Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, writes:

"But what’s abundantly clear is that there are no silver bullets when it comes to this challenge. And the idea, as some in Washington have tried to suggest, that building a pipeline is the ultimate answer to the question of American energy security and job creation is nothing more than a pipe dream. The truth is that just two of the Administration’s programs – the DOE Loan Guarantee Program and the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards – will create more than 10 times the amount of jobs generated by the Keystone XL pipeline, which will only generate a few thousand temporary jobs."

Let’s take them one at a time.

Yes, there are no silver bullets, we need a comprehensive energy policy embraci... more »

We have received lots of questions about the draft EPA report yesterday regarding hydraulic fracturing and groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming.  We're looking at the report and will follow it throughout the review process, but for now we note the report is raising a number of questions. Most of the concerns so far focus on the scientific methodology behind the report. 

The Petroleum Association of Wyoming (PAW) points out:

1. EPA's monitoring wells were drilled into gas bearing zones (~900 ft and ~700ft) so the fact that methane, benzene and other hydrocarbons were detected at high levels is not surprising.

2. After several rounds of testing of private domestic water wells, only one organic compound was found to exceed State or Federal Drinking Water standards.  Th... more »

On EPA's proposal to regulate emissions from oil and natural gas drilling, API's Howard Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs, has suggestions including:

• Take more time - Four months isn't long enough to consider sweeping rules that Feldman says would affect hundreds of thousands of natural gas development operations.
• Longer time frame for implementation - Once regulations are finalized, industry will need years to manufacture the equipment needed for compliance and to train operators to use it. "The equipment prescribed to conduct reduced emission well completions will simply not be available in time to comply with the current final rule schedule," Feldman says.
• Improved cost analysis - EPA's analysis uses a model that doesn't represent all the equipment and compliance c... more »

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, in an interview aired Sunday by energyNOW on hydraulic fracturing regulation:

"The vast majority of oil and gas production is regulated at the state level. There are issues of whether or not the federal government can add to protection and also peace of mind for citizens by looking at large issues like air pollution impacts, which can be regional. ... So it's not to say that there isn't a federal role, but you can't start to talk about a federal role without acknowledging the very strong state role."

And more:

"We have no data right now that lead us to believe one way or the other that there needs to be specific federal regulation of the fracking process."

And here was Administrator Jackson, interviewed Monday, again talking [subscription required] about hyd... more »

There are many ways to approach making policy determinations. One is to gather all of the evidence, evaluate it, and then come to a conclusion based on it.

For example, one could look at EIA projections that oil and natural gas products will supply 55% of our energy consumption in 2035 and that 41% of our liquid fuel needs in 2035 will need to be imported and then conclude that oil and natural gas will be primary fuels for a long time to come so we should pursue policies to secure our supplies.

Then you could look at studies on domestic production and see that we could create 1 million additional jobs by 2018, secure 100% of our liquid fuel needs by 2026, and provide $800 billion dollars in revenue to U.S. governments over the next twenty years and easily conclude that pro-development pol... more »