EXTRACTED: Daily News Clips 9/8/21
PIPELINE NEWS
Facebook: Giniw Collective: Water Protectors Shut Down Major U.S.-Canadian Tar Sands Terminal: #StopLine3
Associated Press: Omar, other progressive Congress women, in Minnesota to protest Enbridge oil pipeline
Politico Morning Energy: U.N. WANTS ANSWERS ON LINE 3
Reuters: Court denies Spire's bid to rehear $285 mln pipeline permit vacatur
WDBJ: Pipeline opponents convicted of blocking Roanoke County road
Faribault County Register: Faribault County considers pipeline
WASHINGTON UPDATES
E&E News: Methane rule to eclipse past regulations, including Obama’s
STATE UPDATES
Greeley Tribune: Can Weld County maintain its fiscal health as oil and gas production gets pinched?
Albuquerque Journal: Environmentalists, industry battle over proposed ozone rule
EXTRACTION
NPR: Wyoming Is Among The States Spending Millions To Promote Carbon Capture
E&E News: Carbon removal technology reaches early milestone
CNBC: Bitcoin miners and oil and gas execs mingled at a secretive meetup in Houston – here’s what they talked about
Gizmodo: Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico After Ida Linked to Abandoned Pipeline
CLIMATE FINANCE
Wall Street Journal: Chevron Girds for Activist Challenge After Exxon’s Proxy Battle Defeat
Insurance Business: Insurance CEOs issued warning over support of Trans Mountain pipeline
OPINION
MinnPost: Biden administration official can heed his own advice by stopping Line 3
PIPELINE NEWS
Facebook: Giniw Collective: Water Protectors Shut Down Major U.S.-Canadian Tar Sands Terminal: #StopLine3
9/7/21
“This morning, Water Protectors erected multiple blockades at a major U.S.-Canadian tar sands terminal in Clearbrook, Minnesota in direct opposition to Enbridge’s Line 3. From grandmothers to young people, Water Protectors of all walks of life continue to stand up for the sacred. On one end of the mile-long blockade, grandmothers led beautiful solidarity with Anishinaabe treaty territory and Mother Earth, in front of a boat painted with MMIWG2S messages, held down by trans and two-spirit Indigenous protectors. “We, elder women, stand in loving solidarity with our Indigenous relatives and all Water Protectors. We say to the Enbridge corporation, its stockholders, all their workers and to President Biden: STOP THE LINE 3 PIPELINE NOW! We are here out of love for future generations and all life on our beautiful MOTHER EARTH!” - Ridgley Fuller, Trish Gallagher, Ellen Graves, Rema Loeb, Priscilla Lynch, Paki Wieland. Second and third blockades of an overturned vehicle, concrete barrels, and a tripod held off the other access points to the tar sands terminal. The action follows a blockade of a Line 3 mancamp last week, which included an all-BIPOC, mostly Indigenous femme and two-spirit team of land defenders. While the Biden and Walz administrations remain silent to police brutalization of Water Protectors, the multiple sex trafficking rings of Enbridge workers, and the huge impact of Line 3 on climate crisis, the people’s resistance continues.”
Associated Press: Omar, other progressive Congress women, in Minnesota to protest Enbridge oil pipeline
9/7/21
“Four congressional Democrats, who want President Joe Biden to stop construction of the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline, traveled to the shores of the Mississippi River to make their plea,” the Associated Press reports. “Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Cori Bush of Missouri, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were spending the holiday weekend visiting Bemidji and other parts of northern Minnesota to speak with members of Indigenous communities and others who have been protesting the project… “We have been encouraged by Joe Biden’s boldness so far,” Omar told AP, referencing his January decision to cancel a border-crossing permit for the Keystone XL pipeline that would have carried oil from Canada to Nebraska. “Now we have another chance to reject a moving pipeline. We hope you will act.” Minnesota Republican legislators condemned the visit they said “will only serve to incite the obstructionists,” the Star Tribune reported. Bush, who represents the St. Louis area, told AP the pipeline affects people beyond Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. “The water that flows from this point will carry whatever dirty fossil fuels it picks up right on down to my district,” she told AP.
Politico Morning Energy: U.N. WANTS ANSWERS ON LINE 3
Alex Guillén, 9/7/21
“The United Nations may be offering environmental groups and indigenous tribes a new legal front against Enbridge’s Line 3 oil pipeline,” Politico Morning Energy reports. “The body’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination sent a letter to the U.S. delegation asking it to address allegations that federal and Minnesota government approved permits for the project “without adequate consultation with and without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of the Anishinaabe indigenous peoples, despite the serious harm such pipeline could allegedly cause.” The U.S. must respond by Oct. 15 or risk being in violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.”
Reuters: Court denies Spire's bid to rehear $285 mln pipeline permit vacatur
By Sebastien Malo, 9/7/21
“A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied a petition by U.S. natural gas company Spire Inc to reconsider a June ruling requiring the company to shut down its already-operating STL natural gas pipeline in Missouri,” Reuters reports. “Two panels of judges of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected intervenor Spire's petition for a panel or full-court rehearing of the June 22 ruling that vacated authorizations for the roughly $285 million Spire STL Pipeline issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2018. Spire STL Pipeline president Scott Smith said in a statement: "Taking the STL Pipeline out of service will have significant implications for the health and safety, property and economic prosperity of the St. Louis region." Spire asked FERC in July for emergency authorization to keep the line operating to avoid gas outages for as many as 400,000 residents in St. Louis this winter. That application is under review, Spire spokesperson Jason Merrill told Reuters… “Natalie Karas, an in-house attorney with plaintiff the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), said in a statement: "The court has appropriately rejected the request to revisit its initial decision." "FERC has the authority and fact-finding tools to craft a remedy that fulfills the need for reliable service while safeguarding other public interests," she added.
WDBJ: Pipeline opponents convicted of blocking Roanoke County road
By Joe Dashiell, 8/30/21
“A Roanoke County judge has convicted three opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for a June blockade on Poor Mountain,” WDBJ reports. “But they won’t face two additional misdemeanors. June 30, Deborah Kushner, Bridget Kelley-Dearing and Alan Moore locked themselves to a car on Honeysuckle Road. It took an extraction team from the Roanoke County Police Department several hours to remove them. Monday morning, Judge John Molumphy convicted the defendants on a charge of blocking the road, and fined each of them $1,000. But the prosecutor withdrew a charge of unlawful assembly and the judge dismissed another alleging obstruction of justice.”
Faribault County Register: Faribault County considers pipeline
KEVIN MERTENS, 9/8/21
“Could there be a pipeline running through part of Faribault County someday? Maybe, if the plans of a company called Summit Carbon Solutions come to fruition,” the Faribault County Register reports. “According to company representative Quinn Slaven, who appeared virtually at the Faribault County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 7, the company is seeking to capture carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants before they are released into the atmosphere. “We would compress them into a liquid which would then be transported by a pipeline and injected into underground rock formations in North Dakota,” Slaven explained. “It would be a $4.5 billion investment by the company.” Summit Carbon Solutions has agreements with ethanol plants in five states including Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, as well as Minnesota… “As of April 29, the company had agreements with 30 facilities with an annual commitment for a total of eight million metric tons of carbon dioxide volume. The company is seeking to be operational by 2024 and was at the meeting to see what would need to be done, as far as regulations go, should the company want to build a pipeline in Faribault County. The commissioners expressed their opinion a conditional use permit would need to be obtained by the company.”
WASHINGTON UPDATES
E&E News: Methane rule to eclipse past regulations, including Obama’s
By Jean Chemnick, 9/8/21
“EPA plans to propose the nation’s strongest rules against methane emissions this month, escalating the Biden administration’s use of regulatory tools to reduce greenhouse gases from fossil fuel companies,” E&E News reports. “EPA Administrator Michael Regan confirmed last week that his agency will meet President Biden’s September deadline to propose methane regulations for the oil and gas sector, as laid out in one of the president’s first executive orders. The upcoming rules for new and existing oil and gas infrastructure are expected to be stricter even than an Obama-era standard set in 2016, which was reinstated in June after Congress took the unusual step of invalidating a Trump EPA rollback and replacement rule. Environmentalists at the time applauded lawmakers’ use of a Congressional Review Act resolution, which garnered some bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, to cancel former President Trump’s effort to weaken methane requirements. Now they’re pressing EPA to surpass the Obama rule, saying technological advancements over the last five years have made greater reductions cost-effective. And existing infrastructure has yet to be regulated, even though it releases the overwhelming majority of the sector’s methane. EPA seems poised to deliver. Regan said during an event last week hosted by Resources for the Future that methane reduction has “never been done as aggressively as we plan to do it.” “...The timing is probably not a coincidence,” Rosalie Winn, climate and clean air attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, told E&E. “With the release of the oil and gas next-generation methane standards, I think the international community will be looking for a strong signal with these rules that the Biden administration is taking steps towards meeting the commitments that it laid out last spring.”
STATE UPDATES
Greeley Tribune: Can Weld County maintain its fiscal health as oil and gas production gets pinched?
By JOHN AGUILAR, 9/6/21
“Weld County took an unprecedented $2.7 billion hit to its assessed property valuation last year, a nearly 18% decline from 2019 that county officials largely pin on a sharp drop in oil and gas extraction in Colorado’s top energy-producing county,” the Greeley Tribune reports. “That translates into $45 million less in taxes to fund things like road repairs and social services in the fast-growing county of 330,000, where last year proceeds from energy extraction accounted for 43% of Weld County’s total property tax revenues. It also raises the prospect that the sprawling county northeast of Denver is already on a slow but steady descent from its all-time oil production peak — nearly 170 million barrels in 2019 — forcing county officials to consider a future less tied to fossil fuels. “If you’re not planning for a future with less dependence on oil and gas, you’re probably missing the mark,” Steve Diederichs, vice president of energy research firm Enverus, told the Tribune. “The drop in production in the last two years in Weld County’s oil fields has been dramatic, with operators pulling just under 150 million barrels out of the ground in 2020. This year’s yield is on pace to fall an additional 30 million barrels, according to production data kept by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The reasons for the recent decline are varied and complicated, including the pandemic’s role in crushing demand for travel over much of the past 18 months, international market volatility that briefly brought oil prices to zero and the effects of a major energy reform bill passed by Colorado lawmakers two years ago.”
Albuquerque Journal: Environmentalists, industry battle over proposed ozone rule
BY THERESA DAVIS, 9/6/21
“Don Schreiber can see – and smell – several natural gas wells from his ranch home, which straddles Rio Arriba and San Juan counties,” the Albuquerque Journal reports. “Tucked inside his dusty truck are neatly labeled notebooks filled with air pollution data and the history of regional oil and gas drilling. He pauses at a well site that was redrilled this summer, pointing at the dark green compressors, tanks and pipes working to extract natural gas from deep underground. “Every point in this is just like any plumbing in your house: It’s all subject to leaking or venting,” Schreiber told the Journal. “But sometimes the biggest discharges come intentionally. They’re part of the design.” For nearly two decades, Schreiber has advocated for strict industry emissions regulations at the state and federal level. “Oil companies can choose to capture methane without a regulation,” he told the Journal. “It’s common sense. But it’s also about the bottom line.” On Sept. 20, a New Mexico Environment Department panel will begin to hear the agency’s proposed rules to target ozone pollution in the oil and gas industry. The rule’s latest version has received pushback from oil and gas companies, which see the regulation as endangering smaller producers and New Mexico’s budget.”
EXTRACTION
NPR: Wyoming Is Among The States Spending Millions To Promote Carbon Capture
STEVE INSKEEP, 9/7/21
“The bipartisan infrastructure bill includes the largest ever federal investment in carbon capture. Coal states hope it could prolong fossil-fuel use, which is why many environmental groups oppose it,” NPR reports. “The bipartisan infrastructure bill now in the House includes billions of dollars to capture climate-warming carbon emissions. It would be the largest ever federal investment in such technology. Coal producers love this idea, although environmental groups doubt that it works… “So a decade ago, Wyoming leaders realized carbon capture could be a way to keep the economy going and keep coal plants going. Here's former Governor Dave Freudenthal. DAVE FREUDENTHAL: I saw it as a silver bullet possibility for making coal more competitive in the context of a world whose policies were moving quickly towards carbon constraints. INSKEEP: How is Wyoming trying to fire that silver bullet? MCKIM: So the state's invested millions in this. There are projects to store CO2, to build a pipeline network to transport it. Wyoming also built a carbon capture testing center and hosted this big $20 million competition to help startups get off the ground. Turns out, finalists were much more interested in helping the climate than coal. INSKEEP: Well, there was a cool podcast series you did on that competition. But why do environmental groups not like this idea? MCKIM: Thanks. Yeah. So they worry the tech will just prolong the life of fossil fuels. So, for example, the majority of large-scale facilities that captures carbon injects it into oil fields to increase production. In Wyoming, an ExxonMobil facility sells its CO2 for that. Mike Ewall with the Energy Justice Network says carbon capture is basically just good marketing. MIKE EWALL: So every bad industry needs to have that public relations in order to make themselves look like they're part of the solution, even though they're clearly part of the problem. And we need to get past this greenwashing and move to the true solutions. MCKIM: Yeah. So to be totally clear, many environmental groups do support carbon capture. Even the United Nations has said it is critical to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.”
E&E News: Carbon removal technology reaches early milestone
By Corbin Hiar, 9/7/21
“The world’s largest facility dedicated to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is set to come online tomorrow in Iceland, a major milestone for the nascent direct air capture industry,” E&E News reports. “Constructed by the Swiss company Climeworks AG with support from Microsoft Corp., Swiss Re and other prominent corporate customers, the landmark facility is expected to pull 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually and store it permanently underground. The plant is named “Orca,” which means “energy” in Icelandic, and is roughly 20 miles southeast of the capital, Reykjavík. If it works as planned, the plant would increase the world’s direct air capture capacity by more than 40%, to 13,000 metric tons. That is less than 1% of the annual emissions of a single coal-fired power plant, according to EPA emissions data and an International Energy Agency report on the technology. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that, to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, the world needs to remove 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of carbon from the atmosphere by the end of the century. Energy experts say Orca represents the promise of DAC, a category of technologies that include large fans and artificial trees that someday could complement efforts to reduce the release of greenhouse gases. “We need to turn this into a Starbucks, circa 1999, where you see one on every corner,” Peter Psarras, a professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, told E&E. “I think this is the future we might see in the next decade.”
CNBC: Bitcoin miners and oil and gas execs mingled at a secretive meetup in Houston – here’s what they talked about
MacKenzie Sigalos, 9/4/21
“On a residential back street of Houston, in a 150,000 square-foot warehouse safeguarding high-end vintage cars, 200 oil and gas execs and bitcoin miners mingled, drank beer, and talked shop on a recent Wednesday night in August,” CNBC reports. “One big topic of discussion: Using “stranded” natural gas to power bitcoin mining rigs, which both reduces greenhouse gas emissions and makes money for the gas providers, as well as the miners. Exercising political influence to educate legislators about bitcoin was also on the agenda… “On a residential back street of Houston, in a 150,000 square-foot warehouse safeguarding high-end vintage cars, 200 oil and gas execs and bitcoin miners mingled, drank beer, and talked shop on a recent Wednesday night in August… “Bitcoin miners care most about finding cheap sources of electricity, so Texas – with its crypto-friendly politicians, deregulated power grid, and crucially, abundance of inexpensive power sources – is a virtually perfect fit. The union becomes even more harmonious when miners connect their rigs to otherwise stranded energy, like natural gas going to waste on oil fields across Texas.”
Gizmodo: Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico After Ida Linked to Abandoned Pipeline
Molly Taft, 9/7/21
“More than a week after Ida hit the Gulf of Mexico, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the hurricane made a huge mess of the oil and gas activities there,” Gizmodo reports. “The government is investigating hundreds of reports of oil spills in the Gulf following the storm—and some of these spills may have come from the enormous network of old and abandoned pipelines that the government has allowed companies to leave on the ocean floor… “One of the biggest spills may have been caused by a pipeline no longer in use—a phenomenon that’s a huge problem in the Gulf. On Wednesday, images captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—which also show the catastrophic damage wrought by Ida on coastal communities—showed a streak of oil at least 10 miles long in the waters 2 miles off of Port Fourchon, one of the country’s most important oil and gas hubs and the place where Ida first made landfall… “This spill was initially linked to activities from Houston-based Talos Energy, which had leased an area near the spill site but ceased operations in 2017. Divers working on the cleanup site said Monday that the spill appears to have sprung from a 1-foot pipeline that broke off the ocean floor in shallow water, about 34 feet (10 meters) underwater. Two other, smaller pipelines in the area were also “open and apparently abandoned,” the AP reported. In a release, Talos Energy, which has hired a company to clean up the spill, said that it had removed all its infrastructure in 2019, that its equipment was not responsible, and that the leak appears to have come from an abandoned pipeline in a nearby leasing area. The company said it is “working closely with the [Coast Guard] and Louisiana state officials to identify the owner of the line and is continuing to collaborate with [Coast Guard] and other state and federal officials to receive approval to initiate permanent repair of the line.”
CLIMATE FINANCE
Wall Street Journal: Chevron Girds for Activist Challenge After Exxon’s Proxy Battle Defeat
By Christopher M. Matthews and Emily Glazer, 9/3/21
“Chevron Corp. is preparing to defend itself against a potential challenge from activist investors like the one that roiled Exxon Mobil Corp. earlier this year, according to people familiar with the matter,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “In recent weeks, Chevron executives met with representatives of Engine No. 1, the investment firm that led the successful fight to win three seats on Exxon’s board, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. Chevron shared some of its plans to reduce carbon emissions during the talks, which were described as cordial, and Engine No. 1 gave no indication that it would pursue a campaign against Chevron, the people said.”
Insurance Business: Insurance CEOs issued warning over support of Trans Mountain pipeline
Bethan Moorcraft, 9/3/21
“Chief executives at several major insurance companies have once again been singled out by environmental and Indigenous organizations for their ongoing support of the Trans Mountain Pipeline,” Insurance Business reports. “On Friday (September 03), Canada’s National Observer shared the contents of an open letter directed at the CEOs of AIG, Chubb, Energy Insurance Limited, Liberty Mutual, and Lloyd's of London syndicates, among others, which urged the insurance leaders to rule out insurance for the Trans Mountain Expansion project. “This limited window for action will close rapidly if we allow expansion of the dirtiest forms of fossil fuels, such as the bitumen that would be carried by the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project from Alberta to Vancouver, BC, to proceed,” the letter reads. “This expansion would unleash up to 590,000 barrels per day of tar sands bitumen onto the world market, resulting in the addition of up to 152 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere annually.” Insurers have been under pressure for some time to cut ties with Trans Mountain. So far, more than 10 insurers have rejected the controversial tar sands pipeline - including Zurich, Talanx, Munich Re and Argo Group – but the insurers targeted in the most recent open letter from protesters are yet to withdraw their support.”
OPINION
MinnPost: Biden administration official can heed his own advice by stopping Line 3
Darrell G. Seki Sr. is the tribal chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, 8/31/21
“...If completed, this pipeline would carry more than 760,000 barrels of toxic tar sands oil per day through more than 200 bodies of water in the Mississippi River headwaters region and the pristine lake country of northern Minnesota where Native Americans harvest wild rice and hold treaty rights,” Darrell G. Seki Sr. writes for MinnPost. “Thousands of water protectors have gathered along the pipeline route to stand against this destructive project. Many have bravely put their bodies on the line to halt construction, and hundreds have already been arrested. There is one man who can act now to stop this destruction, and the volatile standoff that has arisen between protesters and law enforcement in response. Jaime Pinkham, a Biden appointee who is now the acting assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, could act today to revoke the federal permit for Line 3, issued in the final days of the Trump administration, to allow for a full assessment of the impact completing this pipeline would have on clean water, the climate, and Indigenous rights. When Pinkham was appointed to this role, water protectors were hopeful. A Niimíipuu citizen himself, Pinkham has spoken out about destructive pipelines and the need for meaningful tribal consultation in the past… “But despite the fact that Pinkham is now in a position to do exactly that, he has refused to act, and so far Pinkham and the Biden administration have continued with the Trump administration’s position on Line 3. Every day that passes without action from the administration, Enbridge is barreling ahead with construction. There have already been spills in the course of construction, and if they are allowed to continue there will only be more. Allowing this pipeline to be completed poses a direct threat to Indigenous peoples’ treaty rights, clean water, and cultural practices. Jaime Pinkham understands this as well as anyone, and now he has a choice to make. He can stand by as Enbridge forever scars our sacred lands and water protectors are threatened and abused by law enforcement, or he can heed his own words and intervene to stop this dangerous pipeline project. We hope he will make the right decision.”