FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Environmental Groups Call on EPA to Ban Diesel Use in Fracking

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, May 4, 2012

Contact:

Jason Pitt, Sierra Club, 202.675.6272

Environmental Groups Call on EPA to Ban Diesel Use in Fracking

Washington, D.C. — National environmental groups today called on the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of diesel in hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ fluids, instead of issuing guidance for regulating the practice, following the agency’s release of draft guidance.  Diesel is currently used in fracking chemical cocktails and poses serious risks to drinking water sources.  EPA guidance  is not enough to protect families from benzene and other highly toxic chemicals contaminating underground drinking water sources. 

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in the Halliburton Loophole—except when diesel is used.  Recent Congressional investigations revealed diesel use in fracking fluids remains widespread.   This EPA action provides guidance for using the Safe Drinking Water Act’s Underground Injection Control Program to protect underground sources of drinking water.  The EPA announced a 60-day public comment period on the proposal. 

The use of diesel in fracking fluid is just one of many harmful industry practices that the government must clean up. Strong federal protections are needed to protect American families nationwide from all of the consequences of dirty fracking.

In response leaders from the environmental organizations calling for a ban on diesel used in fracking, released the following statements:

“It’s no secret that diesel is dirty and dangerous, and belongs nowhere near our drinking water.  But the natural gas industry has been using this dangerous fuel for fracking, showing once again that they cannot be trusted to police themselves.  We urge the EPA to ban diesel fracking and keep Americans’ drinking water clean and safe.”  - Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club

“We applaud EPA’s action and urge the Agency to use their authority to ban diesel use and to do whatever is necessary to protect precious underground drinking water sources from chemical contamination.”  - Bob Wendelgass, President of Clean Water Action

“Diesel and drinking water don't mix. Congress recognized the hazards of diesel when they passed the Halliburton loophole to the Safe Drinking Water Act. We welcome EPA's action; it's time for the oil and gas industry to clean up their act.” - Jennifer Krill, Executive Director of Earthworks

“Diesel fuel is not critical to fracking—with the safety threats it poses, there is no sense in allowing it to be used.  We need stronger safeguards on the books to protect American health and communities from diesel threats to clean drinking water and other risks associated with fracking.” - Amy Mall, Senior Policy Analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council

“Nobody wants to drink diesel-infused tap water. That’s why the oil and gas industry needs to stop pumping diesel underground during fracking. The risk to drinking water sources is too high and the oil and gas industry’s track record is too dismal. The EPA can and must ban this reckless practice.” - Jessica Ennis, Legislative Representative for Earthjustice

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War Over Natural Gas About to Escalate - Sierra Club Launches 'Beyond Natural Gas' Campaign

Amy Harder

Updated: May 3, 2012 | 2:03 p.m.
May 3, 2012 | 2:02 p.m.

NationalJournal.com

AP PHOTO/CAROLYN KASTER

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune on the National Mall in June 2010

The rocky relationship between one of the world’s most influential environmental groups and the natural-gas industry is headed toward full-scale combat.

The Sierra Club is intensifying its natural-gas reform campaign and renaming it “Beyond Gas,” a spin-off of its decade-old “Beyond Coal” campaign seeking the phaseout of coal-fired power plants.

“As we push to retire coal plants, we’re going to work to make sure we’re not simultaneously switching to natural-gas infrastructure,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune told National Journal in an interview on Wednesday. “And we’re going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can.”

The name for the campaign was actually decided about two weeks ago but hasn’t yet appeared prominently on the group’s website, Brune said. “Beyond Gas” represents a significant expansion of the group’s ongoing efforts against increased natural-gas production and will be integrated with campaigns against the other major fossil fuels, oil and coal.

The stronger anti-gas push is “in large part due to the emerging reality that the climate impact of gas is much worse than we thought, and the availability of renewables is much better than we thought,” Brune said.

That 33 states now have renewable-electricity standards shows that the country is closer to depending on clean energy sch as wind and solar power than most people think, he said. “It would be the height of irony if we decrease our reliance on coal and rather than jumping to clean energy, we replace one dirty fuel with another.” 

To some longtime energy experts, the Sierra Club’s growing hostility toward natural gas isn’t surprising. "I have warned that based on concerns by some environmentalists, gas could become the coal of tomorrow," said Lisa Epifani, a partner at Van Ness Feldman who was previously an assistant secretary of Energy and counsel to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee under former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Vast reserves of shale natural gas discovered in recent years have promised the country decades of a domestic energy supply that many experts—along with President Obama—consider a cleaner fossil-fuel alternative to coal and oil. Natural gas burns with 50 percent fewer emissions than coal and is 20 to 30 percent cleaner than oil.

But the gas boom has also brought growing environmental concerns, particularly about hydraulic fracturing, the extraction process known as “fracking” that some fear is contaminating drinking-water supplies. The process also could be causing increased methane emissions that can intensify global warming.

Continue reading...

Sierra Club Rejects Liquefied Natural Gas Export Terminal

April 26, 2012
LINK

Environmental Groups Continue Fight against LNG Fracking

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Sierra Club

Contact: Jason Pitt, 202.675.6272

Environmental Groups Continue Fight against LNG Fracking
Asks Federal Environmental Agencies to Protest Export Facilities


Washington, D.C.— Today multiple environmental organizations called on the President's chief environmental advisor asking for a full environmental analysis of plans to export liquefied natural gas (LNG). The letter to the Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency sounds the alarm that the agencies considering these export plans are not analyzing or disclosing the environmental impacts of the increased hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking' that would be necessary to support major LNG exports.

"Exporting liquefied natural gas means more dangerous fracking, a secretive and toxic part of the production process that the Sierra Club has no confidence in," said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. "With the health of our communities and our environment at stake, it's up to our leaders at EPA and other agencies to keep their commitment to protecting Americans from the toxic threats to our air and water that come with liquefied natural gas."

"LNG facilities like the one proposed for Cove Point are intended to ship natural gas extracted in this country off to foreign lands, said Michael Helfrich of Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper. "The result is that gas drillers can ship American gas overseas in order to make more money, but this increases the price of natural gas for us, and our communities and environment get ravaged by the shale gas "gold rush", including thousands of miles of new pipelines and new compressor stations through the Susquehanna Watershed. It may be a win for the gas drillers but it throws the idea of American energy independence out the window."

"Gas drilling is devastating the communities where it is happening; the claim of environmentally friendly fracking and shale gas drilling is just another expensive messaging campaign" says Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper. "People are losing their drinking water, their clean air, their health, and the beautiful landscapes they call home. The assertion of cheap gas and energy independence is just another marketing campaign – drillers are investing heavily in building and expanding LNG facilities in order to ship American extracted gas overseas. Americans are suffering all of the pollution and harm from gas drilling while foreign countries get to use the gas and drillers get to reap the profits. It's a lose lose for Americans."

On February 7th, 2012, The Sierra Club filed the first formal objection with the Department of Energy against the export of domestic gas produced from fracking. This objection called the export proposal an unwise plan which would make a dirty fuel even more dangerous and would cost families money by raising gas and electricity prices. The Sierra Club also intervened in proposals for LNG export facility permits in Sabine Pass, LA and Coos Bay, OR.

The letter is signed by the Sierra Club, the Columbia Riverkeeper, the Delaware Riverkeeper, Earthjustice, Friends of Living Oregon Waters (FLOW), Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and the Rogue Riverkeeper. Full text of the letter as submitted is available upon request.

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Join Sierra Club's Executive Director - Michael Brune to Circle the White House on November 6

Dear Friends,

I’m writing to ask you to join me this Sunday, November 6, at the White House in Washington, D.C., to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Thousands of Sierra Club members and concerned citizens from all over the nation are coming to circle the White House, coming to send a clear and direct message to President Obama that tar sands oil is not in the national interest and that he must deny the presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

We need your help to make this action a success.

Tar sands oil is some of the dirtiest, most destructive oil in the world. This pipeline is the frontline in the fight to stop climate change. Tar sands oil means massive greenhouse gas pollution, destruction of the Northern boreal forests – the lungs of North America – and oil spills that will threaten drinking water for millions and the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers across the U.S. heartland.

The Sierra Club and our many allies on all sides of the political spectrum have been working for several years to turn this presidential decision into a national movement – and we’ve succeeded. Time is now growing short, but we know that the White House has heard our concern. Now it’s time to drive our message home. Now the President needs to hear from YOU.

I’ll be in Washington on November 6 to circle the White House and make my voice count. I need your help to make this action a success.

Please make this event a priority and help us spread the word of this important event to your networks. I will be hosting a conference call with Bill McKibben on Tuesday, October 25 to tell you more about this event and campaign. Call (866) 501-6174 — 244 0879 1892#. I hope you can join us. RSVP for the call here.

Please urge your colleagues, friends, and families to join me on November 6. The Sierra Club will be hosting a series of five phone banks to promote the event. We need volunteers to help make this happen and ensure the greatest turnout possible. For details, please contact Jessica Eckdish.

I truly believe that November 6 will be an historic moment in our fight to save the planet.

Michael Brune
Sierra Club Executive Director

—

Here are the details:

WHO: People who want to save the planet from the destruction of Big Oil’s tar sands plans
WHAT: Come to Washington, D.C., to tell President Obama that tar sands oil will not be tolerated
WHEN: Sunday, November 6 at 2 pm Eastern
WHERE: Lafayette Park, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, D.C.






Please sign up so that we can keep you notified of updates to this important event:

Yes, I'll be there.

No, I can't make it, but tell me how I can get involved without attending in person.

Questions: Contact Jessica Eckdish.

P.S. You may also be interested in joining the Say No to Tar Sands Team in the Activist Network.

Michael Brune - Sierra Club Says: ''Promote gas as a cleaner alternative to coal and oil"

In a recent 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl, Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club appears to support hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking' if it's done right. That might be an okay statement, but his other statement: 'Promote gas as a cleaner alternative to coal and oil, but hold the industry accountable for tighter standards.'

Dear Sir, you are wrong in your assessment and it is a statement that you did not support with scientific evidence. Why would Sierra Club promote natural gas as a cleaner alternative?  Cleaner in what respects?  Please provide your scientific data to assert your statement. Better yet, read the facts and support them!

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I assume Mr. Brune still has not not read the 'peer reviewed' paper on methane emissions below which scientifically tested methane and found that it is a much more potent greenhouse gas, especially in the short term, with 105 times more warming impact, pound for pound, than carbon dioxide (CO2).


Maybe Mr. Brune can respond differently after reading the facts.

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April 11, 2011

Natural gas from fracking could be 'dirtier' than coal, Cornell professors find

Howarth

By Stacey Shackford

Extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale could do more to aggravate global warming than mining coal, according to a Cornell study published in the May issue of Climatic Change Letters (105:5).

While natural gas has been touted as a clean-burning fuel that produces less carbon dioxide than coal, ecologist Robert Howarth warns that we should be more concerned about methane leaking into the atmosphere during hydraulic fracturing.
Natural gas is mostly methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas, especially in the short term, with 105 times more warming impact, pound for pound, than carbon dioxide (CO2), Howarth said, adding that even small leaks make a big difference. He estimated that as much as 8 percent of the methane in shale gas leaks into the air during the lifetime of a hydraulic shale gas well -- up to twice what escapes from conventional gas production.

"The take-home message of our study is that if you do an integration of 20 years following the development of the gas, shale gas is worse than conventional gas and is, in fact, worse than coal and worse than oil," Howarth said. "We are not advocating for more coal or oil, but rather to move to a truly green, renewable future as quickly as possible. We need to look at the true environmental consequences of shale gas."

Howarth, the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology, Tony Ingraffea, the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering, and Renee Santoro, a research technician in ecology and evolutionary biology, analyzed data from published sources, industry reports and even Powerpoint presentations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

They compared estimated emissions for shale gas, conventional gas, coal (surface-mined and deep-mined) and diesel oil, taking into account direct emissions of CO2 during combustion, indirect emissions of CO2 necessary to develop and use the energy source and methane emissions, which were converted to equivalent value of CO2 for global warming potential.

The study is the first peer-reviewed paper on methane emissions from shale gas, and one of the few exploring the greenhouse gas footprints of conventional gas drilling. Most studies have used EPA emission estimates from 1996, which were updated in November 2010 when it was determined that greenhouse gas emissions of various fuels are higher than previously believed.

READ MORE... ChronicalOnline 
Source: Chronical Online and quote from 60 Minutes

The Word Obama Forgot to Say

Michael Brune

Executive Director, The Sierra Club

Posted: November 12, 2010 03:15 PM

A couple months ago, I was out in Dimock, PA, meeting with community members who've been affected by reckless natural gas drilling in and around their town. I was also there to tape an interview with Lesley Stahl, for an episode of 60 Minutes that will air this Sunday.

Dimock has become an unfortunate poster child of dangerous gas extraction, and after spending some time there, it's easy to understand why. Many residents have expressed alarm at how their drinking water has turned brown and made them sick soon after gas drilling started. The water is now too poisonous for most residents near drilling operations to use for drinking or bathing; it will be at least a couple years until a pipeline is built to transfer water from a safe location. Moreover, highly flammable, greenhouse-gas-intensive methane that is believed to have been released from gas drilling or hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") caused one Dimock resident's well to spontaneously combust one day. Methane released from a gas-drilling site has been observed bubbling up in the Susquehanna River, miles away. And while sitting in the front yard of another Dimock resident, I could hear methane gurgling constantly out of a special vent recently installed in their own well.

Concerns about natural-gas extraction have been on the rise not just in Dimock, but in places across the country, from West Virginia to Texas to Wyoming. And yet even given these important issues, natural gas still has a relatively lighter footprint than coal or oil. Gas is not a clean fuel, but it can be cleaner.

So it was with great interest that I heard Obama talking about natural gas last week. In a press conference the day after the election, someone asked if there were issues he might be willing to collaborate on with the new Congress. "We've got, I think, broad agreement that we've got terrific natural gas resources in this country," the president replied. "Are we doing everything we can to develop those?"

Uh oh. Look, I can only imagine the pressures that the president is under on a daily basis. And I can sympathize with the unique challenges the president faces of needing to speak accurately and precisely on a wide variety of topics with the media ready to pounce on any minor nuance or particular slip-up. But what did concern me about the president's statement was a single word that I didn't hear. I hope his question about natural-gas resources omitted that word unintentionally: "Are we doing everything we can to develop those responsibly?"

Clearly, we are not. Not when fracking is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, parts of the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, as well as our country's hazardous waste and cleanup laws.

It's important to acknowledge that just because natural gas is cleaner than other fossil fuels -- especially coal -- does not mean we should give the industry a free pass. The exploration, production, transportation, and burning of natural gas is an inherently dirty business that disrupts local communities and pollutes the environment. There are thousands of documented cases of air and water pollution violations and human health and safety hazards. If natural gas is to be part of the mix that displaces dirtier energy sources like coal and oil, these have to be addressed.

Courtesy of HUFFPOST GREEN