Will the United States drill the Gulf of Mexico for oil?
A compromise incorporated into the law secures oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico for the next decade. The New York Times article
Justin Solet put his foot on the edge of his green camouflage boat in the Bayou Chauvin and pointed to a natural gas platform protruding from the waters ahead. A network of rusty pipes and tanks protruded from the swamp behind him as a shrimp boat passed by and crab trap signs floated on the surface of the water.
"We are water people," said Mr. Solet, 37, a member of the United Houma Nation, a native community with many shrimp fishermen, oyster farmers and crab fishermen who depend on the wealth of the Gulf of Mexico. “This is their livelihood. And it is right next to these tanks that I don't think they have been repaired or overhauled for years ”. NYT writes
Oil and gas wells and drilling equipment are a persistent threat to the Gulf fishing industry. In addition to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, there have been dozens of lesser known oil spills. Last month, on the first day of Louisiana's coastal shrimp season, a reservoir platform collapsed, spilling 14,000 gallons into Terrebonne Bay and ruining the catch.
Now more drilling may come.
Under a new climate and tax law, the federal government will lease hundreds of millions of extra acres for offshore drilling in the Gulf over the next decade, although it will invest $ 370 billion to move the country away from fossil fuels and develop the wind, solar and other renewable energy.
More drilling in the Gulf was one of the concessions Democrats and President Biden made to Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a Democrat who supports fossil fuels and whose vote in favor of the legislation was crucial in a Equally divided Senate.
It came despite Biden's promise as a candidate to stop new drilling on public land and in federal waters "period, period, period." And despite Deb Haaland, who will oversee the leasing as Home Secretary, said in 2020, as an MP, that "we must act quickly to tackle climate change and keep fossil fuels in the ground."
The lease also follows the warning from the International Energy Agency that nations must stop approving new fossil fuel projects if the world has any hope of preventing the global average temperature from rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius above. at pre-industrial levels. This is the threshold beyond which, according to scientists, the likelihood of catastrophic climate impacts increases considerably. The planet has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius.
The new law condemns communities like Houma, who are already dealing with storms made more intense by climate change, to continue to depend on oil and gas drilling, even as other parts of the United States are racing towards renewable energy. said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of Healthy Gulf, a New Orleans-based environmental organization. "We were really sold to the river and had to play the role of bargaining chip without the input of the people in Louisiana," said Jack Sweeney, an activist with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a nonprofit environmental organization. Last month, members of the group traveled to Biden's home state of Delaware to point out that while Congress and the administration allow more drilling in the Gulf, they protect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. "The treatment of the Louisiana coast is very different," he said.
Erik Milito, president of the National Association of Ocean Industries, which represents offshore energy companies, said the new law created a "fair playing field" for offshore oil and gas alongside wind. His organization said oil and gas production in the Gulf is expected to average around 2.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day through 2040 and that the industry will support an estimated 372,000 jobs in the region in that period.
As oil drilling technology improves, the physical footprint of the industry is shrinking, Milito said.
The Department of the Interior announced Wednesday that, in accordance with the new law, it reinstated 307 offers received last year to lease 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. (The sale was canceled in January by a federal judge who ruled that the Biden administration had not taken sufficient account of climate change, but was reinstated under the new climate law.)
According to analysts, the sale could produce up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and most likely emit 723 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over its lifetime.
Ms. Haaland said this week that the agency is "committed to implementing the law," including a mandate for further lease sales on public lands and federal waters. Environmental groups said they still intend to contest the sale.
The new law also requires the Department of the Interior to lease two million acres of federal land onshore and 60 million acres offshore annually for oil and gas development before it can approve the federal lease for wind, solar energy projects. and other renewable energies.
Brian Deese, director of Biden's National Economic Council, said no communities were sacrificed during the negotiations for the legislation. He called the new law "the most significant in American history, not only to address the climate crisis, but also to build a clean energy production base in the United States that will fuel renewable energy and jobs for years."
Deese pointed out that the law includes $ 60 billion to help low-income communities address what he called "the legacy of environmental pollution and environmental justice." This week the Department of the Interior proposed tightening safety regulations for offshore oil and gas drilling that have been relaxed by the Trump administration. However, the new climate law or federal plans do not include funds to repair the more than 8,600 miles of active offshore pipelines which, according to government estimates, lack adequate supervision.
Activists said installing even more oil rigs in the Gulf, where they are vulnerable to larger and more frequent hurricanes due to climate change, would lead to disaster.
The region is already home to the nation's longest-running oil spill. Subsea wells owned by Taylor Energy have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since 2004, when a production platform about 10 miles off the Louisiana coast was damaged by Hurricane Ivan. More than one million liters of crude oil have been collected and removed so far, and the spill is still active. Last year, when Hurricane Ida struck southeastern Louisiana, it caused 55 oil spills, including a spill near a fragile nature reserve.
Relatively small spills, such as the recent one in Terrebonne Bay on the opening day of the shrimp season, rarely make national news.
Milito, spokesman for the industrial group, said that aging of equipment remains a problem. "It is one of the risks associated with the development of oil and gas, but it is a risk that the industry takes seriously," he said. Asked if the Gulf was a "sacrifice zone," he replied, "If we didn't have to continue leasing in the Gulf of Mexico, we would create a much greater sacrifice for Americans."
In a region tied to both fishing and oil drilling, it's perhaps not surprising to find the annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, hosted over Labor Day weekend in Morgan City, a town about 70 miles west of New Orleans. Hundreds of people flocked under an overpass two weeks ago to sample fried alligator and jambalaya, visit a disused oil rig nicknamed Mr. Charlie, and witness the blessing of the shrimp fleet along the Berwick docks.
Skipper Williams, 71, who said he comes from a family of boat captains, said the region prides itself on both fuel and food.
"They go hand in hand," said Mr. Williams, who runs a sporting goods store that sells T-shirts at the festival. Regarding the oil spills, he said: “Does it hurt? Yes, but does it hurt forever? No".
When told that the new climate and tax law guaranteed more offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf, Mr. Williams replied, “I think it's the right thing to do. I mean, what do you think it is to convert all vehicles to electricity right now? There is a hurricane down here, which occurs practically every year. Well, you won't get very far in an electric car ”.
AJ Richard, 68, worked for 36 years as a pipe fitter for oil companies on the Gulf Coast and overseas. He said Biden has "closed everything" in the oil industry and blamed the president for inflation, including the $ 18 he and his wife Cathy, 66, paid at the festival for two burgers and two orders of fries.
The couple said they were unaware that Biden signed a law securing more Gulf drilling leases, but they do not believe the president deserved credit for helping the region. Mr. Richard said he believes the only hope for the area is the 2024 presidential election.
"As long as he's a Republican – it doesn't have to be Trump – a Republican can get everything right and people can get back to work," said Richard, who is retired.
Wanda Presa, 46, moved to Amelia, La, from New Jersey 14 years ago and now works as a captain in a river casino. She said she was concerned about climate change, but was heartened by the news that oil and gas leasing will continue in the Gulf. This means that more residents could have disposable income to spend.
“If there is an increase in leasing in the Gulf, it means that I feel a little more confident in my job,” she said.
Even some of those whose livelihoods have been damaged by the recent spills have said they want the oil industry to thrive.
At a shrimp dock in the nearby town of Dulac, Kimberly Chauvin, co-owner of the David Chauvin Shrimp Company, said she was furious about the oil spill on the first day of the shrimp season. The fishermen he works with "woke up in the oil" that day to find that the patches had dirtied their catches, and the extent of the financial damage will not be clear until the end of the season.
“We have a double-edged sword,” Ms. Chauvin said of the Gulf's dependence on oil and gas as she lifted fresh shrimp from blue plastic buckets into plastic bags for customers.
But Ms. Chauvin said she was skeptical of climate change and added that oil and gas are vital to the Gulf.
"We need more licenses," Ms. Chauvin said. "But we also need more supervision."
Mr. Solet nodded silently as Mrs. Chauvin spoke. Later, he acknowledged that he moves cautiously between friends and neighbors. His opposition to oil and gas expansion in the Gulf has already caused friction with family members working in the industry, he said.
“People down here don't like being labeled 'you live in a sacrifice zone', because what they hear is, 'You're coming for our jobs.' You are coming for the food on my table, for the clothes on my son's back, for a lifestyle I love ”.
Solet worked for nine years on oil rigs until the Deepwater Horizon spill led to activism. It also comes from a long line of commercial fishermen, whose livelihoods have been altered by coastal erosion, by waters battered by increasingly devastating hurricanes or threatened by aging infrastructure.
“I'm afraid that when my youngest is 16, I won't be able to bring him here anymore,” Solet said. “There will be no more”.
(Extract from the press review of eprcomunicazione)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/stati-uniti-petrolio-golfo-messico/ on Sun, 25 Sep 2022 06:00:07 +0000.