In The News
Roll Call - Peterson: Democrats Back to Square One on Climate Bill
Friday June 19, 2009
Posted by: Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov (202)224-9797
Roll Call
Peterson: Democrats Back to Square One on Climate Bill
By Jennifer Bendery
June 19, 2009
House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Friday said climate change bill negotiators are heading back to the drawing board after discussions between Democrats “blew up last night.”
A meeting between chairmen drafting the climate bill and Democrats on the Agriculture Committee “by and large blew up last night” over the issue of offsets, Peterson said.
Specifically, he said, Agriculture Democrats rejected a concept pitched by bill drafters that would set money aside for a new greenhouse gas conservation program tied together with some offsets.
“It’s a whole new concept being brought in at the last minute,” Peterson said. “Many didn’t like it. ... The bottom line is we’re not going to consider anything unless we actually see the language and have it for three or four days so we can figure out what it does.”
Peterson said he hopes to find some resolution later Friday when he heads into another meeting with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), White House officials and farm groups.
But for now, he said, there is no proposal on the table to resolve the biggest concern among Democrats with agricultural interests: how to ensure the offset program works for farmers.
“We’re back to how do we deal — we want USDA to run our offset program; they want EPA to run it,” Peterson said. “Not that we’re necessarily against the EPA; they just speak a different language. They don’t have the infrastructure out there to deal with us.”
Added Peterson, “I’m tired of this running around in circles.”###
Watch: Democrats Federal Power Grab Extends to Groundwater
Thursday June 18, 2009
Oklahoma Farm Report: Inhofe Predicts Success in Stopping Cap & Trade and Clean Water Restoration Bills on the Floor of the Senate
Thursday June 18, 2009
Senate bill 787 is the Clean Water Restoration Act, and would give the Environmental Protection Agency vastly greater powers than they currently have in overseeing any body of water, no matter how tiny, if this bill becomes law. the key word that is removed from current regulations in this measure is the word "navigable" and with that word out of their way, the EPA could exercise huge control over every farm and ranch in the United States. Senator Inhofe says the Environment and Public Works Committee, of which he is the current ranking Minority member, will pass the measure out on Thursday when it is marked up under the direction of California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who serves as the Chairman of that Committee. The Senior Senator from Oklahoma is convinced that once it leaves Committee, enough Democrats will back away from this measure and allow it to fail to advance on the Senate floor.
EPW POLICY BEAT: DAIRY SKEPTICAL
Tuesday June 16, 2009
Background Information on S. 787: the Feingold Clean Water Restoration Act of 2009
Tuesday June 16, 2009
Democrats Cap and Tax Rush Job: All Economic Pain, No Climate Gain
Tuesday June 16, 2009
Power play: Fracturing Plan Wrong, Indefensible
Tuesday June 16, 2009
EPW FACT OF THE DAY: Liberals Take Aim at Hydraulic Fracturing
Friday June 12, 2009
Posted by: Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov
As Ian Talley of the Dow Jones Newswire reports this week, U.S. lawmakers Tuesday unveiled a bill that “industry warns could prevent development of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas by putting regulation of a key production technique under federal oversight.” In EPACT 05, Senator Inhofe successfully included a provision to clarify that hydraulic fracturing was not to be regulated by the EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This was in response to a 2004 EPA report which concluded that hydraulic fracturing poses minimal threat to underground drinking water and that no further study of the issue was warranted. Current efforts to target hydraulic fracturing come from legislation introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and in the Senate, by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Fact: The regulation of oil and gas exploration and production activities, including hydraulic fracturing occurs at the state level. The states have adopted comprehensive laws and regulations to provide for safe operations to protect the nation’s drinking water sources, and have trained personnel to effectively regulate oil and gas exploration and production.
As Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, pointed out in the Oklahoman this week, hydraulic fracturing had been used in an estimated 1 million wells and had not posed any problems to drinking water. In fact, approximately 35,000 wells are hydraulically fractured annually in the United States and close to one million wells have been hydraulically fractured in the United States since the technique’s inception, with no known harm to groundwater.
Further, the Ground Water Protection Council has consistently found that states have adopted comprehensive laws and regulations to provide for safe operations to protect the nation’s drinking water sources as its report for the U.S. Department of Energy released May 28, 2009 reports.
It is unclear how much support the proposal could get in Congress or from the White House. Prospects of the bill do look grim at this point as Tally reports that, “Pressed at a recent congressional hearing, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said her office would review the EPA's previous decisions not to push for federal regulation.” Further, Talley writes that “Under Carol Browner, currently President Barack Obama's energy and climate czar, the EPA in the mid-1990s decided that federal regulation was unnecessary. ‘There is no evidence that the hydraulic fracturing at issue has resulted in any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water,’ Browner wrote in 1995 as head of the EPA in a letter rejecting federal oversight of a potentially precedent-setting case in Alabama.”
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Round- up: 'Ag Committee Gives Climate Bill the Cold Shoulder' - 'House Ag Chairman: EPA Stay Out of Agriculture' -'Vilsack Declines to Endorse Far-Reaching House Bill'
Friday June 12, 2009
WASHINGTON — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declined Thursday to endorse a far-reaching House bill to curb greenhouse gas emissions. An Oklahoma congressman said it would "destroy” farmers’ livelihoods. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, repeatedly pressed Vilsack at a hearing to take a stand on the bill. At one point, he asked Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, whether he would vote for it if he were a congressman representing Iowa. Vilsack didn’t answer the question directly. He said it was up to lawmakers to write the bill and that more work could be done to improve it. But Lucas, the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, said House Democratic leaders weren’t allowing any more work to be done on the bill and that they may bring it up for a vote later this month.