EXTRACTED: Daily News Clips 6/17/21
PIPELINE NEWS
Alpha News: Tribal business owners condemn ‘destructive’ actions of left-wing protesters
Law360: New FERC Gas Project Review Can't Stand, Enbridge Says
Toledo Blade: Ohio Senate weighs in on fate of Enbridge Line
Associated Press: $1 million fine in 2016 pipeline accident in Louisiana
Marketwatch: Pembina Pipeline Partners with TC Energy to Create Carbon Transportation, Sequestration System in Alberta
WASHINGTON UPDATES
E&E News: Doubt grows over Biden's climate strategy
Bloomberg: Haaland Sidesteps Senate Questions on Oil and Gas, Conservation
STATE UPDATES
LA Illuminator: RISE St. James founder Sharon Lavigne wins Goldman Environmental Prize
EXTRACTION
E&E News: Oil majors are getting out of oil. It might spike emissions
CLIMATE FINANCE
S&P Global: ESG momentum may influence oil, gas funding, midstream valuations: S&P Global Ratings
OPINION
The New Yorker: Everyone Wants to Sell the Last Barrel of Oil
Bemidji Pioneer: LaDuke: The water means more
Bemidji Pioneer: REP. GREEN: Criminal acts against pipeline are unacceptable
Park Rapids Enterprise: LETTER: Don’t overlook impact on pipeline workers
National Observer: Canada must recognize our right to a healthy environment
Houston Chronicle: Opinion: ExxonMobil investors need to drill deeper to find truth
The Hill: Environmentalists need to think globally, not locally
Calgary Sun: Guest Opinion: Death of Keystone increases risk to people and the environment
PIPELINE NEWS
Alpha News: Tribal business owners condemn ‘destructive’ actions of left-wing protesters
By Rose Williams, 6/11/21
“Native American business owners and employees are speaking out against the actions of protesters who oppose Enbridge’s Line 3 oil pipeline replacement project,” Alpha News reports. “We are encouraging leaders of tribal communities across Minnesota to renounce these actions and call on these groups to stop future destructive and unlawful protests,” reads a letter signed by the Native owners and employees of six businesses… “The letter from tribal-owned businesses explains that many Native people work on the pipeline, and these workers were forced to leave their job sites on Monday “because protesters trespassed into a construction site and vandalized equipment.” “...The protests have created challenges for workers, as well as the companies that employ them, by “creating additional tension and consequences” within tribal communities, the letter states. “[The protests] also create a false narrative that there is no Native American support for this project and the economic impacts and opportunities it brings to our people,” the letter continues.”
Law360: New FERC Gas Project Review Can't Stand, Enbridge Says
6/16/21
“An Enbridge unit said on Tuesday that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wrongly dismissed pleas to reconsider its controversial February decision to re-examine its approval of a Massachusetts gas compressor station, a move the pipeline company asserts is unlawful and must be vacated, Law360 reports.
Toledo Blade: Ohio Senate weighs in on fate of Enbridge Line
6/16/21
“The Ohio Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution urging Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to reverse course on plans to shut down the Enbridge pipeline passing through the Great Lakes on its way to feeding Oregon refineries that employ about 1,200 people,” the Toledo Blade reports “Senate Resolution 41, sponsored by Sens. Kenny Yuko (D., Richmond Heights) and Theresa Gavarone (R., Bowling Green), is similar to one that passed the House. It amounts to little more than registering an opinion on the issue. “Line 5 is critically important to our state, region, and international region with Canada,” Ms. Gavarone told the Blade. “We need to send a message to Michigan's governor not to mess with Ohio, and I believe this resolution does just that.”
Associated Press: $1 million fine in 2016 pipeline accident in Louisiana
6/16/21
“A Texas company pleaded guilty to a federal Clean Water Act violation and agreed to pay a $1 million fine for damaging a pipeline that leaked more than 5,000 gallons of oil in a Louisiana bay in 2016, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans said Wednesday,” the Associated Press reports. “...Oil spilled into Bay Long, south of New Orleans, during work on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration project to restore a barrier island. At the time of the accident, the Coast Guard reported trying to capture and treat an estimated 200 oiled birds, while collecting 6,000 gallons of oily water.”
Marketwatch: Pembina Pipeline Partners with TC Energy to Create Carbon Transportation, Sequestration System in Alberta
By Adriano Marchese, 6/17/21
“Pembina Pipeline Corp. said Thursday that it has partnered with Calgary-based energy company TC Energy Corp. to develop a carbon transportation and sequestration system in the province of Alberta,” Marketwatch reports. “The Canadian energy transportation and storage infrastructure company said the Alberta Carbon Grid project is expected to transport more than 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. The plan is to leverage existing pipelines as well as a newly developed sequestration hub in the province, it said.”
WASHINGTON UPDATES
E&E News: Doubt grows over Biden's climate strategy
Adam Aton, 6/17/21
“President Biden swept into office on a wave of confidence about confronting climate change. That enthusiasm has turned to doubt as the pace and scale of his agenda fail to meet expectations,” E&E News reports.
Bloomberg: Haaland Sidesteps Senate Questions on Oil and Gas, Conservation
6/16/21
“Interior Secretary Deb Haaland sidestepped senators’ questions about some of her department’s pressing issues on Wednesday, including oil and gas leasing, migratory bird policies and the White House’s conservation goals,” Bloomberg reports. “She said the Interior Department is reviewing a Tuesday federal court decision to end the department’s pause on oil and gas leasing and will comply with the ruling. “Any other information will be forthcoming,” Haaland told members of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee at a hearing on Interior’s fiscal year 2022 budget request.”
STATE UPDATES
LA Illuminator: RISE St. James founder Sharon Lavigne wins Goldman Environmental Prize
Wesley Muller, 6/15/21
“Sharon Lavigne, a retired special needs teacher in St. James Parish and the founder of the faith based environmental justice group RISE St. James has been named the 2021 North American winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for fighting to keep multibillion dollar chemical plants out of her already polluted community in the heart of an area dubbed “Cancer Alley,” LA Illuminator reports. “The Goldman Environmental Prize is awarded each year to six individuals, one from each of the world’s inhabited continents. It typically goes to ordinary people who take extraordinary actions to protect their local environment. Lavigne, 68, received the award, nicknamed “the Green Nobel,” Tuesday. “I was overwhelmed,” Lavigne told the Illuminator in a phone interview Monday about learning that she’d won. “I was just in disbelief that they chose me. I didn’t understand what I did to receive such a prestigious award.” The award committee credits Lavigne with helping block a $1.25 billion plastics manufacturing facility that Chinese chemical company Wanhua proposed to build in St. James Parish near the Mississippi River and praises her ongoing fight against Formosa Plastics, a company from Taiwan that’s planning a $9.4 billion plastics manufacturing complex near Lavigne’s house.”
EXTRACTION
E&E News: Oil majors are getting out of oil. It might spike emissions
Carlos Anchondo and Mike Lee, 6/17/21
“Amid pressure from environmental groups and shareholders to adopt more aggressive climate targets, some of the world's largest oil and gas companies are weighing the sale of major assets as a way to cut emissions,” E&E News reports.
CLIMATE FINANCE
S&P Global: ESG momentum may influence oil, gas funding, midstream valuations: S&P Global Ratings
Starr Spencer, 6/16/21
“Since around 2017 and especially in the past year, the energy transition to low-to-zero-carbon fuels has gained momentum among investors and likely will influence their actions on future project funding availability and costs, a panel of S&P Global Ratings analysts said June 16 “...Within the North American energy sector, we estimate funding costs were about 75 basis points higher for the most carbon-intensive borrowers compared with those that showed the lowest carbon intensity," Gunter said. Also, issuers in energy sectors with relatively lower carbon intensity have been able to offer longer-dated debt at lower financing costs than their more carbon intense peers, he said.”
OPINION
The New Yorker: Everyone Wants to Sell the Last Barrel of Oil
By Bill McKibben, 6/16/21
“A final victory last week over the Keystone XL pipeline is a reminder that fighting particular fossil-fuel projects is a necessary strategy if the climate is to be saved,” Bill McKibben writes in The New Yorker. “The defeat of Keystone XL doesn’t mean that Canada’s vast tar-sands project, which is generally regarded as the largest industrial project in the world, is over, but the fight has been a gut punch to the fossil-fuel industry. In 2011, when protests began outside the White House, Canada’s National Energy Board was confidently predicting that tar-sands-oil production would triple by 2035—which led the climate scientist James Hansen to explain that pumping Alberta dry would be “game over” for the climate. A decade later, as Karin Kirk reported in Yale Climate Connections, fifty-seven major financial institutions have “pledged to stop funding or insuring oil sands ventures. Exxon Mobil has declared a loss on the original value of its oil sands assets, and Chevron has pulled out of Canadian oil and gas entirely. Other oil majors, like Shell and BP, are selling off their oil sands assets, leaving it largely to Canadian oil companies and the Canadian government to forge ahead.” Kirk’s piece appeared in March; the number of such institutions is now seventy-seven. The situation will get even harder for tar-sands investors if protests led by indigenous groups in Minnesota succeed in halting an expansion of the Line 3 pipeline—which is being built by the Canadian company Enbridge Energy, and will carry tar-sands oil and regular crude—or if protesters north of the border are able to block a huge expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, from Alberta to Canada’s Pacific Coast.”
Bemidji Pioneer: LaDuke: The water means more
Winona LaDuke, 6/16/21
“Waasibiik. That’s the word in Anishinaabemowin for the sparkle on the water. I love to look at the sparkling water, full of life. I have been wondering if people elsewhere in the world can see the sparkle and waasibiik,” Winona LaDuke writes in the Bemidji Pioneer. “… There are different times, the great dish we live from- the land, is suffering from big agriculture, the forests being clear cut for industrial agriculture expansions, and the water withdrawals continue. Now add Enbridge. Think about this, Enbridge is about to cross almost every river in Hubbard County — well at least the Straight River, Hay Creek, Shell River, Crow Wing, and put more risk into our waters, as well as sucking out more to make their mess. Our world is fragile… “I have been asked this past week if I’m a protester. I’m not. I’m Anishinaaabe and I am a water protector, because the water of the rivers and lakes of this land, the 1855 treaty territory, is of more value to me than oil and money. And there are millions more like me. In fact, I think a lot of them are coming, and they are all ages (Hubbard County, in the 165 or so arrests, took a lot of old people into custody), and they are here for the water. We all are.”
Bemidji Pioneer: REP. GREEN: Criminal acts against pipeline are unacceptable
Rep. Steve Green, Minnesota House, District 2B, R-Fosston, 6/16/21
“The Line 3 replacement project resumed after a spring-thaw hiatus. Work is 60 percent complete, and the new pipeline – one of the largest privately funded projects in state history – remains on schedule to be completed and in service later this year. While that is good news, it was disgraceful to see activists recently cause significant property damage, threaten workers and prevent people from working on this job,” Steve Green writes in the Bemidji Pioneer. “While everyone’s right to peacefully and lawfully protest should be respected, what recently took place at Two Inlets pump station was criminal and dangerous. Reports indicate protesters attempted to trap workers while forcefully entering and then occupying the site, trespassing and criminally damaging property. This is unacceptable and all involved should face full prosecution. It is insulting to those of us who live here to see extremists, many from other places around the country, come to our region to try to stop work even after the project passed muster during an exhaustive permitting process. People here and throughout northern Minnesota are benefiting from thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic impact from this $3 billion private investment.”
Park Rapids Enterprise: LETTER: Don’t overlook impact on pipeline workers
Brian Hartje, Bemidj, 6/16/21
“Thousands of out-of-town protesters descended on northern Minnesota to disrupt construction on the Line 3 pipeline project. While everyone has the right to express themselves – even those against the pipeline – I think the impact on the pipeline workers is often overlooked,” Brian Hartje writes in Park Rapids Enterprise. “Since construction, Enbridge has hired nearly 6,000 workers for these good-paying pipeline jobs – something that should be celebrated after a year of lost jobs and decreased hours and wages for many families in greater Minnesota.Over the past seven months, anti-pipeline groups have continually protested at worksites, shutting down construction and halting progress on this much-needed pipeline. But when construction is shut down due to the dangerous antics of protesters, it means workers are not able to do their job, often leading to lost wages. Many of these protesters claim to support union workers, but their actions and antics say otherwise. They are quite literally taking money out of the pockets of these hardworking men and women who depend on their Line 3 pipeline jobs to pay the bills.”
National Observer: Canada must recognize our right to a healthy environment
By David Boyd, Lisa Gue & Elaine MacDonald, 6/16/21
“With the third wave of COVID-19 waning at last, governments are turning their attention to reopening strategies and planning for economic recovery,” David Boyd, Lisa Gue & Elaine MacDonald write in the National Observe. “Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, in tabling April’s federal budget, outlined a three-pronged approach. First, conquer COVID. Second, “punch our way out of the COVID recession.” Third, build a more resilient country by investing in Canada’s green transition and social infrastructure… “Among other much-needed updates to Canada’s primary environmental law, Bill C-28 would recognize for the first time in federal law that all people in Canada have the right to a healthy environment. “This is not symbolism,” Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a virtual media briefing on Bill C-28. “The legal right to a healthy environment will lead to stronger protections in tandem with the evolving science, especially for groups of people vulnerable to high levels of pollution… This includes Canadians who may be at greater risk of exposure or more susceptible to the effects of chemicals … as well as Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities close to major sources of pollution.” Canadian Institute for Health Information researchers found 25 per cent of the poorest people in Canada’s urban areas live within a kilometre of a polluting facility, compared to just seven per cent of the wealthiest. The inequities of toxic exposure have been a blind spot in Canadian law. Integrating a human rights lens into CEPA has the potential to change the way we approach environmental protection. Government’s proposed CEPA amendments include a new requirement for federal government to “protect the right of every individual in Canada to a healthy environment.”
Houston Chronicle: Opinion: ExxonMobil investors need to drill deeper to find truth
Clark Williams-Derry, 6/17/21
“Late last month, ExxonMobil’s investors issued a stunning rebuke to the company’s management. At the annual meeting, shareholders elected three new board members over management’s objections. Much has been said about what upheaval means for cutting carbon emissions, but shareholders not only passed resolutions calling for greater climate responsiveness, they also demanded transparency,” Clark Williams-Derry writes in the Houston Chronicle. ”The shareholder backlash was a long time coming for a company that had suffered through more than a decade of high-profile misfires. ExxonMobil’s former chief executive admitted he paid too much for its $41 billion acquisition of XTO Energy, a U.S. natural gas driller. Exxon’s Canadian oil sands projects have struggled financially. And the company fumbled an exploration deal with Russia’s Rosneft. These missteps culminated in a disastrous 2020, in which the company slashed estimates of its oil reserves by one-third, and wrote off $16.8 billion in oil and gas assets in the U.S. alone. Investors should not lose sight of these underlying problems as the global economy recovers in 2021 and oil prices surge. Item one on the new board’s agenda should be a thorough review of the company’s upstream assets, starting with the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico. ExxonMobil has spent lavishly to improve its position in the basin, telling investors that oil and gas drilling was the path back to financial success, and that the Permian was one of its crown jewels. In 2020 and 2021, the company repeatedly held up the productivity of its Delaware Basin wells as the best way to compare Exxon’s allegedly world-class Permian portfolio with its peers. But can the company really count on the Permian as the home run that it needs to make up for a series of strikeouts?”
The Hill: Environmentalists need to think globally, not locally
Madison Dibble is a research associate for the Center for Accountability in Science, 6/16/21
“Environmentalists have tried to make the case that Congress needs to pass the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act to reduce the amount of plastic in the ocean. But the fact is, the United States could completely stop using plastic items and it would hardly make a dent in reducing ocean pollution,” writes in The Hill. “Americans share this planet with nearly 200 other countries, all of which have varying capabilities when it comes to environmental issues. And by all metrics, the United States is doing pretty well in comparison. When it comes to the ocean, we’ve been told we should ban items like straws and plastic bags to help keep the ocean clean and save the turtles. Yet, almost none of the plastic in the ocean comes from America. Almost all of the ocean’s trash can be traced back to 10 rivers in Africa and Asia. Just 1 percent of the mismanaged trash in the ocean can be traced back to the United States… “Environmentalists who are wringing their hands about America’s use of plastic bottles or gas-powered cars are missing the forest for the trees. Pollution is a global problem and right now, the biggest contributors to that problem are located in Asia and Africa. Campaigns aimed at U.S. consumers are not serious solutions. If the environmental movement wants to save the environment, they need bigger footprints in addressing the real problems that exist in other parts of the Earth. It’s a tough assignment that needs more of our focus than the domestic preoccupation with straws, bags and bottles.”
Calgary Sun: Guest Opinion: Death of Keystone increases risk to people and the environment
Kenneth Green is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, 6/6/21
“Last week, TC Energy (formerly TransCanada Pipelines) announced it will shut down activities and disengage from the Keystone XL pipeline. The thousand-mile bone of contention, in both the United States and Canada, is officially dead. And that’s sad because a more clear-cut choice between higher-risk and lower-risk methods of moving the fuels that power modern economies may never have existed,” Kenneth Green writes in the Calgary Sun. “And voters, acting through their elected governments in both the U.S. and Canada, have essentially voted for more risk when moving oil. More leaks and spills, more rail accidents, and higher-cost mobility and transportation. Here’s the bottom line. Modern society is utterly dependent on petroleum products to generate a decent quality of life for its people. This is simply indisputable. The scale of that dependency is such that moving petroleum hither and thither will be necessary for decades to come. This means that no matter how we might want to wish it away, we cannot avoid making hard rationally-driven choices about how to manage the risks of that reality. And we have chosen badly because petroleum will continue to be transported in massive volumes for decades, and the safest way to move it via land is through pipelines.”