Today I testified in front of a New York Assembly
hearing on HIgh Volume Hydraulic Fracturing hosted by: Robert
Sweeney, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Environmental
Conservation; Richard Gottfried, Chair of the Assembly Committee on
Health; and Charles Lavine, Chair of the Assembly Administrative
Regulation Review Commission.
I was given five minutes and I stayed within my time constraint, unlike many.
After I introduced myself, here is what I said:
"... I am convinced that natural gas is the fuel of
the future.
New York is a good example. Our state is the 4th largest consumer in the nation and poised to grow.
Increasing consumption will be driven by: stricter air emission regulations
that phase out coal and fuel oil, possible shutdown of Indian Point, aggressive
renewable standards beginning 2015, new technology for natural gas
transportation and low prices.
Yet,
despite the resource beneath our feet, New York imports 95% of what it
consumes; while the revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental
Impact Statement is bogged down
in its 5th year of
review. This is foolish at best and hypocritical at worst. Every concern that has been raised has either
not born out or already been addressed.
Somehow
what is being done in 15 other states is impossible in New York. Some
claim that the DEC is not up to the task. Others point to accidents or
historical problems. Still
others point to incidents that happened in Pennsylvania before the state
updated regulations. People
are skeptical that industry will be accountable, despite numerous examples to
the contrary.
New
York can learn from what is happening elsewhere. Pennsylvania,
for example, chose not wait for perfect regulation. With 50-years of experience and 1 million plus wells
already fracked in the United States, they did not put themselves at risk
either. They learned as they went and changed when necessary. If elections are an indication, the people are happy
with the tradeoffs that their officials made. All eight state
representatives from Tioga, Bradford and Susquehanna counties — Republicans and
Democrats both — favor natural gas. The tone of local
media also shows it mostly favors natural gas. If there are monsters under the bed, they
did not find them.
Pennsylvania
is no pushover either. Last year the legislature
passed, and the governor signed, a comprehensive bill tightening and clarifying
oil and gas regulation, as well as authorizing a price-indexed impact fee for
each unconventional well. While the precise scope of Act 13 is still being
decided by the state’s Supreme Court, the first collection of the impact fee
totaled $204 million. The money is given to all counties and
municipalities in the state, divided 60/40 between those that host development
and those that don’t. It goes to repair roads and bridges, provide
affordable housing, preserve open space and buy equipment for first responders.
Some
say leave the gas in the ground. Wind and solar are the
fuels of the future. I
disagree. There are no
alternatives to natural gas except heavy hydrocarbons with worse environmental
impacts and nuclear power. Wind
and solar will not supply the energy we need. They are expensive, and always will be, because they
require large surface installations. Over 30-years, one natural gas well on a 3-acre pad will deliver the
same amount of energy as 200-acres of solar panels or 500-acres of wind
turbines[1]. To put that in perspective, the amount of energy
already developed in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus is equivalent to 32-square miles
of solar or 80-square miles of wind[2]. Or to put it another way, covering every square inch
of Tompkins and Cortland Counties with wind turbines and solar panels will not
generate as much energy as the Marcellus.
Natural
gas is abundant, clean, safe, reliable and inexpensive. It is
natural, organic, local and renewable. [Note: The crowd laughed at this statement.] Holding the future hostage to wait for utopia, or pay for the past, is like cutting off the
nose to spite the face. It
mostly harms our own — especially landowners in the economically depressed
Southern Tier. Approving the
rdSGEIS, as is, without further delay, will ensure that New Yorkers benefit
from this extraordinary resource right now when they need it most."
I don't think the Assembly members present heard a word I said.
Till
Next Time,
Energy
Mom
New
York City
[2] Based
on 7,000 wells, which is the approximate number of wells drilled and producing
in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus from 2000-2012.
