The battle royale that’s been underway between the energy industry and federal regulatory agencies since the inauguration of President Biden is more political than logical.
Like many of the armed conflicts of history, it’s between parties that speak different languages, have conflicting interests and thereby can only fight it out.
So when, where and how will it end?
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Permian Basin Petroleum Association President Ben Shepperd, Permian Basin International Oil Show President Larry Richards and Panhandle Producers & Royalty Owners President Judy Stark say the answers are blowing in the wind.
Sen. Cruz said through a spokeswoman Wednesday that the EPA “continues to wage war against American energy.
“I remain the leading fighter in the Senate committed to standing up for all oil and gas workers,” Cruz said. “America produces by far the cleanest energy in the world and simultaneously secures good-paying jobs and prosperity for our nation.
“This year alone I called out the Biden administration for their egregious electric vehicle mandate and secured common sense regulations that unleashed American energy, all while protecting our natural resources.”
Shepperd said federal agencies “can be influenced by political motivation and it needs to be remembered that elections absolutely do have consequences.
“The abuse of climate change and environmental, social and governance-related polices, doctrines and protocols through different agency initiatives at the U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Land Management are each evidence of this,” Shepperd said.
He said many of those agencies’ recent policy pronouncements “appear to be clearly designed to shut down the oil and gas industry like the designation of the entire Permian Basin as being in non-attainment for ground level ozone by the EPA, the listing of the Lesser Prairie Chicken under the Endangered Species Act by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM’s proposed new Public Lands Rule.
“Each of these efforts on their own would increase the cost of operations in the Permian Basin to the point that such costs became economically prohibitive to continue to produce oil and gas in our region,” Shepperd said.
“If these different initiatives get enacted on top of each other, that will just increase the cost and burden on operators even further.”
Asked if the Major Questions Doctrine could be used more effectively, he said, “I think the victory in West Virginia vs. EPA could be a cornerstone for a number of other possible challenges to federal government overreach.
“It is unfortunate, however, that this administration seems to have taken the approach that instead of trying to abide by the Major Questions Doctrine itself, it plans to keep forcing state governments and citizens in this country to fight regulation after regulation by bringing suit and claiming violations under the Major Questions Doctrine or other claims like violations of the Administrative Procedures Act,” Shepperd said.
The Major Questions Doctrine is a principle of statutory interpretation in United States administrative law which states that courts will presume that Congress does not delegate to executive agencies issues of major political or economic significance.
“So much time and resources are going to be spent fighting back against the federal government, it appears, no matter how often the U.S. Supreme Court clearly tells them what they are and aren’t authorized to do.”
Asked if the industry has been cowed to some extent by the Green Wave, he said, “There is no question that in recent years the so-called Green Wave has gained strength and created a number of challenges.
“However, I also think that today the industry is doing a much better job of explaining the truth of what good stewards oil and gas operators have been. Those who work the land are the original conservationists, but we have not always done the best job of making sure others know how we took care of the land and the environment.
“Continuing to tell our story will help, but regardless we strongly believe we have a long, bright future ahead.”
Richards said regulations can be necessary to discourage bad behavior, but the federal agencies are overdoing it.
“Unlike many in our industry, I believe reasonable regulations can play a positive role like the traffic cop who keeps that one idiot from driving 100 mph and endangering all of us,” he said. “The enforcement of reasonable regulations can keep bad actors from damaging our industry’s reputation and community trust.
“I’ve seen constructive collaboration between our industry and the EPA in programs like the Natural Gas Star Program that shared best industry practices and lessons learned on reducing emissions across the U.S. and later across the globe,” Richards said.
“But when regulations and positions of authority are misused to damage and demonize an entire industry that is so vital to U.S. interests, it simply makes no sense.”
Richards said the energy industry and environmental policy makers “should be working in tandem to position us for the next century.
“For example, we should immediately reduce regulations and bureaucratic hurdles to modernize refineries and process the light sweet crude now produced in the U.S., which is cheaper and dramatically cleaner to refine than the heavy sour crude from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“But our refineries have to be reconfigured to process it efficiently. Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel and huge CO2 reductions can be achieved through the conversion of coal-powered electric power generation to gas plants.”
Richards said streamlining the regulations and timeline for natural gas pipelines and plant conversions would reduce greenhouse gas emissions more in the short term than any other single project or initiative.
“We should be encouraging investment in the small service and manufacturing companies that are the innovation leaders in reducing emissions, spills and flaring, not choking off their funding sources and financing options,” he said.
“Most oil industry personnel care deeply about the environment. They fish, they hunt, they camp and they live in the communities where oil and gas is drilled and produced. I believe we have an obligation to be good stewards of this amazing planet that the good Lord created.”
Stark said the Biden administration “without a doubt is against the oil and gas industry politically under the false premise of climate change.
“The thing many of these one-size-fits-all federal solutions miss is that pollution is always a matter of concentration,” Stark said. “Emissions of any sort reduce beyond a polluted or contaminated detectable level depending on differences of molecules or substances and how rapidly they diffuse like emissions of a glycol dehydrator or stock tank in the West Texas wind.
“Winter inversions in the Denver Basin or from those gasoline-loving fun people in Los Angeles do not disperse or at least not rapidly enough.”
Stark said the 2022 West Virginia vs. EPA case was important because it negated a transformative expansion of the EPA’s authority, stopping it from prohibiting the use of coal and natural gas in power plants.
“2023 will be the year that so-called investments in renewables outstrips investment in fossil fuels,” Stark said. “It will also be a record year for coal production while China and India steam ahead.
“I had thought we signed the Paris Climate Agreement, but that must pertain only to the U.S. Something is not working. It’s time to talk back!”
