cause headache, nosebleed, nausea and other short-term ailments but pose no long-term health risks.
On Monday, plaintiffs' attorneys sent a letter to state regulatory officials demanding that they issue an emergency order requiring SoCal Gas to stop all injections, including gas injections and water disposal injections, into the 3,600-acre Aliso Canyon field it acquired in the northern San Fernando Valley in 1972.
With capacity to store 86 billion cubic feet, it is one of the largest natural gas storage facilities in the United States. A North Dakota environmental lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law.
The attorneys also demanded that state regulators “explain what is happening with the petroleum now surfacing.”
“There is a complete lack of information in the well files,” their letter says, “to show where the gas and petroleum migrates underground and the risk for creating sink holes and geysers.”
Also on Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown met with members of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council.
“We told him we needed him to organize an oversight group of regulatory agencies that will address the most pressing issues with one voice — now and in the future,” Paula Cracium, president of the group, said.
Muse, the spokeswoman for SoCal Gas, said the new structure is one of several things the company is doing to “help minimize impacts to the community.”
Southern California Gas Co. crews are erecting mesh screens around the utility's leaking natural gas injection well to prevent an oily mist from drifting off the site and across the nearby community of Porter Ranch, company officials confirmed on Monday.
The move comes as the company continues to fix a leaking natural gas well that has displaced thousands of residents, a process that is expected to take several more months. A Texas oil and gas lawyer is following this story closely.
The structures under construction on the west side of the well head are designed to capture airborne droplets of a brine solution that “may have contained trace amounts of oil naturally occurring within the leaking well's reservoir,” said Trisha Muse, a spokeswoman for SoCal Gas.
FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article said the mesh screens are 100 feet tall. The screens actually lie flat over the well site. The article also misidentified spokeswoman Trisha Muse as Tracy Muse. A Tulsa oil & gas attorney represents their oil & gas clients in federal and state matters and in federal and state courts.
The mist, she said, “may have been carried by the wind to properties immediately adjacent to the facility, particularly when very strong winds blow in that direction.”
The gas company used a massive crane Sunday to install a 60-foot section of the mesh, said Don Drysdale, a spokesman for the state Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources.
The problem first arose Nov. 13, when SoCal Gas used an automated call system to advise local residents to stay indoors because fluids pumped into the well had returned to the surface and created a mist. The company issued an all-clear the following day.
Now, a mixture of brine water and oil is rising up into the gas company's natural gas storage zone, then traveling up the well and into the air. A Pittsburgh environmental lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
As a result, local residents are finding droplets of dark brown residue on their homes, vehicles, fish ponds and gardens. Some are collecting samples on dinner plates, then forwarding photographs of the material to their lawyers.
On Dec. 21, the company posted an update on the massive gas leak that began Oct. 23, pointing out that it was spewing mostly methane, which is not considered to be toxic. It also acknowledged that some residents had asked about “dark brown spots on their property.”
“We sampled it and, according to our retained toxicologist and medical expert,” the company said, “the residue contained heavier hydrocarbons (similar to motor oil) but does not pose a health risk.”
The company has offered to provide cleaning services and reimburse property owners for cleanup costs.
SoCal Gas expects to have the leak fixed in about three months. Until then, the company is paying to relocate and house thousands of residents and pets sickened by fumes that health officials and independent experts say can cause headache, nosebleed, nausea and other short-term ailments but pose no long-term health risks.
On Monday, plaintiffs' attorneys sent a letter to state regulatory officials demanding that they issue an emergency order requiring SoCal Gas to stop all injections, including gas injections and water disposal injections, into the 3,600-acre Aliso Canyon field it acquired in the northern San Fernando Valley in 1972.
With capacity to store 86 billion cubic feet, it is one of the largest natural gas storage facilities in the United States. A North Dakota environmental lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law.
The attorneys also demanded that state regulators “explain what is happening with the petroleum now surfacing.”
“There is a complete lack of information in the well files,” their letter says, “to show where the gas and petroleum migrates underground and the risk for creating sink holes and geysers.”
Also on Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown met with members of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council.
“We told him we needed him to organize an oversight group of regulatory agencies that will address the most pressing issues with one voice — now and in the future,” Paula Cracium, president of the group, said.
Muse, the spokeswoman for SoCal Gas, said the new structure is one of several things the company is doing to “help minimize impacts to the community.”
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
CANADA’S OIL PRODUCERS BRACE FOR LATEST TEST: HIGHER CARBON TAXES
Original Story: wsj.com
CALGARY, Alberta—Canadian oil producers, pummeled by the prolonged slump in oil prices and a string of political setbacks, now face another challenge: higher carbon taxes. A Fort Worth oil & gas lawyer is reviewing the details of this story.
The nation’s oil-sands developers have been hit particularly hard by lower oil prices, because they are among the most expensive oil plays in the world. Already facing a corporate tax hike and the possibility of higher royalty payments in Alberta—the province richest in oil sands—the industry was dealt another blow by the Obama administration’s rejection last week of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was designed to transport oil-sands output to Gulf Coast refineries.
All major oil-sands operators in recent weeks posted losses or steep declines in profit for the most-recent quarter, as shrinking revenue outpaced cost cuts. Some global giants are rethinking future development. Late last month Royal Dutch Shell PLC shelved an 80,000-barrel-a-day project, following similar moves by Total SA of France and Norway’s Statoil ASA.
Now, ahead of a United Nations climate-change conference in Paris starting Nov. 30, oil companies await the details of moves—including possible new taxes on carbon—pledged by new governments in Ottawa and Alberta to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions, making the oil sands a global test case for climate policy. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer represents clients in oil and gas transactions, mineral rights matters, and in royalty percentage contracts.
“Canada’s years of being a less-than-enthusiastic actor on the climate-change file are behind us,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who took office last week, said at a news conference on Oct. 20, the day after his Liberal Party won national elections. Mr. Trudeau promised to start working on a framework for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions within 90 days of the Paris summit.
Within weeks of taking power in May, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s government said it would double Alberta’s existing tax on carbon emissions by 2017, and has committed to additional measures in time for the U.N. conference in Paris. Ms. Notley is expected to release details of the proposals later this month. Alberta pioneered carbon taxes in 2007 when it introduced a levy of 15 Canadian dollars ($11.37) a metric ton. A Dallas energy lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of energy law.
Oil sands are among the highest-intensity greenhouse-gas producers of any oil fields in the world. Production from the oil sands has been growing at a steady clip in recent years under previous provincial and federal governments that played down climate-change risks and ignored calls from environmental groups and opposition politicians for tougher rules on carbon-dioxide emissions.
Canada’s environment ministry says the country’s CO2 emissions have continued to rise over the past five years and are expected to hit 781 million metric tons a year by 2020 if no reduction measures are taken. While oil sands account for just a fraction of that total, it is one of the fastest-growing contributors to the release of these gases. The government’s latest estimate projects oil sands-related emissions to nearly double to 103 million metric tons by 2020. A Greenville environmental attorney is following this story closely.
Mr. Trudeau’s stance is a direct challenge to Canada’s oil-sands industry, but the country’s oil producers are divided on how best to cope with the push for stricter environmental regulations.
Some, including the nation’s No. 1 oil producer, Suncor Energy Inc., say they accept the tougher rules as inevitable, and can use them to help burnish their environmental reputations. Others, such as Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.—Canada’s biggest natural-gas producer and a major oil-sands leaseholder—are pushing back, warning the rules would make Canadian crude even less competitive.
The divide in the industry has surfaced in submissions by top energy companies to a government advisory panel of experts that will recommend new climate-policy measures in Alberta. A Detroit
“The time is right for a higher level of ambition in carbon policy stringency in Alberta,” Suncor said in its submission to the provincial panel.
Suncor Chief Executive Steve Williams has publicly championed new taxes on retail sales of energy such as electricity and gasoline, in addition to levies on large industrial emitters. “Every indication is that, on the road to Paris, Canada will start to take positions” to combat climate change, Mr. Williams told reporters late last month. A Detroit environmental lawyer represents clients in environmental matters.
Canadian Natural said in its submission that it objects to higher carbon taxes and other new government-mandated policies, and has called for allowing oil and gas producers to focus on new technology to cut emissions.
Its 34-slide Power Point presentation to the Alberta panel lays out the competitive challenges facing the industry and warns that tinkering with policies that directly affect oil and gas producers “is very difficult and more often than not has unintended consequences.” In a similar vein, oil-sands producer Husky Energy Inc. warns against making emission cuts deeper than in other countries such as the U.S.
“It would be politically suicidal for us to do a mea culpa and hang our neck out in a way that disadvantages the industry here,” Husky CEO Asim Ghosh said on a recent conference call.
The main industry lobby, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, is urging regulators to offset any additional cost from climate-policy changes with a cut in royalties owed to Alberta’s government from oil and gas output from provincial lands. Such a “revenue neutral” approach to reducing CO2 emissions has been backed by multinational oil giants with exposure to Canada’s oil-sands, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Shell.
CALGARY, Alberta—Canadian oil producers, pummeled by the prolonged slump in oil prices and a string of political setbacks, now face another challenge: higher carbon taxes. A Fort Worth oil & gas lawyer is reviewing the details of this story.
The nation’s oil-sands developers have been hit particularly hard by lower oil prices, because they are among the most expensive oil plays in the world. Already facing a corporate tax hike and the possibility of higher royalty payments in Alberta—the province richest in oil sands—the industry was dealt another blow by the Obama administration’s rejection last week of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was designed to transport oil-sands output to Gulf Coast refineries.
All major oil-sands operators in recent weeks posted losses or steep declines in profit for the most-recent quarter, as shrinking revenue outpaced cost cuts. Some global giants are rethinking future development. Late last month Royal Dutch Shell PLC shelved an 80,000-barrel-a-day project, following similar moves by Total SA of France and Norway’s Statoil ASA.
Now, ahead of a United Nations climate-change conference in Paris starting Nov. 30, oil companies await the details of moves—including possible new taxes on carbon—pledged by new governments in Ottawa and Alberta to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions, making the oil sands a global test case for climate policy. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer represents clients in oil and gas transactions, mineral rights matters, and in royalty percentage contracts.
“Canada’s years of being a less-than-enthusiastic actor on the climate-change file are behind us,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who took office last week, said at a news conference on Oct. 20, the day after his Liberal Party won national elections. Mr. Trudeau promised to start working on a framework for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions within 90 days of the Paris summit.
Within weeks of taking power in May, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s government said it would double Alberta’s existing tax on carbon emissions by 2017, and has committed to additional measures in time for the U.N. conference in Paris. Ms. Notley is expected to release details of the proposals later this month. Alberta pioneered carbon taxes in 2007 when it introduced a levy of 15 Canadian dollars ($11.37) a metric ton. A Dallas energy lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of energy law.
Oil sands are among the highest-intensity greenhouse-gas producers of any oil fields in the world. Production from the oil sands has been growing at a steady clip in recent years under previous provincial and federal governments that played down climate-change risks and ignored calls from environmental groups and opposition politicians for tougher rules on carbon-dioxide emissions.
Canada’s environment ministry says the country’s CO2 emissions have continued to rise over the past five years and are expected to hit 781 million metric tons a year by 2020 if no reduction measures are taken. While oil sands account for just a fraction of that total, it is one of the fastest-growing contributors to the release of these gases. The government’s latest estimate projects oil sands-related emissions to nearly double to 103 million metric tons by 2020. A Greenville environmental attorney is following this story closely.
Mr. Trudeau’s stance is a direct challenge to Canada’s oil-sands industry, but the country’s oil producers are divided on how best to cope with the push for stricter environmental regulations.
Some, including the nation’s No. 1 oil producer, Suncor Energy Inc., say they accept the tougher rules as inevitable, and can use them to help burnish their environmental reputations. Others, such as Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.—Canada’s biggest natural-gas producer and a major oil-sands leaseholder—are pushing back, warning the rules would make Canadian crude even less competitive.
The divide in the industry has surfaced in submissions by top energy companies to a government advisory panel of experts that will recommend new climate-policy measures in Alberta. A Detroit
“The time is right for a higher level of ambition in carbon policy stringency in Alberta,” Suncor said in its submission to the provincial panel.
Suncor Chief Executive Steve Williams has publicly championed new taxes on retail sales of energy such as electricity and gasoline, in addition to levies on large industrial emitters. “Every indication is that, on the road to Paris, Canada will start to take positions” to combat climate change, Mr. Williams told reporters late last month. A Detroit environmental lawyer represents clients in environmental matters.
Canadian Natural said in its submission that it objects to higher carbon taxes and other new government-mandated policies, and has called for allowing oil and gas producers to focus on new technology to cut emissions.
Its 34-slide Power Point presentation to the Alberta panel lays out the competitive challenges facing the industry and warns that tinkering with policies that directly affect oil and gas producers “is very difficult and more often than not has unintended consequences.” In a similar vein, oil-sands producer Husky Energy Inc. warns against making emission cuts deeper than in other countries such as the U.S.
“It would be politically suicidal for us to do a mea culpa and hang our neck out in a way that disadvantages the industry here,” Husky CEO Asim Ghosh said on a recent conference call.
The main industry lobby, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, is urging regulators to offset any additional cost from climate-policy changes with a cut in royalties owed to Alberta’s government from oil and gas output from provincial lands. Such a “revenue neutral” approach to reducing CO2 emissions has been backed by multinational oil giants with exposure to Canada’s oil-sands, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Shell.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
OIL SANDS BOOM DRIES UP IN ALBERTA, TAKING THOUSANDS OF JOBS WITH IT
Original Story: nytimes.com
FORT McMURRAY, Alberta — At a camp for oil workers here, a collection of 16 three-story buildings that once housed 2,000 workers sits empty. A parking lot at a neighboring camp is now dotted with abandoned cars. With oil prices falling precipitously, capital-intensive projects rooted in the heavy crude mined from Alberta’s oil sands are losing money, contributing to the loss of about 35,000 energy industry jobs across the province. A Tulsa mineral rights lawyer is following this story closely.
Yet Alberta Highway 63, the major artery connecting Northern Alberta’s oil sands with the rest of the country, still buzzes with traffic. Tractor-trailers hauling loads that resemble rolling petrochemical plants parade past fleets of buses used to shuttle workers. Most vehicles carry “buggy whips” — bright orange pennants attached to tall spring-loaded wands — to help prevent them from being run over by the 1.6-million-pound dump trucks used in the oil sands mines.
Despite a severe economic downturn in a region whose growth once seemed limitless, many energy companies have too much invested in the oil sands to slow down or turn off the taps. In addition to the continued operation of existing plants, construction persists on projects that began before the price fell, largely because billions of dollars have already been spent on them. Oil sands projects are based on 40-year investment time frames, so their owners are being forced to wait out slumps. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer represents gas and oil clients in federal and state matters and in federal and state courts.
“It really is tough right now,” said Greg Stringham, the vice president for markets and oil sands at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, a trade group that generally speaks for the industry in Alberta. “We see kind of a lot of volatility over the next four or five years.”
After an extraordinary boom that attracted many of the world’s largest energy companies and about $200 billion worth of investments to oil sands development over the last 15 years, the industry is in a state of financial stasis, and navigating the decline has proved challenging. Pipeline plans that would create new export markets, including Keystone XL, have been hampered by environmental concerns and political opposition. The hazy outlook is creating turmoil in a province and a country that has become dependent on the energy business.
Canada is now dealing with the economic fallout, having slipped into a mild recession earlier this year. And Alberta, which relies most heavily on oil royalties, now expects to post a deficit of 6 billion Canadian dollars, or about $4.5 billion. The political landscape has also shifted.
Last spring, a left-of-center government ended four decades of Conservative rule in Alberta. Federally, polls suggest that the Conservative party — which championed Keystone XL and repeatedly resisted calls for stricter greenhouse gas emission controls in the oil sands — is struggling to get re-elected in October. A Tulsa oil and gas attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
“The pendulum has swung,” said Stephen Ross, the president of Devonian Properties, an Alberta development company that has built several residential and commercial properties in Fort McMurray.
Since the end of the World War ll, oil has made Alberta wealthy. The increase in oil sands development since the early 2000s had only intensified the province’s good fortune and turned obscure Fort McMurray into a boomtown and an outsize contributor to the entire Canadian economy.
When Mr. Ross first bought development land here in 2000, he paid about 27,000 Canadian dollars an acre. He stopped buying land long before it hit one million Canadian dollars an acre.
“The town has had huge growing pains,” Mr. Ross said. “It’s like something you’ve never seen.”
Operating oil sands plants quickly decreased budgets and cut services, like equipment cleaning, which were deemed optional. And as portions of construction projects are finished, construction workers are sent packing. The halt on new projects has left order books increasingly blank at a variety of suppliers, like engineering firms.
Since the price collapse, Teck Resources has delayed the start of its oil sands project by five years to 2026. Cenovus Energy substantially reduced budgets for its long-term developments. And Osum Oil Sands has set aside some of the expansion planned for a project it purchased from Shell last year. The Chinese-owned company Nexen, which had its oil sands production curtailed by regulators for about a month in August because of a pipeline leak, has deferred plans to build another upgrader facility, where tar-like bitumen of the oil sands is converted into synthetic crude oil, until the end of 2020.
These projects, and others that have begun over the last 15 years, have largely been built and operated by an itinerant work force. These workers fly into Fort McMurray’s new airport terminal and are bused to work camps up to two hours away. Their lives are a cycle of three straight weeks of long shifts interrupted by 10-day trips home.
That transient population has little or no connection to the city when working. When laid off, they become unemployment statistics, not in Alberta, but in the provinces of their hometowns. It’s also in those regions, more than Alberta, where the loss of once-large paychecks is most felt, having a ripple effect across the country. A Tulsa environmental lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law.
For Canadian oil executives, the significant shift in the province’s politics is of great concern. Rachel Notley, the new premier and leader of the New Democratic Party, has said that she would prefer more refining to take place in Alberta instead of shipping more oil sands production to the United States via Keystone XL. And speaking to the Alberta Chamber of Commerce last month, Ms. Notley told the energy industry that it must “clean up its environmental act.”
One executive and investor, who did not want to be named while the province is reviewing his industry, said growing sentiment that the industry does not pay Alberta enough in royalties and lags on environmental protections will kill new investments, even if prices start to rise.
“There’s never been a time when I’ve been less optimistic,” he said. “The general public doesn’t know how bad it is. It just hasn’t hit yet.”
He did, however, acknowledge that environmentalists had won the debate on Keystone XL as well as various other pipeline plans.
“I don’t know how the issue got away, but it’s obvious now that it did,” he said.
And the workers who have benefited from the boom are now realizing that their stretch of good luck might be over, permanently.
Réjean Godin, a truck driver and heavy equipment operator, began the long-distance commute from the Atlantic province of New Brunswick 13 years ago. Since then, he’s earned wages four or five times the rate of those back home, an area of high unemployment.
Standing near his well-worn Toyota RAV4 that still bears New Brunswick license plates, Mr. Godin, who lives in a work camp, recited all of the different projects in which hundreds of workers had been laid off — layoffs that he’d learned about over the previous few days. He fears that the days of high pay for delivering water to work camps and hauling their sewage away may be over for both himself and his 30-year-old son, who joined him in Alberta.
“I’m not sure if we’re going to come next year,” Mr. Godin said in the dusty yard of a trucking company in Fort MacKay, Alberta, a town down the Athabasca River from Fort McMurray. “What you hear everywhere is the price is low so we’ve got to cut this, we’ve got to shut that down a little bit. We go day by day because we never know.”
FORT McMURRAY, Alberta — At a camp for oil workers here, a collection of 16 three-story buildings that once housed 2,000 workers sits empty. A parking lot at a neighboring camp is now dotted with abandoned cars. With oil prices falling precipitously, capital-intensive projects rooted in the heavy crude mined from Alberta’s oil sands are losing money, contributing to the loss of about 35,000 energy industry jobs across the province. A Tulsa mineral rights lawyer is following this story closely.
Yet Alberta Highway 63, the major artery connecting Northern Alberta’s oil sands with the rest of the country, still buzzes with traffic. Tractor-trailers hauling loads that resemble rolling petrochemical plants parade past fleets of buses used to shuttle workers. Most vehicles carry “buggy whips” — bright orange pennants attached to tall spring-loaded wands — to help prevent them from being run over by the 1.6-million-pound dump trucks used in the oil sands mines.
Despite a severe economic downturn in a region whose growth once seemed limitless, many energy companies have too much invested in the oil sands to slow down or turn off the taps. In addition to the continued operation of existing plants, construction persists on projects that began before the price fell, largely because billions of dollars have already been spent on them. Oil sands projects are based on 40-year investment time frames, so their owners are being forced to wait out slumps. A Tulsa oil and gas lawyer represents gas and oil clients in federal and state matters and in federal and state courts.
“It really is tough right now,” said Greg Stringham, the vice president for markets and oil sands at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, a trade group that generally speaks for the industry in Alberta. “We see kind of a lot of volatility over the next four or five years.”
After an extraordinary boom that attracted many of the world’s largest energy companies and about $200 billion worth of investments to oil sands development over the last 15 years, the industry is in a state of financial stasis, and navigating the decline has proved challenging. Pipeline plans that would create new export markets, including Keystone XL, have been hampered by environmental concerns and political opposition. The hazy outlook is creating turmoil in a province and a country that has become dependent on the energy business.
Canada is now dealing with the economic fallout, having slipped into a mild recession earlier this year. And Alberta, which relies most heavily on oil royalties, now expects to post a deficit of 6 billion Canadian dollars, or about $4.5 billion. The political landscape has also shifted.
Last spring, a left-of-center government ended four decades of Conservative rule in Alberta. Federally, polls suggest that the Conservative party — which championed Keystone XL and repeatedly resisted calls for stricter greenhouse gas emission controls in the oil sands — is struggling to get re-elected in October. A Tulsa oil and gas attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
“The pendulum has swung,” said Stephen Ross, the president of Devonian Properties, an Alberta development company that has built several residential and commercial properties in Fort McMurray.
Since the end of the World War ll, oil has made Alberta wealthy. The increase in oil sands development since the early 2000s had only intensified the province’s good fortune and turned obscure Fort McMurray into a boomtown and an outsize contributor to the entire Canadian economy.
When Mr. Ross first bought development land here in 2000, he paid about 27,000 Canadian dollars an acre. He stopped buying land long before it hit one million Canadian dollars an acre.
“The town has had huge growing pains,” Mr. Ross said. “It’s like something you’ve never seen.”
Operating oil sands plants quickly decreased budgets and cut services, like equipment cleaning, which were deemed optional. And as portions of construction projects are finished, construction workers are sent packing. The halt on new projects has left order books increasingly blank at a variety of suppliers, like engineering firms.
Since the price collapse, Teck Resources has delayed the start of its oil sands project by five years to 2026. Cenovus Energy substantially reduced budgets for its long-term developments. And Osum Oil Sands has set aside some of the expansion planned for a project it purchased from Shell last year. The Chinese-owned company Nexen, which had its oil sands production curtailed by regulators for about a month in August because of a pipeline leak, has deferred plans to build another upgrader facility, where tar-like bitumen of the oil sands is converted into synthetic crude oil, until the end of 2020.
These projects, and others that have begun over the last 15 years, have largely been built and operated by an itinerant work force. These workers fly into Fort McMurray’s new airport terminal and are bused to work camps up to two hours away. Their lives are a cycle of three straight weeks of long shifts interrupted by 10-day trips home.
That transient population has little or no connection to the city when working. When laid off, they become unemployment statistics, not in Alberta, but in the provinces of their hometowns. It’s also in those regions, more than Alberta, where the loss of once-large paychecks is most felt, having a ripple effect across the country. A Tulsa environmental lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law.
For Canadian oil executives, the significant shift in the province’s politics is of great concern. Rachel Notley, the new premier and leader of the New Democratic Party, has said that she would prefer more refining to take place in Alberta instead of shipping more oil sands production to the United States via Keystone XL. And speaking to the Alberta Chamber of Commerce last month, Ms. Notley told the energy industry that it must “clean up its environmental act.”
One executive and investor, who did not want to be named while the province is reviewing his industry, said growing sentiment that the industry does not pay Alberta enough in royalties and lags on environmental protections will kill new investments, even if prices start to rise.
“There’s never been a time when I’ve been less optimistic,” he said. “The general public doesn’t know how bad it is. It just hasn’t hit yet.”
He did, however, acknowledge that environmentalists had won the debate on Keystone XL as well as various other pipeline plans.
“I don’t know how the issue got away, but it’s obvious now that it did,” he said.
And the workers who have benefited from the boom are now realizing that their stretch of good luck might be over, permanently.
Réjean Godin, a truck driver and heavy equipment operator, began the long-distance commute from the Atlantic province of New Brunswick 13 years ago. Since then, he’s earned wages four or five times the rate of those back home, an area of high unemployment.
Standing near his well-worn Toyota RAV4 that still bears New Brunswick license plates, Mr. Godin, who lives in a work camp, recited all of the different projects in which hundreds of workers had been laid off — layoffs that he’d learned about over the previous few days. He fears that the days of high pay for delivering water to work camps and hauling their sewage away may be over for both himself and his 30-year-old son, who joined him in Alberta.
“I’m not sure if we’re going to come next year,” Mr. Godin said in the dusty yard of a trucking company in Fort MacKay, Alberta, a town down the Athabasca River from Fort McMurray. “What you hear everywhere is the price is low so we’ve got to cut this, we’ve got to shut that down a little bit. We go day by day because we never know.”
TRANSCANADA SUSPENDS REQUEST FOR PERMIT TO BUILD KEYSTONE PIPELINE
Original Story: nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — The company seeking to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline asked the Obama administration on Monday to suspend its yearslong review of the project, potentially bringing an abrupt halt to a politically charged debate that had become part of a broader struggle over President Obama’s environmental policies.
It was not immediately clear whether the administration would grant the request, which was swiftly denounced by environmental activists as a bid to dodge a near-certain rejection of the pipeline. Allowing the delay would push off a decision until after the 2016 presidential election. Parcel freight shipping software continues to reduce transportation costs for small companies and multi-national global corporations.
The company’s request introduced a new element of uncertainty into the administration’s decision-making process, offering the potential to free Mr. Obama from a politically difficult choice that has hung over much of his presidency. But if anything, it appeared to intensify pressure on him from crucial Democratic constituencies to reject the pipeline or risk being blamed for punting to another president. A delay would keep the issue alive in the presidential campaign.
TransCanada, the Alberta company seeking to build the 1,179-mile pipeline, made its request in a letter to the State Department, which must approve cross-border projects and had been reviewing its application for a presidential permit.
The pipeline would carry 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, and the question of its approval has weighed heavily on Mr. Obama as he has sought to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. Parcel freight shipping software delivers best in class suite of shipment planning, execution, tracking, & settlement tasks all in one.
The White House had no comment on the request for a delay, which was made in a letter to John Kerry, the secretary of state, and the State Department said it was looking into it.
“We have just received TransCanada’s letter to Secretary Kerry and are reviewing it,” said Pooja Jhunjhunwala, a State Department spokeswoman. “In the meantime, consideration under the executive order continues.”
Many environmental advocates and liberal activists, who have made opposing the pipeline a cause célèbre in recent years, thought that the president might finally reject it this month, viewing the time as ripe as he prepares for a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change in Paris in December.
The president hopes to help broker an agreement committing every nation to enacting new policies to counter global warming, and rejecting the pipeline would be a powerful signal to world leaders that the United States is serious about the issue.
“TransCanada is losing, and they’re trying to preserve their options to be able to build the pipeline someday if they can get a climate denier in the White House,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, the senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said in an interview. She called the request a “desperate and cynical” last-minute plea that was “ridiculous and absurd.”
“Given President Obama’s incredible leadership when it comes to climate change, we remain very confident that he will reject this dirty and dangerous pipeline once and for all,” Ms. Sittenfeld said.
In the letter to Mr. Kerry, TransCanada said it was asking the department to suspend its evaluation of the pipeline proposal until after the State of Nebraska had completed its own review of the project, which could take seven to 12 months. Opposition in Nebraska to a planned route through the state has delayed the process. A Texarkana environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
“In order to allow time for certainty regarding the Nebraska route, TransCanada requests that the State Department pause in its review of the presidential permit application for KeystoneXL,” said the letter to Mr. Kerry, which was signed by Kristine Delkus, the company’s general counsel. “This will allow a decision on the permit to be made later based on certainty with respect to the route of the pipeline.”
Before TransCanada announced its request, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, withheld any judgment on when a decision might come on the pipeline.
“The president will make a decision before the end of his administration on the Keystone pipeline, but when exactly that will be, I don’t know at this point,” Mr. Earnest told reporters traveling with Mr. Obama.
Asked if it could happen this year, he said: “It’s possible. It’s also possible it could happen next year.”
TransCanada said there was precedent for obtaining a delay, given that the State Department put its evaluation on hold last year when the pipeline faced a legal challenge in Nebraska.
“I note that when the status of the Nebraska pipeline route was challenged last year, the State Department found it appropriate to suspend its review until that dispute was resolved,” Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “We feel under the current circumstances a similar suspension would be appropriate.”
But opponents said the uncertainty over the route would not ultimately alter the pipeline’s effect. Instead of granting a delay, said Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist, Mr. Obama should “immediately reject” the pipeline.
Anthony Swift, the director of the Canada Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement: “Pause or no pause, we now know more than enough to do the right thing — reject the pipeline because it will worsen climate change. Altering its route through Nebraska isn’t going to change that. Keystone XL isn’t in the national interest, and the president should reject it.”
Republicans and the oil industry have demanded that the president approve the pipeline, arguing that it would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states, have also supported the project.
In February, congressional Democrats joined Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but he vetoed the measure, saying it impinged on the president’s authority to make the final decision.
Environmental activists have sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would be a conduit for petroleum from the Canada oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.
Still, State Department reviews have concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines. A Netherlands environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
At the same time, both sides regard the decision on the pipeline as a major symbolic issue, an indicator of how willing Mr. Obama is to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda.
WASHINGTON — The company seeking to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline asked the Obama administration on Monday to suspend its yearslong review of the project, potentially bringing an abrupt halt to a politically charged debate that had become part of a broader struggle over President Obama’s environmental policies.
It was not immediately clear whether the administration would grant the request, which was swiftly denounced by environmental activists as a bid to dodge a near-certain rejection of the pipeline. Allowing the delay would push off a decision until after the 2016 presidential election. Parcel freight shipping software continues to reduce transportation costs for small companies and multi-national global corporations.
The company’s request introduced a new element of uncertainty into the administration’s decision-making process, offering the potential to free Mr. Obama from a politically difficult choice that has hung over much of his presidency. But if anything, it appeared to intensify pressure on him from crucial Democratic constituencies to reject the pipeline or risk being blamed for punting to another president. A delay would keep the issue alive in the presidential campaign.
TransCanada, the Alberta company seeking to build the 1,179-mile pipeline, made its request in a letter to the State Department, which must approve cross-border projects and had been reviewing its application for a presidential permit.
The pipeline would carry 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, and the question of its approval has weighed heavily on Mr. Obama as he has sought to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. Parcel freight shipping software delivers best in class suite of shipment planning, execution, tracking, & settlement tasks all in one.
The White House had no comment on the request for a delay, which was made in a letter to John Kerry, the secretary of state, and the State Department said it was looking into it.
“We have just received TransCanada’s letter to Secretary Kerry and are reviewing it,” said Pooja Jhunjhunwala, a State Department spokeswoman. “In the meantime, consideration under the executive order continues.”
Many environmental advocates and liberal activists, who have made opposing the pipeline a cause célèbre in recent years, thought that the president might finally reject it this month, viewing the time as ripe as he prepares for a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change in Paris in December.
The president hopes to help broker an agreement committing every nation to enacting new policies to counter global warming, and rejecting the pipeline would be a powerful signal to world leaders that the United States is serious about the issue.
“TransCanada is losing, and they’re trying to preserve their options to be able to build the pipeline someday if they can get a climate denier in the White House,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, the senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said in an interview. She called the request a “desperate and cynical” last-minute plea that was “ridiculous and absurd.”
“Given President Obama’s incredible leadership when it comes to climate change, we remain very confident that he will reject this dirty and dangerous pipeline once and for all,” Ms. Sittenfeld said.
In the letter to Mr. Kerry, TransCanada said it was asking the department to suspend its evaluation of the pipeline proposal until after the State of Nebraska had completed its own review of the project, which could take seven to 12 months. Opposition in Nebraska to a planned route through the state has delayed the process. A Texarkana environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
“In order to allow time for certainty regarding the Nebraska route, TransCanada requests that the State Department pause in its review of the presidential permit application for KeystoneXL,” said the letter to Mr. Kerry, which was signed by Kristine Delkus, the company’s general counsel. “This will allow a decision on the permit to be made later based on certainty with respect to the route of the pipeline.”
Before TransCanada announced its request, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, withheld any judgment on when a decision might come on the pipeline.
“The president will make a decision before the end of his administration on the Keystone pipeline, but when exactly that will be, I don’t know at this point,” Mr. Earnest told reporters traveling with Mr. Obama.
Asked if it could happen this year, he said: “It’s possible. It’s also possible it could happen next year.”
TransCanada said there was precedent for obtaining a delay, given that the State Department put its evaluation on hold last year when the pipeline faced a legal challenge in Nebraska.
“I note that when the status of the Nebraska pipeline route was challenged last year, the State Department found it appropriate to suspend its review until that dispute was resolved,” Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “We feel under the current circumstances a similar suspension would be appropriate.”
But opponents said the uncertainty over the route would not ultimately alter the pipeline’s effect. Instead of granting a delay, said Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist, Mr. Obama should “immediately reject” the pipeline.
Anthony Swift, the director of the Canada Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement: “Pause or no pause, we now know more than enough to do the right thing — reject the pipeline because it will worsen climate change. Altering its route through Nebraska isn’t going to change that. Keystone XL isn’t in the national interest, and the president should reject it.”
Republicans and the oil industry have demanded that the president approve the pipeline, arguing that it would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states, have also supported the project.
In February, congressional Democrats joined Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but he vetoed the measure, saying it impinged on the president’s authority to make the final decision.
Environmental activists have sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would be a conduit for petroleum from the Canada oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.
Still, State Department reviews have concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines. A Netherlands environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
At the same time, both sides regard the decision on the pipeline as a major symbolic issue, an indicator of how willing Mr. Obama is to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
CITING CLIMATE CHANGE, OBAMA REJECTS CONSTRUCTION OF KEYSTONE XL OIL PIPELINE
Original Story: nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over his climate policies.
Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he seeks to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. A San Antonio environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from the White House. “And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
The move was made ahead of a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change to be held in Paris in December, when Mr. Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming. While the rejection of the pipeline is largely symbolic, Mr. Obama has sought to telegraph to other world leaders that the United States is serious about acting on climate change. A Utah environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
The once-obscure Keystone project became a political symbol amid broader clashes over energy, climate change and the economy. The rejection of a single oil infrastructure project will have little impact on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, but the pipeline plan gained an outsize profile after environmental activists spent four years marching and rallying against it in front of the White House and across the country.
Mr. Obama said that the pipeline has occupied what he called “an overinflated role in our political discourse.”
“It has become a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter,” he said. “And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”
Republicans and the oil industry had demanded that the president approve the pipeline, which they said would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states such as North Dakota, also supported the project. In February, congressional Democrats joined with Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but the president vetoed the measure.
The rejection of the pipeline is one of several actions Mr. Obama has taken as he intensifies his push on climate change in his last year in office. In August, he announced his most significant climate policy, a set of aggressive new regulations to cut emissions of planet-warming carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants. A Texas environmental lawyer represents clients in many aspects of environmental law.
Both sides of the debate saw the Keystone rejection as a major symbolic step, a sign that the president was willing to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda. And both supporters and critics of Mr. Obama saw the surprisingly powerful influence of environmental activists in the decision.
“Once the grass-roots movement on the Keystone pipeline mobilized, it changed what it meant to the president,” said Douglas G. Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who writes about presidential environmental legacies. “It went from a routine infrastructure project to the symbol of an era.”
Environmental activists cheered the decision as a vindication of their influence.
“President Obama is the first world leader to reject a project because of its effect on the climate,” said Bill McKibben, founder of the activist group 350.org, which led the campaign against the pipeline. “That gives him new stature as an environmental leader, and it eloquently confirms the five years and millions of hours of work that people of every kind put into this fight.”
Environmentalists had sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would have provided a conduit for petroleum extracted from the Canadian oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more planet-warming greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.
But numerous State Department reviews concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines. In citing his reason for the decision, Mr. Obama noted the State Department findings that construction of the pipeline would not have created a significant number of new jobs, lowered oil or gasoline prices or significantly reduced American dependence on foreign oil.
“From a market perspective, the industry can find a different way to move that oil,” said Christine Tezak, an energy market analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington firm. “How long it takes is just a result of oil prices. If prices go up, companies will get the oil out.”
However, a State Department review also found that demand for the oil sands fuel would drop if oil prices fell below $65 a barrel, since moving oil by rail is more expensive than using a pipeline. An Environmental Protection Agency review of the project this year noted that under such circumstances, construction of the pipeline could be seen as contributing to emissions, since companies might be less likely to move the oil via expensive rail when oil prices are low — but would be more likely to move it cheaply via the pipeline. The price of oil has plummeted this year, hovering at less than $50 a barrel. A Malta environmental lawyer has managed a variety of environmental cases for a wide range of clients.
The recent election of a new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, may also have influenced Mr. Obama’s decision. Mr. Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, had pushed the issue as a top priority in the relationship between the United States and Canada, personally urging Mr. Obama to approve the project. Blocking the project during the Harper administration would have bruised ties with a crucial ally.
While Mr. Trudeau also supports construction of the Keystone pipeline, he has not made the issue central to Canada’s relationship with the United States, and has criticized Mr. Harper for presenting Canada’s position as an ultimatum, while not taking substantial action on climate change related to the oil sands.
Mr. Trudeau did not raise the issue during his first post-election conversation with Mr. Obama.
The construction would have had little impact on the nation’s economy. A State Department analysis concluded that building the pipeline would have created jobs, but the total number represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation’s total employment. The analysis estimated that Keystone would support 42,000 temporary jobs over its two-year construction period — about 3,900 of them in construction and the rest in indirect support jobs, such as food service. The department estimated that the project would create about 35 permanent jobs.
Republicans and the oil industry criticized Mr. Obama for what they have long said was his acquiescence to the pressure of activists and environmentally minded political donors.
“A decision this poorly made is not symbolic, but deeply cynical,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who leads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “It does not rest on the facts — it continues to distort them.”
Jack Gerard, the head of the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil companies, said in a statement, “Unfortunately for the majority of Americans who have said they want the jobs and economic benefits Keystone XL represents, the White House has placed political calculations above sound science.”
Russ Girling, the president and chief executive of TransCanada, said in a statement that the president’s decision was not consistent with the State Department’s review. “Today, misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science,” said Mr. Girling, whose company is based in Calgary, Alberta. “Rhetoric won out over reason.”
The statement said that the company was reviewing the decision but offered no indication if it planned to submit a new application. If a Republican wins the 2016 presidential election, a new submission of the pipeline permit application could yield a different outcome.
“President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is a huge mistake, and is the latest reminder that this administration continues to prioritize the demands of radical environmentalists over America’s energy security,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president. “When I’m president, Keystone will be approved, and President Obama’s backward energy policies will come to an end.”
As Mr. Obama seeks to carve out a substantial environmental legacy, his decision on the pipeline pales in import compared with his use of Environmental Protection Agency regulations. The power plant rules he announced in August have met with legal challenges, but if they are put in place, they could lead to a transformation of the nation’s energy economy, shuttering fossil fuel plants and rapidly increasing production of wind and solar.
Those rules are at the heart of Mr. Obama’s push for a global agreement.
But advocates of the agreement said that the Keystone decision, even though it is largely symbolic, could show other countries that Mr. Obama is willing to make tough choices about climate change.
“The rejection of the Keystone permit was key for the president to keep his climate chops at home and with the rest of the world,” said Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, a Washington research organization.
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over his climate policies.
Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he seeks to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. A San Antonio environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from the White House. “And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
The move was made ahead of a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change to be held in Paris in December, when Mr. Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming. While the rejection of the pipeline is largely symbolic, Mr. Obama has sought to telegraph to other world leaders that the United States is serious about acting on climate change. A Utah environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
The once-obscure Keystone project became a political symbol amid broader clashes over energy, climate change and the economy. The rejection of a single oil infrastructure project will have little impact on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, but the pipeline plan gained an outsize profile after environmental activists spent four years marching and rallying against it in front of the White House and across the country.
Mr. Obama said that the pipeline has occupied what he called “an overinflated role in our political discourse.”
“It has become a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter,” he said. “And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”
Republicans and the oil industry had demanded that the president approve the pipeline, which they said would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states such as North Dakota, also supported the project. In February, congressional Democrats joined with Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but the president vetoed the measure.
The rejection of the pipeline is one of several actions Mr. Obama has taken as he intensifies his push on climate change in his last year in office. In August, he announced his most significant climate policy, a set of aggressive new regulations to cut emissions of planet-warming carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants. A Texas environmental lawyer represents clients in many aspects of environmental law.
Both sides of the debate saw the Keystone rejection as a major symbolic step, a sign that the president was willing to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda. And both supporters and critics of Mr. Obama saw the surprisingly powerful influence of environmental activists in the decision.
“Once the grass-roots movement on the Keystone pipeline mobilized, it changed what it meant to the president,” said Douglas G. Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who writes about presidential environmental legacies. “It went from a routine infrastructure project to the symbol of an era.”
Environmental activists cheered the decision as a vindication of their influence.
“President Obama is the first world leader to reject a project because of its effect on the climate,” said Bill McKibben, founder of the activist group 350.org, which led the campaign against the pipeline. “That gives him new stature as an environmental leader, and it eloquently confirms the five years and millions of hours of work that people of every kind put into this fight.”
Environmentalists had sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would have provided a conduit for petroleum extracted from the Canadian oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more planet-warming greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.
But numerous State Department reviews concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines. In citing his reason for the decision, Mr. Obama noted the State Department findings that construction of the pipeline would not have created a significant number of new jobs, lowered oil or gasoline prices or significantly reduced American dependence on foreign oil.
“From a market perspective, the industry can find a different way to move that oil,” said Christine Tezak, an energy market analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington firm. “How long it takes is just a result of oil prices. If prices go up, companies will get the oil out.”
However, a State Department review also found that demand for the oil sands fuel would drop if oil prices fell below $65 a barrel, since moving oil by rail is more expensive than using a pipeline. An Environmental Protection Agency review of the project this year noted that under such circumstances, construction of the pipeline could be seen as contributing to emissions, since companies might be less likely to move the oil via expensive rail when oil prices are low — but would be more likely to move it cheaply via the pipeline. The price of oil has plummeted this year, hovering at less than $50 a barrel. A Malta environmental lawyer has managed a variety of environmental cases for a wide range of clients.
The recent election of a new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, may also have influenced Mr. Obama’s decision. Mr. Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, had pushed the issue as a top priority in the relationship between the United States and Canada, personally urging Mr. Obama to approve the project. Blocking the project during the Harper administration would have bruised ties with a crucial ally.
While Mr. Trudeau also supports construction of the Keystone pipeline, he has not made the issue central to Canada’s relationship with the United States, and has criticized Mr. Harper for presenting Canada’s position as an ultimatum, while not taking substantial action on climate change related to the oil sands.
Mr. Trudeau did not raise the issue during his first post-election conversation with Mr. Obama.
The construction would have had little impact on the nation’s economy. A State Department analysis concluded that building the pipeline would have created jobs, but the total number represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation’s total employment. The analysis estimated that Keystone would support 42,000 temporary jobs over its two-year construction period — about 3,900 of them in construction and the rest in indirect support jobs, such as food service. The department estimated that the project would create about 35 permanent jobs.
Republicans and the oil industry criticized Mr. Obama for what they have long said was his acquiescence to the pressure of activists and environmentally minded political donors.
“A decision this poorly made is not symbolic, but deeply cynical,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who leads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “It does not rest on the facts — it continues to distort them.”
Jack Gerard, the head of the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil companies, said in a statement, “Unfortunately for the majority of Americans who have said they want the jobs and economic benefits Keystone XL represents, the White House has placed political calculations above sound science.”
Russ Girling, the president and chief executive of TransCanada, said in a statement that the president’s decision was not consistent with the State Department’s review. “Today, misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science,” said Mr. Girling, whose company is based in Calgary, Alberta. “Rhetoric won out over reason.”
The statement said that the company was reviewing the decision but offered no indication if it planned to submit a new application. If a Republican wins the 2016 presidential election, a new submission of the pipeline permit application could yield a different outcome.
“President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is a huge mistake, and is the latest reminder that this administration continues to prioritize the demands of radical environmentalists over America’s energy security,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president. “When I’m president, Keystone will be approved, and President Obama’s backward energy policies will come to an end.”
As Mr. Obama seeks to carve out a substantial environmental legacy, his decision on the pipeline pales in import compared with his use of Environmental Protection Agency regulations. The power plant rules he announced in August have met with legal challenges, but if they are put in place, they could lead to a transformation of the nation’s energy economy, shuttering fossil fuel plants and rapidly increasing production of wind and solar.
Those rules are at the heart of Mr. Obama’s push for a global agreement.
But advocates of the agreement said that the Keystone decision, even though it is largely symbolic, could show other countries that Mr. Obama is willing to make tough choices about climate change.
“The rejection of the Keystone permit was key for the president to keep his climate chops at home and with the rest of the world,” said Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, a Washington research organization.
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