Gas industry’s war on the public

Kathleen Sgamma of the lobbying group Western Energy Alliance (WEA) published a piece in the Congress blog last week that misconstrued the facts on natural gas waste and its impact on American taxpayers. Echoing the same over the top rhetoric we’ve become accustomed to hearing from industry lobbyists, Sgamma asserted that common sense limits on natural gas waste somehow constitute a “war” on her industry.

But the truth is, an overwhelming majority of westerners support reasonable rules to put a stop to natural gas waste. A Western Values Project poll from last year found that upwards of 69 percent of voters in Colorado, New Mexico and Montana—a solid bipartisan majority—support a rule to address this problem, particularly on our nation’s public lands.  The claims in Sgamma’s piece, however, appear to not only be out of touch with the will of a majority of Western voters, they also distort the reality of the problem at hand.

{mosads}To start, Sgamma presented an incomplete picture of natural gas emissions in America. She claims that emissions from natural gas have fallen while production has increased. What she failed to mention is that methane emissions from the processing, transmission, and storage stages—which are equally significant stages of natural gas extraction and generation—have all increased dramatically since 2005. 

The real facts speak for themselves. Natural gas and petroleum systems account for at least 29 percent of natural gas waste and emissions. That number makes natural gas and petroleum the nation’s largest contributor, and beats out emissions from coal mining and landfills combined.

WEA’s attacks on American leaders’ efforts to put a stop to the waste are particularly troubling given westerners’ widespread support for a possible rule from the Bureau of Land Management to end natural gas waste on America’s public lands. A huge portion of natural gas waste across the West is due to the wasteful practices of “venting” and “flaring” by oil companies that literally burn off our natural gas resources by venting or leaking them into the atmosphere.

On public lands companies vent, leak and flare our natural gas without paying a dime in royalties on these wasted resources to hardworking American taxpayers—the ones who are most affected by oil and gas development on public lands. A recent report found that, from 2006 to 2013, taxpayers lost out on over $380 million in royalties due to the wasteful practice of venting and flaring.

In 2013, the amount of gas leaked, flared, or vented, by WEA members alone, totaled an equivalent of $5 million in lost revenue for American taxpayers. Perhaps $5 million doesn’t sound like much compared to the absurd annual profits that oil companies haul in, but this figure becomes much more significant after assessing what $5 million represents for a state budget.

$5 million would have allowed Colorado to add 155 new teachers in their public school systems. They didn’t. In New Mexico, 100 new police officers could have been hired with that money. They weren’t. And in Montana, $5 million could have been used to pay 105 more firefighters to fight this summer’s devastating wildfires. But it wasn’t.

Fortunately, some in the energy industry view the new compliances as an opportunity to promote innovation, increase jobs, and bring in higher profits. The Center for Methane Emissions Solutions (CMES) found that, every year, nearly $2 billion worth of methane is lost due to equipment problems and inefficient practices. CMES and its partner groups are working to find innovative solutions that cut down on methane waste, while at the same time increasing American jobs.

That’s why westerners are behind American leaders’ efforts to limit this waste, and look forward to a rule that the BLM is considering to put a stop to this waste on our public lands. Conservative estimates show that American taxpayers stand to lose $800 million over the next ten years without such a rule.

As Sgamma calls new compliance standards a “war on natural gas,” her members’ wasteful practices beg the question: Who’s really waging the war on natural gas? American leaders who want to protect our resources—in many cases, taxpayer-owned resources—or oil companies that are burning those resources without paying Americans a penny?

Saeger is director of the Western Values Project (WVP).