Tag Archives: New York

National energy boom blurs political battle lines

Repost from The Associated Press, The Big Story

National energy boom blurs political battle lines

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI — Apr. 19, 2014
Energy Politics
FILE – This March 25, 2014 file photo shows perforating tools, used to create fractures in the rock, lowered into one of six wells during a roughly two-week hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Corp. well pad near Mead, Colo. The energy boom is scrambling national politics. Democrats are split between environmentalists and business and labor groups. Some deeply-conservative areas are allying with conservationists against fracking, the technique largely responsible for the surge.  (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

DENVER (AP) — The U.S. energy boom is blurring the traditional political battle lines across the country.

Democrats are split between environmentalists and business and labor groups, with the proposed Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline a major wedge.

Some deeply conservative areas are allying with conservationists against fracking, the drilling technique that’s largely responsible for the boom.

The divide is most visible among Democrats in the nation’s capital, where 11 Democratic senators wrote President Barack Obama this month urging him to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which is opposed by many environmental groups and billionaire activist Tom Steyer. The State Department said Friday that it was extending indefinitely the amount of time that federal agencies have to review the project, likely delaying a pipeline decision until after the November elections.

Several senators from energy-producing such as Louisiana and Alaska have distanced themselves from the Obama administration, while environmental groups complain the president has been too permissive of fracking.

There is even more confusion among Democrats in the states as drilling rigs multiply and approach schools and parks.

California Gov. Jerry Brown was shouted down at a recent state convention by party activists angry about his support for fracking. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has kept fracking in his state in limbo for three years while his administration studies health and safety issues. In Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper has drawn environmentalists’ ire for defending the energy industry, and a ballot battle to regulate fracking is putting U.S. Sen. Mark Udall in a tough situation.

But the issue cuts across party lines.

Even in deeply Republican Texas, some communities have restricted fracking. In December, Dallas voted to effectively ban fracking within city limits.

“You’re looking at a similar boom as we had in tech in 1996,” said Joe Brettell, a GOP strategist in Washington who works with energy companies. “The technology has caught up with the aspirations, and that changes the political dynamics fundamentally.”

Those technological advances have made it possible for energy companies to tap deep and once-untouchable deposits of natural gas and oil. They include refinements in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is the injection of chemicals into the ground to coax buried fossil fuels to the surface.

The U.S. is now the world’s largest natural gas producer and is expected to surpass Saudi Arabia soon as the world’s greatest oil producer, becoming a net exporter of energy by 2025.

The boom has brought drilling rigs into long-settled neighborhoods, raising fears of water contamination, unsafe traffic and air pollution, and outraging residents.

Pollster Steven Greenberg said Cuomo provides little notice before his public appearances because anti-fracking protesters will crash his events. Republicans blame the governor for stymieing growth. New York voters split evenly on fracking, with Democrats only modestly more likely to oppose it than Republicans.

“No matter what he decides, he’s going to have half the people upset with him,” Greenberg said. “From a purely political point of view, it’s hard to argue with his strategy — punt.”

In California, Brown has a long record of backing environmental causes, but he’s drawn the wrath of some environmentalists for supporting fracking. One group cited the $2 million that oil and gas companies have given the governor’s causes and campaigns since 2006. Democrats in the Legislature have proposed a freeze on fracking but are not optimistic Brown will support it.

The Democratic split is sharpest in Colorado.

Hickenlooper, a former oil geologist, has been a staunch supporter of fracking; at one point he said he drank fracking fluid, albeit a version without most of the hazardous chemicals. His administration has fought suburban cities that have banned fracking, insisting that only the state can regulate energy exploration.

In response, activists are pushing 10 separate ballot measures to curb fracking. One measure would let cities and counties ban it. The effort has the support of Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, a wealthy Democrat. At the state party’s recent convention, he gave a rousing speech nominating Hickenlooper for a second term but acknowledged “none of us … are going to agree on every single issue.”

Some Colorado Democrats worry that the ballot push is bringing energy groups who generally support Republicans into the state. One pro-fracking group has spent $1 million in TV ads.

Jon Haubert, a spokesman for the group, said leaders in both parties think the measures are economically dangerous. “We look at that and say this seems to be an extreme opinion,” he said, referring to the initiatives.

The ballot measures will force Democratic candidates to choose among environmentalists, labor groups and Colorado’s business community, whose political and financial support is vital to Democrats in the swing state.

Udall embodies this dilemma. He’s an environmentalist in a tight re-election campaign with Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, who represents an oil-and-gas rich, mostly rural congressional district.

In an interview, Udall declined to say if cities should have the right to ban fracking. “I’m not a lawyer,” he said.

Hickenlooper has put in place several landmark regulations — requiring that drilling occur a set distance from homes and schools and limiting methane emissions from energy exploration. But that has not assuaged activists such as Laura Fronckwiecz, a former financial worker who got involved in an effort to ban fracking in her moderate suburb of Broomfield after a drilling well was planned near her children’s elementary school.

A Democrat, she’s aghast at her party’s reluctance to embrace the cause. “Ten years ago, I’d say it was a progressive cause they’d get behind,” Fronckwiecz, 41, said, “but much has changed, and the politics of oil and gas are not what you’d expect.”

Fronckwiecz says she has Republicans and Libertarians in her coalition, as do activists pushing to limit fracking in energy-friendly Texas. While the GOP-dominated Legislature in Texas has rejected efforts to limit drilling, activists have earned small victories in towns and cities that have limited drilling, and one big win, the Dallas vote.

Sharon Wilson, Texas organizer for the environmental group Earthworks, says she gets a warm reception from conservatives and Libertarians. “When they come into your community and start fracking,” she said, “it does not matter what your political affiliation is.”

Oil Shipments Turn Albany Into “Houston on the Hudson” As Communities Across Country Fight Oil-By-Rail Proposals

Oil Shipments Turn Albany Into “Houston on the Hudson” As Communities Across Country Fight Oil-By-Rail Proposals (via Desmogblog)

Thu, 2014-03-27 04:18Justin Mikulka Due to a massive increase in the movement of crude oil by rail in the past few years, communities across the country are facing the daunting prospect of becoming part of the oil industry’s infrastructure. In Pittsburg…

NY locals, state and feds join together to demand rail reform

Repost from lohud.com The Journal News

Fast-track oil train standards, Rockland officials say

Khurram Saeed, The Journal News    11:20 p.m. EDT March 17, 2014

Officials want tighter regulations and safer tank cars in place for freight trains transporting crude oil through Rockland County.

Congresswoman Nita Lowey and local elected officials and community leaders at a press conference in West Nyack March 17, 2014 demanded new rules to ensure the safe transport of crude oil through the region.(Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News)

WEST NYACK –  A small cadre of federal, state and Rockland officials on Monday demanded that the U.S. transportation department boost safety standards for trains that carry crude oil through local communities and environmentally-sensitive areas.

At one point during the press conference held at the rail crossing on Pineview Road, a southbound oil train slowly rolled past. It was hauling dozens of the tank cars, known as DOT-111s, that are prone to rupturing following derailments or collisions.

In December, a train moving 99 empty oil tank cars — each large enough to carry about 30,000 gallons — hit a car carrier at the site but did not derail.

About 14 oil trains move through Rockland each week on CSX tracks, shuttling between Chicago and refineries along the East Coast, a recent Sunday story in The Journal News detailed.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is currently working on stricter standards for transporting crude oil by rail and the tank cars that carry them.

Safe transport of the more volatile crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota must be “fully tackled” by the DOT, U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey said. She said voluntary initiatives by the oil and rail industries were a good start but called for better planned routes, more transparency and improved tank cars.

“The promises of industry just aren’t enough to safeguard the public,” said Lowey, D-Harrison.

Rockland Legislators Alden Wolfe, D-Montebello, and Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, on Monday sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx asking his office to “fast-track rule changes” endorsed by Lowey and New York senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Several speakers noted CSX’s River Line passes near Lake DeForest and the Hackensack River, which supply hundreds of thousands of residents in Rockland and Bergen County, N.J., with drinking water. An oil spill in the reservoir would be devastating, they said.

“Guess who pays for the catastrophes and clean-ups?” asked Cornell — before explaining it would primarily fall to taxpayers.

Rockland Sheriff Louis Falco said he planned to meet with CSX in the coming weeks. His officers have been checking speeds of trains during the day — they have largely been in compliance, he said — and would soon begin observing them at night.

He also wants CSX to provide a daily list of what is aboard the trains so he can notify local police and fire departments.

“It takes a lot of people working together to make it clear that this is unacceptable,” Lowey said.

New York State: “inspection blitz” of crude-by-rail facilities

Repost from the White Plains NY Journal News on LoHud.com

State launches “inspection blitz” of rail facilities hauling crude oil

State and federal authorities this week began inspecting facilities used to ship volatile crude oil by rail throughout New York.

The sites include rail yards in Albany and Buffalo, the Port of Albany and its rail yard, as well as tracks and the tank cars that haul the volatile oil.

The inspections are the latest government effort to address growing concerns about increased shipments of crude oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. The oil travels over approximately 1,000 miles of New York, from Buffalo in the west, down from Quebec to the north and south through the Hudson Valley headed for refineries along the East Coast and Canada.

“We are taking action to safeguard our communities from the potential risk of crude oil shipments by launching more aggressive and enhanced enforcement of rail safety,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday. “This inspection blitz has resulted in immediate improvements to some of the state’s busiest rail sites.”

Earlier this week, inspectors from the state Department of Transportation and officials from the Federal Railroad Administration visited the Kenwood Rail Yard in Albany, owned by Canadian Pacific Railway, and the CSX-owned Frontier Rail Yard in Buffalo.

A locomotive hauling a 97-car oil train derailed on Tuesday on CSX’s River Line near Kingston. The 130-mile line, which runs through Rockland, averages about 14 oil trains a week, carrying tens of millions of gallons of Bakken crude.

The state said it inspected 198 DOT-111 type tank cars and three locomotives at the CSX yard. Two of the tank cars had wheel defects, and a few others were found with brake shoe defects. The DOT-111 cars are known to rupture in accidents, and many have called on them to be retrofitted or replaced.

At Kenwood Rail Yard, the joint team found three defective wheels and three defective brake shoes on the DOT-111s. Those defects must be addressed before the cars can leave the yard, the state said.

On Friday, the state Department of Environmental Conservation also began inspecting Global Partners’ major oil storage facility at the Port of Albany. The process is expected to last several weeks.

The inspections of other rail facilities will continue over the coming months.

While the state has sought to improve preparedness and oversight, the federal government is most responsible for railroad and tank car safety.

For safe and healthy communities…