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This is what Joe Biden should do to protect the US from a spiraling oil crisis | Meg Jacobs
This is what Joe Biden should do to protect the US from a spiraling oil crisisM More
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Californians could see fuel price relief in the form of government rebates
Californians could see fuel price relief in the form of government rebatesThe governor has proposed giving drivers in the state $400 debit cards and giving transit agencies $750m to cover bus or train fares California residents could get free public transit rides and gas rebates under a proposal from the governor to help bring relief as fuel prices in the state reach record highs.Gavin Newsom’s plan is the latest floated by officials in California, where drivers are paying more for fuel than anywhere else in the country.US gas prices have started to slowly fall after reaching record levels in recent weeks, surging in part because of pandemic-induced inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But prices in the Golden State have continued to trend upward, and California drivers are now paying an average of $5.88 a gallon, according to AAA.‘It’s not worth it’: rising gas prices force drivers to work for less than minimum wageRead moreHere’s what we know about the governor’s proposal:What is Newsom’s plan?The Democratic governor has proposed giving all drivers in the state $400 debit cards for up to two vehicles, amounting to a total of $800. Anyone who has a car registered in California would receive the money, regardless of income, immigration status or whether or not their vehicles use gasoline.Newsom wants to give $750m to transit and rail agencies to cover bus or train fare for Californians who do not own cars. That funding would would cover the costs for free rides for 3 million people a day for three months, the governor said.The plan also includes $1.1bn to pause scheduled inflationary increases for diesel and fuel taxes this summer, and $500m for projects that promote biking and walking.Why is Newsom doing this?California’s gas prices are consistently the highest in the nation. On Wednesday, the state’s average gas prices hit a new record at $5.88 a gallon, more than $2 higher than it was a year ago, according to AAA.The high fuel costs are hitting residents hard, particularly gig workers for whom fuel makes up a large part of their daily costs.Giving money directly to taxpayers would provide relief and allow Newsom to avoid suspending the state’s gas tax as other states have done. California’s gas tax is the second-highest in the US at 51 cents a gallon, but Democratic leaders have been wary of pausing it as they fear oil companies would not pass the savings along to drivers.What are the criticisms?Republican lawmakers in the state have urged Newsom to suspend California’s gas tax in order to provide immediate relief to drivers. Newsom’s proposal will take time to deliver – the governor’s office has said people could see rebates by July.“People need relief now,” said James Gallagher, the assembly Republican leader. “We’ve got now, like, four different competing plans amongst the Democrats. These guys are going to negotiate against themselves for weeks to months and who knows what we’re going to get.”Meanwhile, Democrats have concerns about providing assistance to all Californians with registered vehicles, regardless of their income. Democratic leaders have been discussing their own proposal, which would give $200 rebates to every taxpayer and their children with taxable income less than $125,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers.Rising fuel prices pose a policy challenge for Newsom as he tries to wean the state off fossil fuels. He has signed executive orders aimed at banning the sale of new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035 and halting all oil extraction by 2045.Laura Deehan with Environment California, a nonprofit that advocates for an end to fossil fuel use, was critical of Newsom’s effort, and said that giving people money for gas would encourage them to drive more. Instead, the governor should use the $9bn on programs aimed at getting people out of gas-guzzling cars, she said.“Just giving out these rebates to anyone who has a car in the state isn’t going to help us in the long run move away from the volatility that comes with our dependence on fossil fuels,” she said.What happens next?The state legislature, where Democrats dominate both the assembly and the senate, must approve the plan. Newsom’s office said the governor would be willing to negotiate with lawmakers about who can get the money, a process that could take time to sort out.A moderate Democrat who supported a separately proposed plan to give every taxpayer $400 has indicated they would back Newsom’s effort and urged the legislature and governor to act quickly.“The contours of the governor’s proposal are a little different than what we proposed, but I would be very happy to support this,” said Cottie Petrie-Norris, a Democratic assembly member from Laguna Beach.What’s happening elsewhere in the US?With prices for fuel and other essentials soaring across the US, states are considering giving rebate checks directly to taxpayers as well as cutting sales taxes, offering property tax relief and reducing or suspending state gas taxes.The proposals come as many states have more funding than usual thanks to billions of dollars in federal pandemic aid and ballooning tax revenue.Janet Mills, Maine’s governor, wants to send $850 to most residents in the state to help with fuel costs and inflation. New Mexico’s governor recently signed off on a tax package that will give some taxpayers $250 checks, which lawmakers say will help with high gas prices.Maryland’s governor has signed a law temporarily suspending the state’s gas tax; Georgia has done the same while also offering $1.1bn in refunds to taxpayers. In Illinois, the governor has proposed halting a 2.2-cent increase in the motor fuel tax, suspending a 1% grocery sales tax for a year and providing a property tax rebate of up to $300.TopicsCaliforniaGasUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More
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How the US ban on Russian oil risks splitting the west’s response
How the US ban on Russian oil risks splitting the west’s responseAnalysis: The lights will not be going out in America but the same cannot be said for the EU, given its energy dependence on Moscow
Ukraine-Russia war – latest updates
Joe Biden’s decision to ban imports of Russian oil increases the economic pressure on Vladimir Putin – but it is not without risk.On the face of it, the announcement from the White House looks like a bit of a free hit, given the fact that Russia accounts for just 7% of the oil imported by the world’s biggest economy. Three-fifths of Russia’s oil exports go to the EU, only 8% to the US.Even so, Biden is taking a gamble for three important reasons. The first is that a toughening up of sanctions has given another upward twist to oil prices. American motorists were already paying higher pump prices, even before the latest surge in the cost of Brent crude above $130 a barrel and, as the US president admitted, they will soon be paying even more.Oil prices are up by 70% since the start of the year and there is no sign of them coming down anytime soon. The Oslo-based consultancy Rystad Energy has predicted a complete ban on Russian oil and gas could send crude prices to $200 a barrel. The previous milestone was the $147-a-barrel peak reached in 2008.The second risk is that Biden’s action fractures the western coalition against Putin, which in the first two weeks of the conflict has been solid. While support from the UK (phased in by the end of the year) means the US is not going it alone with its ban, other European countries clearly have misgivings. That is hardly surprising, because the EU gets 40% of its gas and just over a quarter of its oil from Russia.European oil receipts boosting Putin’s war chest by $285m a day, study findsRead moreSo when Biden said the west remained united in its determination to keep the pressure on Russia, that is not strictly true. The EU, as the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, made clear 24 hours before the US ban was announced, is worried about its energy security and has decided not to follow suit, for now at least. There is no risk of the lights going out in the US; the same could not be said of every country in Europe.This dependency on Russian energy creates a third risk, namely that Putin gets in his retaliation first by cutting off supplies. The EU has announced steps to reduce its dependency on Russian oil and gas, and the crisis could well have the effect of speeding up the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, but in the short term the loss of such a big chunk of its energy supply would result in weaker growth and higher inflation.While high energy prices eventually prove self-correcting because they tend to lead to recessions, the damage they can cause is considerable. UK living standards are on course for their biggest one-year fall since modern records began in the mid-1950s, with the war in Ukraine putting at risk the post-pandemic recovery. All of which makes it important that sanctions work quickly. The longer the economic war, the higher the cost.TopicsOilGasCommoditiesUS politicsEuropean UnionEuropeRussiaanalysisReuse this content More - in US Politics
Will taxpayers bear the cost of cleaning up America’s abandoned oil wells?
Climate crimesFossil fuelsWill taxpayers bear the cost of cleaning up America’s abandoned oil wells? Policy experts warn new proposals to plug abandoned oil and gas wells amount to huge subsidy for the fossil fuel industrySupported byAbout this contentL More
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The Louisiana gas industry’s answer to lax safety enforcement? Loosen it more
When a natural gas pipeline fire south-west of New Orleans killed one worker and burned three others, the Louisiana state police ordered Phillips 66 to pay a $22,000 fine for failing to immediately report the incident. The fire burned for four days before first responders could put it out.But the company ultimately didn’t pay any police fine, ending up with just a warning.That story is common, according to public records reviewed by the Louisiana Illuminator and Floodlight with the Guardian. The Louisiana state police – which oversees pipeline safety – issued 34 fines and five warning letters in the past five years. A quarter of those penalties were reduced: three were lowered, five were replaced with warning letters and two were dismissed. The fines that did stick were low, between $2,250 and $8,000.Aside from the obvious potential harms to workers, gas leaks pose fire risks and can cause respiratory problems for people in nearby communities.Phillips 66 declined to comment for this story. The company was separately fined $20,000 over the incident by the department of natural resources.Despite the record of lax enforcement by the state police, gas companies in the state say they are being treated unfairly and have lobbied for legislation to loosen requirements around reporting pipeline leaks. Louisiana has more gas pipelines than any other state except Texas, and more gas pipeline projects are planned in the state to support the growing demand for US natural gas exports.The proposal, House Bill 549 from Louisiana’s Republican representative Danny McCormick, was approved by Louisiana lawmakers and has been sent to the Democratic governor John Bel Edwards’ desk. It is one of many efforts by the influential oil and gas industry to avoid regulation and keep its tax rates low in the state. If signed into law, it would absolve companies from reporting natural gas leaks of less than 1,000 pounds, unless they cause hospitalization or death.Gene Dunegan, the program manager for Louisiana state police’s emergency services unit, defended the department’s record on fines, saying it had reduced them when pipeline companies present reasonable explanations for failing to report them within an hour. While Louisiana law requires pipeline companies to “immediately” report leaks, it does not define a deadline for doing so. The state police ask companies to report incidents within an hour.“Our goal is not to collect monies, but to keep the violation from recurring,” Dunegan said. “Most [companies] are proactive and implement needed changes and training prior to hearing from us, others not so much.”The state police issued few tickets over the past five years – less than 10 a year on average. One pipeline company’s name appears on the list more than any other: Centerpoint Energy. The company was ticketed seven times over the past three years, totaling $38,750.Trey Hill, a lobbyist representing Centerpoint, helped push McCormick’s bill through the Louisiana legislature. Centerpoint contested a ticket for failing to notify state police of one natural gas release, but state police dismissed the fine before a judge could decide on the case, Hill said in a legislative meeting in April. Atmos Energy, which was fined by Louisiana state police twice in 2020, also supported McCormick’s bill.Louisiana was among the first states to make trespassing on pipelines a felony, which pipeline companies have used to target environmental protesters and journalists. A federal judge recently allowed a challenge to Louisiana’s anti-protest pipeline law to move forward.Pipeline incidents are already underreported, said Anne Rolfes, the director of Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental organization that opposed the Bayou Bridge pipeline. “These accidents are overlooked, business as usual,” she said.In other states, the leaks are often overseen by energy regulators. In Oklahoma, for example, violations are enforced by the state’s Corporation Commission, but the highway patrol can also file charges against companies.In Louisiana, the department of natural resources’ pipeline division regulates only much larger gas leaks in intrastate pipelines that carry toxic or flammable products. “Our role is to conduct an investigation after the fact,” Steven Giambrone, the pipeline division director, said in the April committee hearing. “We’re not a first responder.”John Porter, the commander of the emergency services unit of the Louisiana state police, warned lawmakers that looser reporting thresholds could trigger public health concerns when smaller leaks happen in populated areas.“If we have a gas leak at a major intersection, 1,000 pounds would be an extreme amount with vehicles traveling by, with pedestrians traveling by,” he said. “And all we’re asking is for notification for us so we can get the proper emergency services people out there to protect the public.” More
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Biden suspends Trump-era oil drilling leases in Alaska’s Arctic refuge
The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing a drilling program approved by Donald Trump and reviving a political fight over a remote region that is home to polar bears and other wildlife – and a rich reserve of oil.The interior department order follows a temporary moratorium on oil and gas lease activities imposed by Joe Biden on his first day in office. Biden’s 20 January executive order suggested a new environmental review was needed to address possible legal flaws in a drilling program approved by the Trump administration under a 2017 law enacted by Congress.After conducting a required review, interior said it “identified defects in the underlying record of decision supporting the leases, including the lack of analysis of a reasonable range of alternatives” required under the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law.The remote, 19.6m-acre refuge is home to polar bears, caribou, snowy owls and other wildlife, including migrating birds from six continents. Republicans and the oil industry have long been trying to open up the oil-rich refuge, which is considered sacred by the indigenous Gwich’in communities, for drilling. Democrats, environmental groups and some Alaska Native tribes have been trying to block it.Bill Clinton vetoed a Republican plan to allow drilling in the refuge in 1995, when he was president, and the two parties have been fighting over the region ever since.The US bureau of land management, an interior department agency, held a lease sale for the refuge’s coastal plain on 6 January, two weeks before Biden took office.Eight days later the agency signed leases for nine tracts totaling nearly 685 sq miles. However, the issuance of the leases was not announced publicly until 19 January, former president Donald Trump’s last full day in office.Biden has opposed drilling in the region, and environmental groups have been pushing for permanent protections, which Biden demanded during the 2020 presidential campaign.The administration’s action to suspend the leases comes after officials disappointed environmental groups last week by defending a Trump administration decision to approve a major oil project on Alaska’s north slope. Critics say the action flies in the face of Biden’s pledges to address climate change.The justice department said in a court filing that opponents of the Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska were seeking to stop development by “cherry-picking” the records of federal agencies to claim environmental review law violations. The filing defends the reviews underpinning last fall’s decision approving project plans.Kristen Miller, acting executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, hailed suspension of the Arctic leasing program, which she said was the result of a flawed legal process under Trump.“Suspending these leases is a step in the right direction, and we commend the Biden administration for committing to a new program analysis that prioritizes sound science and adequate tribal consultation,” she said.More action is needed, Miller said, calling for a permanent cancellation of the leases and repeal of the 2017 law mandating drilling in the refuge’s coastal plain.The drilling mandate was included in a massive tax cut approved by congressional Republicans during Trump’s first year in office. Republicans said it could generate an estimated $1bn over 10 years, a figure Democrats call preposterously overstated.Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Nation steering committee, thanked the president and interior secretary Deb Haaland and said that tribal leaders are heartened by the Biden administration’s “commitment to protecting sacred lands and the Gwich’in way of life”. More
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Biden officials condemned for backing Trump-era Alaska drilling project
Joe Biden’s administration is facing an onslaught of criticism from environmentalists after opting to defend the approval of a massive oil and gas drilling project in the frigid northern reaches of Alaska.In a briefing filed in federal court on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said the Trump-era decision to allow the project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska’s north slope was “reasonable and consistent” with the law and should be allowed to go ahead.This stance means the Biden administration is contesting a lawsuit brought by environmental groups aimed at halting the drilling due to concerns over the impact upon wildlife and planet-heating emissions. The US president has paused all new drilling leases on public land but is allowing this Alaska lease, approved under Trump, to go ahead.The project, known as Willow, is being overseen by the oil company ConocoPhillips and is designed to extract more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 30 years. Environmentalists say allowing the project is at odds with Biden’s vow to combat the climate crisis and drastically reduce US emissions.“It’s incredibly disappointing to see the Biden administration defending this environmentally disastrous project,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that have sued to stop the drilling. “President Biden promised climate action and our climate can’t afford more huge new oil-drilling projects.”The Arctic is heating up at three times the rate of the rest of the planet and ConocoPhillips will have to resort to Kafkaesque interventions to be able to drill for oil in an environment being destroyed by the burning of that fuel. The company plans to install “chillers’ into the Alaskan permafrost, which is rapidly melting due to global heating, to ensure it is stable enough to host drilling equipment.Monsell said the attempts to refreeze the thawing permafrost in order to extract more fossil fuel “highlights the ridiculousness of drilling in the Arctic”. Kirsten Miller, acting executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said Willow “is the poster child for the type of massive fossil fuel development that must be avoided today if we’re to avoid the worst climate impacts down the road”.The Willow project will involve drilling up to 250 wells and associated infrastructure, such as a processing facility, hundreds of miles of new pipelines and roads and an airstrip, in the north-eastern corner of the petroleum reserve, which is a federally owned tract of land roughly the size of Indiana.Trump’s administration approved the drilling late in the former president’s term and activists hoped Biden would reverse this decision to meet his climate goals. A recent landmark report by the International Energy Agency found that there can be no new fossil fuel projects anywhere if the world is to avoid dangerous global heating.Native Alaskan groups have also opposed the project over fears it will adversely impact the abundant local wildlife, such as polar bears, fish and migrating caribou.“This project is in the important fall migration for Nuiqsut,” said Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, a resident of Nuiqsut, a community in the north slope. “It should not happen. The village spoke in opposition and the greed for profit should not be allowed over our village.” More
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Revealed: the full extent of Trump’s ‘meat cleaver’ assault on US wilderness
For thousands of years, Native nations of the US south-west lived in the majestic canyons of Bears Ears.
But it was land that conservative politicians and corporate interests also sought to control.
So in late 2016, the Hopi celebrated when the Obama administration protected Bears Ears by declaring it a national monument, sheltering it from development and extraction.
Just one year later, after Donald Trump took office, he drastically reduced the size of the monument by 85%.
The administration justified the rollback by pointing to some local residents who opposed the monument. In truth it was also responding to a push by groups with deep ties to major GOP donors and the extractive industries.
As the industry grew, the breaking point for Rogers was when a drilling pad was installed across the street from the home of a church family. Noxious fumes, nonstop industrial noise and dead birds followed, as Rogers tells it.
The family reported headaches, nosebleeds and respiratory problems. Earlier this year, a pipe broke in the middle of the night and spewed a fluid drilling byproduct over the family’s home and livestock.
The town is located in the middle of vast oil and gas fields, much of which are public lands.
The Trump administration has opened up significant swaths of land around Carlsbad for oil and gas drilling.
Scientists at the University of Wyoming discovered the Red Desert was the starting point of a wondrous large-mammal migration.
Each year, hundreds of mule deer – a struggling species unique to the west – travel a 300-mile round trip from the Red Desert to forests south of Jackson Hole and back to feast on fresh greenery and bulk up in anticipation of winter.
“It is the longest migration so far recorded for the species,” says Dr Matt Kauffman, a scientist with the US Geological Survey and the leader of the Wyoming Migration Initiative that maps migration corridors across Wyoming and the west. Each animal learns the route from its herd and follows the path “for the rest of its life”, he said.
But around and within the corridor, land being leased for oil and gas drilling is on the rise. This magnificent migration depends on the region’s relatively undisturbed landscape, which includes private land as well as vast tracts of public land. More
