Please note that David McMahon is also concerned about old gas wells!

The West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization, of which I am a cofounder, stands up for surface owners when the oil and gas drillers show up with bulldozers.

The common law says that if I own the surface, but someone else owns the minerals and leases them to a driller, I get no share of the value of the oil and gas that my surface land is used to produce. Only in the 1980s did surface owners finally even get limited compensation for the damage done to their land — the amount of the existing use such as growing hay was worth to the surface owners, not what use of their land is worth to the driller and mineral owner.

The Legislature has never regulated the deeds severing ownership of the minerals (usually to out-of-state owners) from the ownership of the surface in a way that might have given the surface owners more say over where well pads, pipelines etc. can be built — let alone what share the surface owner might get from the profits of drilling and producing using their land.
The Legislature has also never enacted regulations to protect mineral owners when signing leases to drillers (usually to out-of-state companies).

Almost every lease that I have seen drafted by the driller for the mineral owner to sign contains a “general warranty” clause. That means if the driller’s title work was wrong, the mineral owner has to pay for the driller’s lawyers when the driller gets sued by someone else who thinks the minerals were theirs and did not belong to the person the driller got to sign the lease.

So, if the driller is sued for the money the driller wrongfully paid to the person who the driller asked to signed the lease, then the person who signed the lease has to pay the driller’s attorney fees. I am not making this up. And many of the leases had provisions allowing free use of the surface for pipelines for wells that were not on the leased tract. And many of the leases had provisions that let the lease be held for decades by use for gas storage fields by paying the mineral owners only $1 an acre a year — again not a share of the money the driller made by using the storage field.

The Legislature never stepped in to regulate leasing, it only enacted forced pooling when mineral owners would not sign the drillers’ leases.

Now, finally, surface owners who got no share of the value of their land being used for oil and gas production have the opportunity to get paid for entering into carbon credit agreements that require scientific management of timber cutting. And now the Legislature is considering enacting regulation of transactions with landowners (Senate Bills 618 and 822).

Now, when the surface owner can get paid some money by persons or entities (usually out of state) who want to offset their carbon generation by paying us to manage our timberland in a carbon friendly way, now when we can finally get paid some money for scientifically managing our timber — now the Legislature is considering two bills that will at least inhibit and more likely eliminate West Virginia surface owners from getting this money.

Not everyone agrees that the buying and selling of carbon credits is a good idea.

But the Legislature cannot stop other states from authorizing it or stop private entities from purchasing the credits to enhance their image. All the Legislature can do is pass bills chasing the money out of West Virginia to surrounding states that do not interfere. The Legislature should prove its bona fides as advocating for a free market and less government and private property rights. Prove that West Virginia is not just a big company town. Don’t pass these bills.

David McMahon is a lawyer in Charleston. He is dedicated to the public interest.

NOTE ~ Please join the WV Surface Owners Rights Organization ASAP, that we definitely help!

See the Web Site ~ WVSORO.org. Julie Archer is the Executive Director, and needs your help!

URL: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/op_ed_commentaries/david-mcmahon-wv-looking-to-rip-off-surface-rights-owners-opinion/article_fdaeff14-8b0a-5b6b-8c77-41006ad17757.html

Our concern is the all lands, for example lot 7 here!

From Randi Pokladnik, Tappan Lake, OHIO, 44683, February 14, 2024

Have you ever noticed that every oil and gas drilling rig has an American flag anchored to the top? For most Americans, that flag represents a symbol of freedom. So, it’s ironic that Ohio’s pro fossil fuel Republicans cater to the oil and gas industry and usurp many of its rights and freedoms from Ohio’s citizens.

Have you ever noticed that every oil and gas drilling rig has an American flag anchored to the top? For most Americans, that flag represents a symbol of freedom. So, it’s ironic that Ohio’s pro fossil fuel Republicans cater to the oil and gas industry and usurp many of its rights and freedoms from Ohio’s citizens.

This industry, however, enjoys several freedoms and rights that many other industries do not. Because of the Haliburton laws, the oil and gas industry is exempt from most federal regulations, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and the Toxic Release Inventory under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

In 1980, the Federal EPA acknowledged that the billions and billions of barrels of produced water from fracking wells is hazardous, but it would be an economic burden for this industry to try to adhere to the laws. Therefore, “The Federal EPA exempted wastes from the federal laws written to protect the public from toxic waste.” In Ohio, these wastes are trucked up and down the roads of our rural communities to be injected into Class II injection wells.

Ohio’s Republican lawmakers have opened the state to fracking; allowing the industry to exploit every drop of oil and every molecule of gas that lies beneath southeast Ohio counties.

Countless laws have been passed to pave the way for fracking while thwarting renewable energy development (HB 52 HB6 and HB483). Additionally, pro fossil fuel laws have attacked our freedoms, limiting free speech and public protests. Ohio citizens, trying to protect their homes and rural communities from the horrendous externalities visited on them, have been essentially gaged by laws like SB 33, passed in 2021.

A prime example of the power that fossil fuels weld over Ohio’s citizens was obvious in 2023, when HB 507 opened up the state’s parks to fracking. The bill was passed during the 2022 General Assembly “lame duck” session, and was quickly signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine. The bill set in motion the ability of out-of-state oil and gas companies to propose leases under state parks.

A “puppet-like” public participation process was carried on throughout the year with public meetings in Columbus. Citizens were prohibited from asking questions or commenting. The public meeting on November 15, 2023 was a sad day for Ohio’s public lands. Democracy was fracked, and leasing was approved for several tracts of land, including all 20,000 acres of Salt Fork State Park.

The five-member Oil and Gas Land Management Commission ignored the nine criteria contained in the statue. They also ignored the vocal disagreement of over 100 informed, angry Ohio citizens and the peer-reviewed health and environmental studies in the over 5000 written comments submitted to them by Ohio citizens.

After that decision, many citizens were devastated and realized that ordinary freedoms we took for granted have been eroded away by an industry that controls the state legislature in Ohio. Southeast Ohio is just a mineral colony open for business, regardless of how that “business” ruins our communities.

Sadly, my family has learned that our precious forested property has been targeted by the industry for a forced pooling or mandatory unitization action. “Ohio Revised Code § 1509.27 provides a mechanism to force Ohio landowners to participate in oil and gas development without their consent.” Once again, this process favors industry profits over private property rights.

Forced pooling is defined as when a “person who has obtained the consent of the owners of at least sixty-five per cent of the land area overlying a pool or a part of a pool submits an application for the operation as a unit of the entire pool or part of the pool to the chief of the division of oil and gas resources management”. If approved, the application will force the remaining thirty-five percent of landowners to become part of the unit.

The best way to describe this is by using a puzzle. Pieces of the puzzle represent various parcels of lands owned by different people. A drilling unit is a long, horizontal tract of land (rectangle drawn on that puzzle). If sixty-five percent of the puzzle pieces in that tract are agreeable to lease their land, then the other thirty-five percent who do not want to lease their land are forced into the process.

There are only three criteria to satisfy in order for the Chief of the Division of Oil and Gas at ODNR to approve a mandatory pooling application (see OHIO REV. CODE ANN. § 1509.27). They are: protecting correlative rights (those who have leased); providing for effective development and use; and promoting conservation of oil and gas. Any concerns over environmental harms or health effects are not considered.

Since 2014, we have been repeatedly contacted by oil and gas landmen trying to get us to sign a lease. We have refused for many reasons including health, environmental damage, and climate change. Now we are being forced to do something that goes against everything we believe.

We are learning about this process as we dig deeper into legal documentation. If we do not sign a lease agreement for our land, we are considered a non-consenting owner. There have been many amendments to the original laws written in 1965. In 2010, amendments were added to prevent liability from attaching to nonparticipant owners. “However, these amendments do not address one of the most critical aspects of the laws, the risk-penalty provision. Landowners subject to the order only have the choice between the following: (1) relent and become a participant in the drilling unit or (2) become a nonparticipating owner and pay a penalty of up to 200% of the reasonable costs and expenses of production.” This penalty is a way to encourage non-consenting owners to ultimately lease, and helps the well operators from undergoing additional application fees and paperwork.

In a conversation I had with another landowner who was also “force-pooled”, we discovered that by refusing to sign a lease, we may relinquish the ability to write legal protections for our land. If we sign a lease, we can at least list the various stipulations that limit the drilling company from surface access to our land. This would prohibit pipeline construction, the use of hydrocarbon storage tanks on our land, and the drilling of injection wells to inject waste fluids.
Basically, if we want to protect our property, we have no real options; we are forced to sign a lease. It is a horrible position. We built our eco-log home from salvaged forest-fire-killed trees; we have an 8.4kW solar system on our garage; and we have a new geothermal heating system. We have tried to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible and now our land will be fracked.

In 2018, I was honored by being selected as the “Fractivist of the Year” by the West Virginia Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. In 2020, that same group gave me another award, the “Passion for Justice award”. Those plaques hang on my wall as a constant reminder of why I keep fighting fossil fuel expansion. Unfortunately, the fight to save our property will not be won. The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District leased 7300 acres around Tappan Lake to Encino Energy in June of 2022, which led to the mandatory pooling of our land. We recently received the notification that our land is no longer truly ours, but instead is now part of Encino’s Akers HN FRA East Unit.

Make no mistake, I am enraged by the fact that we, as property-owning citizens, have no rights to stop this heinous process. Encino’s monster horizontal laterals will snake under our land and steal our resources. But they cannot steal my resolve to continue speaking out against the harms of fossil fuels and the lack of democracy in Ohio’s government, which is not “of the people, by the people, or for the people.”

This industry, however, enjoys several freedoms and rights that many other industries do not.

Because of the Haliburton laws, the oil and gas industry is exempt from most federal regulations, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and the Toxic Release Inventory under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

In 1980, the Federal EPA acknowledged that the billions and billions of barrels of produced water from fracking wells is hazardous, but it would be an economic burden for this industry to try to adhere to the laws. Therefore, “The Federal EPA exempted wastes from the federal laws written to protect the public from toxic waste.” In Ohio, these wastes are trucked up and down the roads of our rural communities to be injected into Class II injection wells.

Ohio’s Republican lawmakers have opened the state to fracking; allowing the industry to exploit every drop of oil and every molecule of gas that lies beneath southeast Ohio counties.

Countless laws have been passed to pave the way for fracking while thwarting renewable energy development (HB 52 HB6 and HB483). Additionally, pro fossil fuel laws have attacked our freedoms, limiting free speech and public protests. Ohio citizens, trying to protect their homes and rural communities from the horrendous externalities visited on them, have been essentially gaged by laws like SB 33, passed in 2021.

A prime example of the power that fossil fuels weld over Ohio’s citizens was obvious in 2023, when HB 507 opened up the state’s parks to fracking. The bill was passed during the 2022 General Assembly “lame duck” session, and was quickly signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine. The bill set in motion the ability of out-of-state oil and gas companies to propose leases under state parks.

A “puppet-like” public participation process was carried on throughout the year with public meetings in Columbus. Citizens were prohibited from asking questions or commenting. The public meeting on November 15, 2023 was a sad day for Ohio’s public lands. Democracy was fracked, and leasing was approved for several tracts of land, including all 20,000 acres of Salt Fork State Park.

The five-member Oil and Gas Land Management Commission ignored the nine criteria contained in the statue. They also ignored the vocal disagreement of over 100 informed, angry Ohio citizens and the peer-reviewed health and environmental studies in the over 5000 written comments submitted to them by Ohio citizens.

After that decision, many citizens were devastated and realized that ordinary freedoms we took for granted have been eroded away by an industry that controls the state legislature in Ohio. Southeast Ohio is just a mineral colony open for business, regardless of how that “business” ruins our communities.

Sadly, my family has learned that our precious forested property has been targeted by the industry for a forced pooling or mandatory unitization action. “Ohio Revised Code § 1509.27 provides a mechanism to force Ohio landowners to participate in oil and gas development without their consent.” Once again, this process favors industry profits over private property rights.

Forced pooling is defined as when a “person who has obtained the consent of the owners of at least sixty-five per cent of the land area overlying a pool or a part of a pool submits an application for the operation as a unit of the entire pool or part of the pool to the chief of the division of oil and gas resources management”. If approved, the application will force the remaining thirty-five percent of landowners to become part of the unit.

The best way to describe this is by using a puzzle. Pieces of the puzzle represent various parcels of lands owned by different people. A drilling unit is a long, horizontal tract of land (rectangle drawn on that puzzle). If sixty-five percent of the puzzle pieces in that tract are agreeable to lease their land, then the other thirty-five percent who do not want to lease their land are forced into the process.

There are only three criteria to satisfy in order for the Chief of the Division of Oil and Gas at ODNR to approve a mandatory pooling application (see OHIO REV. CODE ANN. § 1509.27). They are: protecting correlative rights (those who have leased); providing for effective development and use; and promoting conservation of oil and gas. Any concerns over environmental harms or health effects are not considered.

Since 2014, we have been repeatedly contacted by oil and gas landmen trying to get us to sign a lease. We have refused for many reasons including health, environmental damage, and climate change. Now we are being forced to do something that goes against everything we believe.

We are learning about this process as we dig deeper into legal documentation. If we do not sign a lease agreement for our land, we are considered a non-consenting owner. There have been many amendments to the original laws written in 1965. In 2010, amendments were added to prevent liability from attaching to nonparticipant owners. “However, these amendments do not address one of the most critical aspects of the laws, the risk-penalty provision. Landowners subject to the order only have the choice between the following: (1) relent and become a participant in the drilling unit or (2) become a nonparticipating owner and pay a penalty of up to 200% of the reasonable costs and expenses of production.” This penalty is a way to encourage non-consenting owners to ultimately lease, and helps the well operators from undergoing additional application fees and paperwork.

In a conversation I had with another landowner who was also “force-pooled”, we discovered that by refusing to sign a lease, we may relinquish the ability to write legal protections for our land. If we sign a lease, we can at least list the various stipulations that limit the drilling company from surface access to our land. This would prohibit pipeline construction, the use of hydrocarbon storage tanks on our land, and the drilling of injection wells to inject waste fluids.
Basically, if we want to protect our property, we have no real options; we are forced to sign a lease. It is a horrible position. We built our eco-log home from salvaged forest-fire-killed trees; we have an 8.4kW solar system on our garage; and we have a new geothermal heating system. We have tried to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible and now our land will be fracked.

Oil Companies & Coal Companies were part of the Deception!

DOERING: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Jenni Doering

BELTRAN: And I’m Paloma Beltran. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary source of climate-warming greenhouse gases worldwide. And the science tells us that if we don’t drastically reduce those emissions as soon as possible, we’re headed for even more catastrophic climate disruption. But by 2030 the UN reports that global fossil fuel production is set to be more than double the level consistent with meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The dominance of the fossil fuel industry even as we face the climate emergency isn’t all that surprising, says Naomi Oreskes. She’s a professor of the history of science at Harvard and says the fossil fuel industry has stalled climate progress around the globe for decades. Professor Oreskes recently joined Living on Earth’s Steve Curwood to describe the industry’s campaign of disinformation.

CURWOOD: So how far back did big oil companies know about the potentially catastrophic effects their products could have on the climate and the planet?

ORESKES: We know from our research and the research of others that as early as the 1960s, the oil industry was quite well aware that burning fossil fuels put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And those gases were almost certain to warm the planet. And they also knew that the effects would likely be very serious. We begin to see really serious sustained work on the issue in the 1970s. And by the mid to late 70s, some companies like ExxonMobil actually had their own in-house scientists doing this research. And so we’ve shown, in our work, we’ve gone back and we’ve looked at those reports, we’ve looked at the scientific papers that were published, either by industry scientists or co-authored by them with academics. And they show very clearly that by the late 70s, early 80s, the oil industry had a very clear picture of what this problem was, understood that it was serious, that it would have large social, economic and political consequences, that it could include very substantive sea level rise, and that it might make their product unsellable.

CURWOOD: Go back to the very beginning. What was the first sort of shot across the bow, so to speak, inside industry? Who spoke up and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we really could have a problem here.

ORESKES: Well, there’s a few different shots across the bow. One of my favorite early examples is the physicist Gilbert Plass, who worked for Ford Motor Company. So we have reports from the 50s and 60s where the car industry is beginning to recognize that this could have significance for their long term business model. But also, Plass worked for Ford Aerospace. And they were interested in heat seeking missiles, and the impact of CO2 heat absorption on heat seeking missiles. So Plass did some of the most important early work that proved that climate change would result from increased CO2 in the atmosphere. So that was in the mid 1950s. We also know that in the early 60s, there were a number of studies and reports done, including one by Edward Teller, the famous physicist who spoke to the American Petroleum Institute about this issue. We have a number of reports that my students actually tracked down of air pollution conferences in the early to mid 1960s, where scientists were talking about CO2 as a form of air pollution. And we know that auto industry executives, oil industry executives, chemical industry executives, were present at these meetings and heard these conversations and in some cases participated in them.

CURWOOD: So what did big oil companies do with that information?

ORESKES: Well, at first, they didn’t actually do much of anything. And one of the things that’s been interesting to us and the research we’ve done on the 1960s, is that in the 1960s, there’s this conversation going on, that the oil industry doesn’t seem to be particularly worried about. And my interpretation of that is that so long as climate change seemed far off in the future, they didn’t really think it was something that they had to worry about terribly much. Now, a couple of companies did, and ExxonMobil is the most famous because they actually created a research group to better understand the problem. And they did that in the 1970s. So we know that they were taking it seriously. And we know that their own scientists wrote a number of reports that said, yes, this actually is significant. It is something that companies should be paying attention to. But even then, most scientists in the 1970s still thought that change was pretty far away. And a lot of the reports don’t actually specify when they think discernable effects would occur. But when they do use a number, they sometimes use the year 2000. And sometimes when scientists talked about the issue, they talked to the year 2100. So you can imagine if you were a corporate executive in 1975, and someone comes along talking about climate change as something that would happen in the year 2100, you might reasonably think, hmm, that’s not something I really need to worry about. But what we’ve seen in our work is that it begins to change very dramatically. And in a very specific year: 1989. 1989 is when we first begin to see climate change denial begin to be a thing. So we begin to see reports, advertisements, OpEds, to say, well, hold on, slow down, we don’t really know, we’re not really sure. And so one obvious question is why then? And I think we know the answer, because 1988 is the year that Jim Hansen testifies for the first time in the US Congress, that manmade climate change is underway. And he testifies to the effect that he and his team at NASA are 99% sure that this is the case. And you know, as well as I do, scientists hardly ever say they’re 99% sure about anything. So it’s this very strong, very clear, quite unequivocated statement. And 1988 is also the year that the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is created. So you have these two big things happening to say, okay, we’ve been talking about this as something that’s far off in the future but actually, this is happening faster than we thought and if Hansen is right, it’s actually already happening now. And I think that scares the pants off the oil industry. And I think that helps to explain why we then see this big pivot.

CURWOOD: Yeah, I mean, what did they do with that information, that climate change is here and now, as of 1988?

Prof. Naomi Oreskes is expert on History of Science

CURWOOD: Specifically, talk to me about the strategies that these companies used to mislead consumers and the public about the dangers of fossil fuel. What was the message that was put out there about this, to support this approach?

ORESKES: There was a wide diversity of messaging that was used. But my Research Associate, Geoffrey Supran, and I have identified four big themes that we see repeated over and over again, and we summarize them as follows. It’s not real, it’s not us, it will wreck the economy, it’s too expensive to fix. So the first one, it’s not real, was a strategy to deny that climate change was even happening, to say the science was too unsettled, there were too many uncertainties, to blame it on natural variability, to say the climate has always changed, to blame it on volcanoes. So basically, to deny the scientific evidence. Second one, it’s not us, which is a variation on the theme of the first. Well, maybe there is warming, but it’s not caused by our activities. So it’s actually just natural variability, it’s actually caused by CO2 from volcanoes. Two B is, it’s not us, it’s China. So deflect attention from what we, here in the United States, or what we, ExxonMobil, have done to try to deflect the blame and put it on someone else. Then the second two, the third and fourth, were about the economy. So to claim that if we were to stop using fossil fuels, it would completely wreck the economy, the economy cannot survive without fossil fuels. This is an argument that we’re seeing revived again, even as we speak today. And then the fourth is that it would be too expensive to fix. So yeah, we could do solar, we could do wind, but they’re too expensive. And also, they’re too intermittent, right? I call this the, “renewables are for sissies” argument, that renewables aren’t tough enough, they’re not reliable enough, that only oil, gas and coal are reliable. So there’s this sort of gender laden element about, you know, real men drill for coal. And so we’ve seen all four of these arguments being used at different times in different ways. I always like to say, some people think that the industry doesn’t believe in recycling, but they do, they recycle their refuted arguments.

CURWOOD: From your perspective, what were some of their most effective techniques of disinformation?

ORESKES: I think they were very smart about something that, you know, social media has exploited in recent years, but they already knew this 40 or 50 years ago, which was targeted messaging. And so in a place like Kentucky, they would push a message about losing jobs. If coal is wiped out, you’ll lose your jobs. In a place like, I don’t know, California, they would have a message about government overreach or increases to your taxes. They also had different arguments or different messages for male and female audiences. So the incredibly effective thing they did was to recognize that there wasn’t one thing, and to do a whole lot of different things, also different media: radio, television, print media, and then now we’re seeing tremendous amounts of growth of disinformation on social media.

CURWOOD: Naomi, I understand that there was some really ridiculous, maybe even outlandish advertisements back in the 1960s in magazines. Could you describe one of those spreads for me, please?

ORESKES: There’s a very famous advertisement that was put out by Humble Oil, which was part of this Standard Oil, The John D. Rockefeller network, where they showed a giant glacier and they talked about how much energy it would take to melt the glaciers if that were a good thing. And I think that’s a very nice telling example for us of how our mentalities have changed. Right around the time that scientists were starting to understand how climate change could melt glaciers, and that would be a bad thing, we have people advertising that being able to melt a glacier was a good thing. So part of this story is that it has required us to rethink how we think about nature, the environment, living on earth. And so the difficulty of this story is, it’s not just about disinformation from the fossil fuel industry, but the way in which that disinformation has worked in conjunction with our own fears, anxieties, beliefs, attitudes, to get us to this place where we are today.

CURWOOD: So, this may seem obvious, but what convinces you that this whole process of misinformation was deliberate? That these weren’t sort of people who mistakenly didn’t quite get what was going on?

ORESKES: Well, that’s an easy question to answer, because they said so. I mean, as a historian, I work with documentary evidence. We’ve spent a lot of time in the archives, we’ve visited archives in I don’t know, at least 20 states, I think, as well as looked at lots of documentary material that is available online. And we see how this was planned. We see how it was organized, we see the documents that say, you know, we’re going to say there’s no consensus on climate change, we’re going to design this advertising campaign, and we’re going to run it in these places. And we came across documents that even had focus group studies. They did market research to try to figure out what kinds of messaging would be most effective in persuading the American people not to support meaningful climate action. So we don’t have to interpret, we don’t have to read between the lines. This is all things that they said, they wrote down. And of course, the other big piece of this puzzle, and this is the work that Eric Conway and I did in our book, “Merchants of Doubt,” some of the key players in climate change disinformation came out of the tobacco story. So we showed in our book how two of the original four Merchants of Doubt had worked directly with the tobacco industry, had worked on these strategies for tobacco, and then carried those strategies and tactics into the climate space.

CURWOOD: So talk to me about how these disinformation strategies have changed over time. You mentioned that climate disinformation has moved to social media. So what does the fossil fuel climate denial marketing campaign look like today?

ORESKES: Well, it’s a little hard to answer that question, because one of the things about social media is that it’s so segmented, but one message we are definitely seeing today is a revival of the anti government message, to say that this is all a liberal conspiracy to take away your rights, to take away your hamburgers to take away your right to drive a big car. And this particularly came up in the recent debates about gas indoors. So in New York State, when the state proposed a regulation that would not allow gas in new homes, the fossil fuel industry saturated the state with a set of advertisements saying that this was government overreach, this was government control. If you allow the government to regulate gas stoves, it’s only a matter of time before they regulate everything. And this is an argument we have seen repeatedly used throughout this whole history. And so now we’re seeing it, again, being used to defend gas stoves.

CURWOOD: Naomi, how can environmental advocates, scientists, citizens, push back against these very expensive and sophisticated climate denial marketing campaigns?

ORESKES: It’s not easy, because as you just said, they are sophisticated, and they’re extremely well funded. But the good news is, there are more of us than there are of them. So I think this is why it’s so important for everyone to be mobilized on this issue. If we just rely on a few scientists, we will not win. But if we all become organized, if we speak in our communities, in our churches, in our synagogues, in our mosques, in our schools, at our places of work, if we have the conversation about what’s happening, and particularly the conversation about disinformation, which is an awkward conversation to have, but an essential one, because one of the things that I found is that you can’t really counter disinformation with information because now people just don’t know who to believe. But if you expose it as disinformation, well, nobody wants to be at the losing end of a con. So having that conversation, talking about the disinformation, as we have been doing here today, is extremely important. And then, as much as possible, mobilizing everyone to be engaged in this conversation to the extent that they are able to be.

DOERING: That’s Harvard Professor of the History of Science, Naomi Oreskes, speaking with Living on Earth Host and Executive Producer Steve Curwood. They’ll talk next time about the political history of climate disinformation.

TO BE CONTINUED… the deception continues …. Life on earth depends on us getting this stopped.

PA Governor & CNX officials sign agreement

From an Article by Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, November 2, 2023

Every new natural gas well that CNX Resources Corp. drills from this day forward will come with a real-time public portal into its air emissions. The Canonsburg-based gas producer said that it will place air monitors at or near well pads and compressor stations that will transmit readings to a public website, like a scaled-down version of fence-line monitors required at large industrial facilities like refineries.

The same will be true for water quality sampling done before and after drilling, upstream and downstream of a well — it will be publicly posted and, according to CNX and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, will serve as a basis to evaluate whether stricter regulations on shale gas development are needed.

CNX’s CEO Nick DeIuliis and Gov. Shapiro, who have been tossing this around for months, signed a statement of mutual interests on Thursday memorializing these and other voluntary steps CNX has pledged to take, based on the recommendations of an investigating grand jury convened by then Attorney General Shapiro.

Of the eight recommendations that have lingered only in the public imagination since the report’s release in 2020, CNX committed to some version of five of them.

The company said it will: disclose all drilling and fracking chemicals before they are used at each site; increase the no-drill zone between its wells and buildings from the mandated 500 feet to 600 feet, and to 2,500 feet from schools and hospitals; monitor the air for fine particulates and benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes; increase the number of water well tests it performs before and after fracking and widen the radius of testing to 2,500 feet of a well, wastewater tank or impoundment; publicly post its radiation protection plans and annual self-assessment of waste handling; and agree not to hire any former Department of Environmental Protection staffer that had oversight over CNX for two years after they leave the department.

The company will also open up two yet-undeveloped well sites to the Department of Environmental Protection for a comprehensive air quality study before, during and after drilling and fracking.

Standing on a well pad in Claysville where an air monitor is already recording emissions (a website will go live with the data next week, CNX said), Mr. Shapiro called his partnership with Mr. DeIuliis a ‘historic collaboration.’ “You can be profit-minded and you can meet your obligations to your shareholders and employees and also protect public health and public safety. CNX is proof of that,” he said.

Mr. DeIuliis, a vocal and frequent critic of government, climate advocates and those he says get in the way of the “doers,” said he hoped the open sourcing of data would create the basis for mutual trust. “We’re asking regulators and policy makers to now follow the data,” he said. “It’s imperative for us as CNX to be able to use radical transparency to make the recent rhetoric, speculation and the sensational headlines … obsolete; to definitively confirm for all stakeholders that there are no adverse human health issues related to responsible natural gas development,” he said.

The data CNX plans to make public is unique. “I think they are going further than any other company,” said David Woodwell, president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, even if the kinds of steps CNX has agreed to are what has been needed and discussed for many years, he said. “Are they earth shattering? No. But are they still important? Yes.”

Companies adopting voluntary industry practices that go beyond what is currently required was also the idea behind the now-defunct Center for Sustainable Shale Development, which Mr. Woodwell helped convene in 2013. The center offered certifications to companies that voluntarily met certain standards as a means of building public trust and either informing or warding off regulation.

Critics said that environmental compliance needs to be ubiquitous, not self-selected, and called for the Legislature and regulators to craft stricter limits on the entire industry. But there has been little appetite for that in Harrisburg. Mr. Shapiro lamented that the General Assembly has yet to take up any of the recommendations in the jury report, which also recommended aggregating air emissions and assessing public health.

Earlier this week, the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee in Harrisburg held a hearing on a bill that would expand the mandatory setbacks between gas infrastructure and buildings from the current buffer to a minimum of 2,500 feet for wells, and 5,000 for features like compressor stations and gas processing plants near schools and hospitals.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a group that represents the industry, estimated that expanding no-drill zones to a radius of 2,500 would put most land out of reach. In Washington County, the group’s president Dave Callahan testified, drilling is prohibited on 43% of acreage. With expanded setbacks, that would rise to 99%. He called it a de facto ban on the oil and gas industry. The bill is unlikely to advance — State Sen. Eugene Yaw called the idea “stupid” and said “it would not be considered in the Senate.” Still, its introduction has spooked the industry.

However, Mr. Shapiro’s compact with CNX states: “The administration will follow the facts and data provided through this air and water quality monitoring, along with all other relevant facts and data, to inform the necessity of any additional setbacks or other future policy changes.”

The study period for this collaboration is two to three years. Environmental and community groups were split on the announcement on Thursday. Some praised the collaboration and welcomed Mr. Shapiro’s actions, which also included directing the DEP to craft new rules for chemical disclosure, methane emissions and gathering pipelines.

Others chaffed at the sight of Mr. Shapiro, the voice behind a grand jury investigation that did not look kindly on the gas industry’s conduct and impact in the state, echoing some of the same points that natural gas companies have been making for the past 20 years — that there’s not enough data, or not the right kind of data, to support environmental and health concerns and regulations.

While CNX’s real-time public data will be a first in the region, air-monitoring studies and water-quality analyses have been done before, including by university researchers, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, and Pennsylvania’s own DEP. A number of health studies have also been performed, many showing links between adverse health outcomes and proximity to shale gas.

The most recent were the cancer and asthma analyses done by the University of Pittsburgh on behalf of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. They concluded there was a higher likelihood of certain types of childhood cancers and an increase in asthma severity near oil and gas infrastructure.

But the research wasn’t particularly well received by either the residents of shale fields or the industry. Although their objections diverged, both groups complained about the lack of direct measurement of pollution and exposures — or even direct engagement with people living next to shale gas infrastructure.

CNX’s voluntary disclosures are intended to address the emissions part of that equation. Mr. DeIuliis and Mr. Shapiro said they hope other companies will join as well.

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IN OTHER NEWS ~ CNX Resources pulls out of Adams Fork ammonia project, Reuters News Service, December 15, 2023

CNX Resources said on Friday it had pulled out of the Adams Fork ammonia project and is evaluating several alternative sites in southern West Virginia for clean hydrogen projects. The natural gas producer cited delays and increasing uncertainty over implementation tax credit provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and an inability to reach final commercial terms with project developers, for ending its participation in the project.

Adams Fork was an anchor project in the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) and its construction was expected to begin in 2024. The project would have initial annual ammonia production capacity of 2,160,000 metric tons, with an optional additional production capacity.

CNX said on Friday it remains committed to ARCH2, adding that “final investment decision(s) remains contingent upon tax credit guidance that unambiguously supports low carbon intensity feedstock projects that will facilitate development of the regional clean hydrogen hubs, including ARCH2.” The ARCH2 project includes several partners, and the consortium was selected by US DOE to develop a multi-state clean hydrogen hub.

Environment, Social & Governance are ideals for the future

From the Article by Nyoka Baker Chapman, League of Women Voters, Nov. 2023

Earlier this year Gov. Jim Justice announced, “that West Virginia’s cumulative revenue collections for Fiscal Year 2023 will come in at $1.8 billion over estimate – shattering the all-time record for biggest single-year revenue surplus in state history for the second straight year in a row.”

Well, that was on 6/30/23 but since the guard rails have weakened. Per The WV Policy Center WV’s general revenue collections are down compared to this time last year.*

The discouraging $210.7 million gap is substantial and due not only to a fluctuating fossil fuel market but to the changes brought by the passage of HB 2526. WV has long been dependent on collections from severance taxes, which has continued as a primary contributor to our WV surplus, seen as defined by the WV tax dept.

Severance Tax ~ A severance tax is imposed on the privilege of engaging within this state in severing, extracting, reducing to possession or producing coal, limestone, sandstone, timber, coalbed methane, waste coal, oil, gas and other natural resources for sale, profit, or commercial use.

WV currently imposes a severance tax of 5% on gross receipts attributable to the production of oil and natural gas. Collections for other natural resource industries vary. You can get a clear picture by reviewing the multi-source data reporting sheet which is transparently displayed.

State of West Virginia / General Revenue ~ With WV leaving itself dependent on taxes collected from fossil fuels to maintain solvency, there is no wonder that we consistently hear a pushback on Environmental Social Governance (ESG) from those who are motivated to protect those interests. ESG has become an international preference to diversify from fossil fuels toward investments in cleaner sustainable energy sources. There will no doubt be a substantial amount of political rhetoric in the coming year from candidates who have cited such policies as bad, which they are not.

WV has yet to fully capitalize on greener solar energy production which could evolve as a source of taxation. Blue Hydrogen may see it’s day as a taxable energy source, but ARCH2 may never even get off the ground without customers, making the billions more needed to make it a reality a very risky investment. Such may be all for the better as steam forming hydrogen from methane will end up meaning even more fracking and lethal fracking waste, which our legislature seems glad to tolerate for the sake of those severance taxes. Also in the mix are the potential liabilities of botched sequestrations.

So, with all the noted surplus why aren’t we seeing more being used for the good of the people of WV?

We know that the children of WV (with the highest rate of poverty in the US at 25%) cannot withstand any further reduction of services in funding for schools, parks, libraries, day care, nutritious food programs and healthcare availability. With federal monies from the American Rescue Plan from the days of COVID coming to an end, WV must be prepared to maintain not only the status quo but achieve a higher standard of excellence that would seem to be clearly possible under appropriate fiscal management.

We are counting on the WV legislature to prove that they are aware of the socio-economic problems that continue to arise from misguided financial management. Rescue bills must be passed to take up the cause of the people. The legacy of an inability to resolve WV’s horrible statistics and failure to take care of its own should be felt at the ballot box in 2024.

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*- West Virginia’s Revenue Gap Grows to $210.7 Million as Hundreds of Millions in Spending Obligations Loom, WV Center on Budget & Policy, November 8, 2023

For the first four months of FY 2024, West Virginia’s General Revenue collections are down $210.7 million compared to the same period in FY 2023, despite the state exceeding the fairly modest revenue estimates set by the Governor Justice administration in an effort to maintain a ‘flat budget.’

The combination of self-inflicted tax cuts and a collapse in severance tax revenue explain the revenue gap. Personal income tax collections are down $26.5 million compared to this time last year, while severance tax collections are down $306.3 million. Global factors remain the primary cause of low energy prices and, by extension, the tanking of severance tax revenues, and are out of the West Virginia Legislature’s control. However, a lack of growth in income tax revenues to offset the expected decline in the severance tax is the direct result of income tax cuts passed earlier this year by the Legislature. Those tax cuts were enacted despite widespread understanding that personal income tax collections are a far more stable source of income than volatile severance tax collections, which were responsible for about 40 percent of the FY 2023 ‘surplus.’

Gas field operations consume many acres across West Virginia

In this issue of the WV SORO Newsletter:

§. Surface Owners Can Sue Drillers to Plug Non-Producing Wells

§. Advocacy on Federal Regulations including the Third Payout of Federal Methane Reduction Funds, EPA’s Methane Rule, and Federal Leasing;

§. 2023 Legislative Update & 2024 Legislative Priorities

§. Kanawha State Forest Gas Well Tour with WV Legislators and Staff

§. Farmland Preservation Now An Option for Surface-Only Owners

§. Citizen Air Monitoring Project

If you are a member and we have your current mailing address, you should be receiving a copy in the mail soon, if you haven’t already. If you don’t receive one and would like to get mailings from us in the future, please use the link at the bottom of this email to update your contact information.

We hope you enjoy reading the latest news and updates from the WV Surface Owners’ Rights Organization.

Thanks for your support! WVSORO.org

West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, 1500 Dixie Street, Charleston, WV 25311

info@wvsoro.org 304 346 5891

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NEW MINERAL RIGHTS OWNERS GROUP, Meeting Held 12/2/33 in Tyler County.

Seventy concerned citizens met in Middlebourne yesterday to discuss Senate Bill 694 that has brought forced pooling to West Virginia. Also discussed was the substantial reduction in royalty payments that has occurred since June of this year. The primary speaker was Nate Cain, Candidate for the US Congress from WV Second District. (Source: Tyler Star News & Wetzel Chronicle.)

Subscribe to this daily news blog for news on this and other related information in West Virginia. (See the entry point for your email address in the upper left corner of this page.)

Duane Nichols, Chemical Engineer (Retired), Morgantown, WV

Hydrogen hubs cannot be all things to all people?

While it’s never good to miss out on a billion dollars in federal grants, it’s unlikely being passed over for “hydrogen hub” designation will seriously hurt southwestern Pennsylvania’s economy. That’s because cost-effective and environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel technology is still speculative — and even if it were to come to pass, a billion dollars will not come close to funding the required infrastructure.

The phrase “hydrogen hub” has been a staple of economic development conversations in Pittsburgh since the 2021 passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Regional consortiums prepared bids for the federal Department of Energy, which is doling out $7 billion in funding to between six and ten regions to support infrastructure for the production and distribution of hydrogen fuel.

Last week, President Joe Biden announced two of the awards to the West Virginia-based Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (Arch2) and to the Philadelphia-based Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub (Mach2). The DOE passed over the Pittsburgh-based Decarbonization Network of Appalachia (DNA).

While the hub funding will certainly create some short-term construction jobs, including across the border into Pennsylvania, it is doubtful it will be transformative on its own. Further, the long-term economic and environmental viability of the relevant type of hydrogen fuel, called “blue,” is questionable, at best.

Hydrogen gas is odorless, colorless and highly combustible. When burned as fuel, it releases only water vapor. The trouble is in producing it.

“Blue” hydrogen is produced from breaking apart hydrocarbons — that is, fossil fuels — which is itself an energy-intensive process. The resulting carbon emissions are “captured and sequestered” either through underground storage or inputting them into other products.

“Gray” hydrogen involves no capture-and-sequestration and creates at least as many emissions as it reduces; “green” hydrogen is produced from breaking apart water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable energy, and is truly zero-carbon.

The Arch2 plan involves “blue” hydrogen meant to be used by Appalachia’s hard-to-decarbonize heavy industries, which are considered the best candidates for hydrogen fuel.

However, the price of capturing and sequestering carbon from southwestern Pennsylvania’s industrial sector, according to the Ohio Valley Institute and based on Allegheny Conference on Community Development estimates, would be $1 billion per year, and possibly twice that much. Further, generous emission-reduction estimates assume 95% capture-and-sequestration, which is not currently possible. And legacy infrastructure, like steel pipelines, don’t work for hydrogen: An entirely new network of (emission-heavy) plastic pipes would be needed.

A more realistic way to fund hydrogen infrastructure — though far more expensive to taxpayers — is the generous tax credits proposed in the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” framework, amounting to at least 100% of the costs of carbon capture and sequestration. But the technology is too speculative to be worth the current proposed price tag of $1,000 for every person in the U.S.

Despite the hype, hydrogen is not a strong candidate as a transformative green fuel. Getting the funding couldn’t have hurt, but losing “hydrogen hub” status to West Virginia won’t cripple the region’s competitiveness.

The hydrogen genie will not stay in the bottle …

From an Article by Robert Zullo, Pennsylvania Capital Star, October 14, 2023

[Harrisburg, PA] The Friday announcement that seven projects had been selected to receive $7 billion in seed money to kickstart the production of clean hydrogen across the country was billed by President Joe Biden’s administration as a major step toward slashing carbon emissions, creating thousands of domestic jobs and positioning the U.S. as a clean energy leader.

“I’m here to announce one of the largest advanced manufacturing investments in the history of this nation,” Biden said during an appearance in Philadelphia. “Seven billion dollars in federal investments that’s going to attract $40 billion in private investments in clean hydrogen.”

However, there’s also criticism over a lack of transparency by the Department of Energy around the application and selection process and those who are dubious about the ways some of the newly minted “hydrogen hubs” intend to produce the gas, which the administration called “crucial to achieving President Biden’s goal of American industry powered by American clean energy.”

Hydrogen, which releases no carbon emissions when burned, is seen broadly as a key part of cutting emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy, such as steelmaking and cement manufacturing, aviation, shipping and other areas. There’s more controversy around uses like blending it with natural gas to burn in power plants or for heating. How climate-friendly hydrogen is depends on how it’s produced. Currently most hydrogen in the U.S. is produced using natural gas, so-called “gray” hydrogen. “Green” hydrogen is produced by an electrolysis process with clean energy. “Blue” hydrogen is fossil-fuel derived but coupled with carbon capture, in which CO2 is filtered out of emissions and stored.

Four of the projects (the Appalachian, Gulf Coast, Heartland and Midwest hydrogen hubs) that the DOE announced as winners will use fossil fuels to produce hydrogen. (In the bipartisan infrastructure law, Congress required that at least one hub “demonstrate the production of clean hydrogen from fossil fuels.”)

“There are so many ways hydrogen can go wrong. … We’re really concerned with the number of projects that rely in part or in whole on fossil fuel-based hydrogen production,” said Julie McNamara, a deputy policy director at Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program. “For hydrogen to be a clean energy solution, it has to be cleanly produced and it has to be strategically used.”

In some scenarios, environmental groups worry the hydrogen could actually increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

A report last month by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an Ohio nonprofit, found that the U.S. government “significantly understates the likely impact of producing hydrogen from fossil fuels on global warming.” The assumption that 1% of the methane being used to produce hydrogen will be emitted into the atmosphere is “far less than recent peer-reviewed scientific analyses have found and that has been identified by airplane and satellite emission surveys,” the report says. It also notes that using fossil fuels to make hydrogen cleanly depends on the “overly optimistic and unproven assumption that hydrogen production projects will be able to capture almost all of the carbon dioxide they create.”

In short, said David Schlissel, one of the report’s authors, blue hydrogen is not a great idea when you consider emissions from the entire process, from producing natural gas to shipping and storing the hydrogen and the unknowns of trying to use carbon capture and storage at scale.

“We fear, and it’s based on our analysis, that the money the government is going to spend on blue hydrogen production is going to result in the continued emission of greenhouse gases for decades,” he said. “We worry about the waste of money. But we really worry about the waste of time and giving fossil fuel companies the opportunity to build infrastructure that depends on their continued operation. That’s the real concern, to keep the world addicted to fossil fuels.”

“There is real concern with all of this hydrogen hype.”

Schlissel and other critics also questioned the lack of details released by the Department of Energy about the projects, noting that much of the application materials have been treated as trade secrets by the states and the DOE. It’s unclear how the DOE scored the projects for funding, he added.

“How much hydrogen is going to be produced? What are going to be the CO2 emissions? How much CO2 is going to be captured? Then, where is it going to be used?” he said. “DOE and the applicants have taken the position that everything is confidential.”

The department’s press office did not respond Friday to a list of questions, including one about how projects were evaluated.

“We would encourage the DOE to be as transparent as they possibly can, especially for the communities where they’ll be proposed,” said Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy for the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s largest environmental groups.

‘This is not trivial’ ~ Perhaps even more important than the hub applications that were selected, Drupp and McNamara say, are the debates ongoing at the Internal Revenue Service around the final rules for the hydrogen tax production credit created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

“While these hubs are large and there is a significant amount of money on the table, the hydrogen production tax credit could potentially dwarf that amount of money,” McNamara said. “That makes it all the more critical that how the administration determines what is truly clean energy is rigorously done.”

The final shape of those rules, which are linked to the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions of the hydrogen source, could be the difference between a boon and a boondoggle on the scale of the biofuels industry, a pair of climate economists wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed.

“Using fossil-generated electricity or siphoning off renewables subsequently back-filled by fossil power to operate electrolyzers — which would occur under loose guidance — generates at least twice the carbon emissions that status-quo gas-derived hydrogen emits,” a coalition of environmental groups, developers and other organizations wrote to the Treasury Department in February. “Weak guidance could therefore force Treasury to spend more than $100 billion dollars in subsidies for hydrogen projects that result in increased net emissions, in direct conflict with statutory requirements and tarnishing the reputation of the nascent ‘clean’ hydrogen industry.”

Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Institute say the final rules should incorporate a “three pillars” approach. 1. The first is “additionality,” meaning a new hydrogen electrolyzer that is connected to the electric grid is responsible for ensuring the added electric demand they are creating is being met by new low-carbon generation. 2. The second is “time-matching,” requiring electrolyzers’ electric consumption to match its hydrogen production. 3. The third pillar, deliverability, would require hydrogen producers to get clean electricity from within their region.

McNamara said the guidance is expected to be finished by the end of the year. “This is not trivial,” she said. “Hydrogen can be a valuable tool for the clear energy transition but it is not a given … and getting it wrong comes with enormous consequences for climate and public health.

Who actually believes you can pump CO2 underground to stay forever?

From the Article by Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, October 13, 2023

“The U. S. administration has clearly fallen for this scam hook, line, and sinker,” said one campaigner. This multibillion-dollar bet on greenwashed dirty energy will undermine efforts to address the climate crisis.”

As U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Friday celebrated the “historic investment” of up to $7 billion for seven regional hydrogen hubs as a key to achieving President Joe Biden’s “goal of American industry powered by American clean energy,” some climate campaigners warned that the administration is falling for — or participating in — a fossil fuel industry scam.

Roughly two-thirds of the H2Hubs investment will go toward green hydrogen, which is made using renewable energy, according to the White House. However, the bipartisan infrastructure legislation Biden signed in 2021 requires broader support, including for pink (nuclear) and blue (gas) hydrogen projects, the latter of which includes carbon capture, utilization, and storage.

“At face value—and according to the Biden playbook — the hydrogen hub grants aim to help transition the United States to clean energy. In reality, they amount to another corporate scam, one that preserves and extends the life of the extractive economy and prevents the frontline communities most impacted by climate disaster from having input,” said Marion Gee, co-executive director at the Climate Justice Alliance, representing 89 rural and urban environmental justice groups.

“Hydrogen development is energy intensive to produce, could present a public safety risk in transit, can produce health-damaging air pollution when combusted, and is a play by the fossil fuel industry to extend its viability and profits,” Gee stressed. “We must work to move capital and power into the hands of local communities who will center traditional ecological and cultural knowledge and create a pathway toward a regenerative future.”

“The fossil fuel industry is working to continue our nation’s reliance on fossil fuels by any means necessary — and hydrogen offers yet another possible inroad for Big Oil and Gas.”

Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel also asserted that “prioritizing hydrogen hubs across the United States is more about extending the life of oil and gas companies than addressing the climate crisis. These hubs are a dangerous distraction from the obvious consensus solution that the world must stop expanding fossil fuels that are warming the atmosphere.”

Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh was similarly critical, declaring that “the massive build-out of hydrogen infrastructure is little more than an industry ploy to rebrand fracked gas. The Biden administration has clearly fallen for this scam hook, line, and sinker. This multibillion-dollar bet on greenwashed dirty energy will undermine efforts to address the climate crisis, while increasing pollution of our air and water, and milking taxpayers for billions in new fossil fuel subsidies.”

“Even the cleanest forms of hydrogen present serious problems—most notably the massive amount of water that would be waste,” Walsh added. “As groundwater sources are drying up across the country, there is no reason to waste precious drinking water resources on hydrogen when there are cheaper, cleaner energy sources that can facilitate a real transition off fossil fuels.”

The seven selected projects are the Appalachian (West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania), California, Gulf Coast (Texas), Heartland (Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota), Mid-Atlantic (Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey), Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan), and Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and Montana) hydrogen hubs.

As The New York Times detailed:

Not all of the $7 billion in funding will be spent at once. As a first step, the Energy Department will give awardees initial grants to create more detailed proposals for their hydrogen hubs. If the agency deems the projects viable, it will disburse more money over time—but that money is not guaranteed if any of the hubs prove unworkable.

“We’re still a long, long ways away from creating a large-scale hydrogen economy,” said Alex Kizer, a senior vice president at the Energy Futures Initiative, a Washington nonprofit organization. “Think of these hubs as laboratories of sorts to experiment with potential business models for hydrogen and to try to figure out some of the technological and infrastructure hurdles.”

Even groups that support green hydrogen raised concerns over funding longtime polluters. Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous warned that “the fossil fuel industry is working to continue our nation’s reliance on fossil fuels by any means necessary—and hydrogen offers yet another possible inroad for Big Oil and Gas to lock in polluting and noneconomic uses of gas for decades to come.”

“Decision-makers in the administration and at the local level must be wary of these attempts and ensure as much hydrogen-specific funding as possible goes to green hydrogen and its most efficient end uses to ensure this investment actually addresses climate change,” he said.

Jill Tauber, vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice, suggested that “hydrogen can be a clean energy solution, or it can drive us deeper into the climate crisis and hurt communities,” and that green projects powered by renewables “can play an important role cleaning up what we cannot electrify, like steel manufacturing.”

Julie McNamara, deputy policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, joined the chorus of alarmed critics on Friday, saying that “billions of taxpayer dollars are at risk of perpetuating fossil fuel industry injustices and harms while subsidizing fossil fuel greenwashing.”

“Today’s announcement also sets in stark relief the significance of upcoming administration decisions around implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s hydrogen production tax credit, which could be a bulwark against heavily polluting hydrogen—or a backdoor subsidizing it,” she noted. “The Department of Energy and the Biden administration now must set rigorous implementation, evaluation, and engagement criteria to ensure the development of a hydrogen industry that is unequivocally aligned with our climate objectives and that serves our collective goal to secure a safe, clean, just, and healthy future for all.”

Indeed 90 reasons easily found, many more exist. Fracking is out in MD.

Article Copied from Citizen Shale, Facebook Online, April 10, 2017 ·

It began as a friendly challenge: “I bet we could come up with a different reason to ban fracking every day of the legislative session: 90 reasons for 90 days.” Instead, it became a test: “Which of the many reasons will be the most powerful and compelling to include in the top 90 reasons?” Many worthy contenders didn’t make the cut.

The Reasons Project, a communication tool for the Don’t Frack Maryland campaign, was the work of five mothers and grandmothers. We began with the basics: harm to health and safety; air, water and climate; land and community. Along the way, we incorporated new research. We posted the Reasons on Facebook and other social media each day of the 2017 Maryland legislative session — January 11 to April 10 — 90 days. We also printed them as posters to hold or pin on our coats at marches and other events.

We culled reasons from scientific research, government reports and investigative journalism. Toward the end of the project, we included quotes from legislators, activists and researchers, adding their voices to the inevitable conclusion: Fracking is not safe for our communities or the climate. When it became clear that Maryland legislators would pass and our governor would sign a fracking ban bill, we closed with some visions of a fossil-free future.

In Maryland, we banned fracking. This project is dedicated to those who worked toward that goal for many years. We send this project with care to the many fractivists who continue the struggle. May it not take too many more than 90 reasons before we ban fracking from all the places we love.

#DontFrackMD