Part 1: Hydrofracking for Gas

  • Fracking has made billions of cubic feet of natural gas available. That’s fuel that can be used for cooking, heating, and some transportation. (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)

A new technique for extracting
natural gas is making it profitable
to drill in new gas fields all over
the country. The technique is
called hydrofracking, and it has
raised the nation’s natural gas
reserves by 35%.
But hydrofracking is not without
its critics. Samara Freemark tells us why some people
say the industry is moving faster
than regulators can keep up:

Transcript

A new technique for extracting
natural gas is making it profitable
to drill in new gas fields all over
the country. The technique is
called hydrofracking, and it has
raised the nation’s natural gas
reserves by 35%.
But hydrofracking is not without
its critics. Samara Freemark tells us why some people
say the industry is moving faster
than regulators can keep up:

Ten years ago the American natural gas market wasn’t looking too hot.

“In theory, America was running out of natural gas.”

That’s Susan Riha. She’s a professor of earth sciences at Cornell University. Riha says underground pools of traditional natural gas were starting to dry up.

But there’s another kind of gas – ‘unconventional’ natural gas. It’s suspended in tiny pockets in shale formations, like water in a sponge. And there’s unconventional natural gas all across the United States, especially in the Western states and Pennsylvania and New York.

But recovering large amounts of natural gas from shale formations was until recently, pretty much impossible.

“In the past, it’s been extremely difficult to get that gas out of that rock. They drill down, but the gas is only going to flow from right where they drill. But people began to put effort in to figuring out how to get this gas out. And maybe starting about a decade ago they began to get economically viable ways of recovering shale gas.”

The technique that drillers developed is called hydraulic fracturing – or fracking. Frackers dig mile-deep, L-shaped wells and blast them full of millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals. That solution holds open tiny fissures in the shale so the gas flows out.

The process raises some eyebrows in the environmental community, but we’ll get to their concerns in a second.

First let’s look at the upside.

Fracking has made billions of cubic feet of natural gas available. That’s fuel that can be used for cooking, heating, and some transportation.

And natural gas is a domestic energy source. It burns a whole lot cleaner than coal and oil. A lot of people say it could be a crucial part of the transition to greener energy.

Which is the point Thomas West made when I met up with him at a public hearing on gas drilling. West is a drilling advocate and attorney who represents gas companies in New York State.

“You have to realize that the shale plays, these unconventional resources, have changed the game in the United States. We now have a hundred years of capacity, which means we no longer have to rely on Mideastern oil. Gas is very usable, it doesn’t take much to make it usable, and it has a dramatic impact on air quality.”

But critics say fracking is a mixed bag.

“Things too good to be true, usually are.”


That’s Al Appleton. He’s an environmental consultant, and he says hydraulic fracking can cause all kinds of environmental problems – water contamination, ecosystem destruction, noise and air pollution.

And Appleton says the process is essentially unregulated. In 2005, Congress passed a law specifically exempting fracking from almost all federal environmental regulations.

“Basically what the law said is that things like the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Hazardous Waste Materials Act, the Clean Water Act, and other significant pieces of federal environmental legislation were not to be applied to the natural gas industry. So in essence, what your local dry cleaner has to comply to all sorts of regulations, the natural gas industry, they don’t have to follow these.”

Some members of Congress are trying to change that. They’ve introduced legislation to repeal fracking’s exemption, give the Environmental Protection Agency authority over the process, and require the industry to disclose what kinds of chemicals it injects into wells. As you might expect, the fracking industry is fighting the bill.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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EPA: Greenhouse Gases a Threat

  • The EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, announced the U.S. is moving ahead to eventually restrict greenhouse gases. (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)

The US Environmental Protection
Agency has ruled CO2 is a dangerous
pollutant. Lester Graham reports
the finding gives President Obama
something to take to the climate
talks in Copenhagen:

Transcript

The US Environmental Protection
Agency has ruled CO2 is a dangerous
pollutant. Lester Graham reports
the finding gives President Obama
something to take to the climate
talks in Copenhagen:

The EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, announced the U.S. is moving ahead to eventually restrict greenhouse gases.

“EPA has finalized its endangerment finding on greenhouse gas pollution and is now authorized and obligated to make reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean Air Act.”

But even with an administrative rule, Jackson says it’s still important that Congress pass a climate change law.

“I stand firm in my belief that legislation is the best way to move our economy forward on clean energy and to address climate pollution.”

The new rule sends a strong message to the climate summit currently going on in Copenhagen that the U.S. is getting serious about the emissions that are causing global warming. And next week, President Obama will go to Copenhagen with something a little more substantive.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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European Cap-And-Trade Example

  • Europe was the first to do carbon cap-and-trade, four years ago. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Congress is haggling over a climate
bill that includes a carbon cap-and-
trade system. In many ways, it’s
similar to the one the European Union
put in place several years ago. Liam
Moriarty looks at what
the European experience has been and
what the lessons for the US might be:

Transcript

Congress is haggling over a climate
bill that includes a carbon cap-and-
trade system. In many ways, it’s
similar to the one the European Union
put in place several years ago. Liam
Moriarty looks at what
the European experience has been and
what the lessons for the US might be:

Slashing greenhouse gas emissions is hard. Our economy is powered mostly by fossil fuels. Switching to clean fuels will be disruptive and expensive, at least to start with.

So how do we get from here to there? The approach that’s proving most popular is what’s called “cap-and-trade.” It works like this – first, there’s the cap.

“We’re going to put an absolute limit on the quantity of carbon-based fuels that we’re going to burn. And we’re going to develop a system to make sure we’re not burning more fossil fuels than that.”

Alan Durning heads the Sightline Institute, a sustainability-oriented think tank in Seattle. He explains that once you put the cap in place…

“Then, we’re going to let the market decide who exactly should burn the fossil fuels based on who has better opportunities to reduce their emissions.”

That’s the “trade” part. Companies get permits to put out a certain amount of greenhouse gases. Outfits that can cut their emissions more than they need to can sell their unused pollution permits to companies that can’t.

The cap gets ratcheted down over time. There are fewer permits out there to buy. Eventually even the most polluting companies have to reduce their emissions, as well.

The goal is to wean ourselves off dirty fuels by making them more expensive. And that makes cleaner fuels more attractive.

Europe was the first to do carbon cap and trade, four years ago. And things got off to a rough start. They set the cap on emissions too high and way overestimated the number of permits – or allowances – that companies would need.

“We have too many allowances. Simple supply means that the prices of those allowances crashes. They don’t have much value, and therefore the price went down to close to zero.”

That’s Vicki Pollard. She follows climate change negotiations for the European Commission. She says the whole system got knocked out of kilter.

For the first two years, European carbon emissions actually went up. After the collapse of Phase One, big changes were made. The next phase of the trading system has a tighter cap, more stringent reporting requirements and enforcement with teeth.


Today, Europe’s on track to meet its current emissions target. But environmentalists, such as Sanjeev Kumar with the World Wildlife Fund in Brussels, say those targets are still driven more by politics than by science.

“We have a cap that’s very weak, i.e. that means that it doesn’t mean that we’re going to achieve the levels of decarbonization that we need within the time scale.”

Leading climate scientists say we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by the middle of this century to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Business still has concerns about the EU cap and trade scheme. Folker Franz is with BusinessEurope, sort of the European version of the US Chamber of Commerce. He says companies worry about the additional cost of carbon emissions putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

“If you produce one ton of steel, you emit roughly one ton of CO2. So any ton of steel produced in the EU is right now some 17 dollars more than outside the European Union. And that makes a difference.”

But, Franz says, European businesses accept the need to take prompt action on climate change and are on board with the stricter cap and trade rules coming over the next few years.

Americans have watched Europe struggle with carbon cap-and-trade. The Sightline Institute’s Alan Durning says we can benefit from Europe’s willingness to break new ground.

“It was a big advance when they started it, because nothing like it had ever been done. But, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all. In fact, the United States now has an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and leapfrog ahead to a much better climate policy.”

Durning says an American cap and trade system could avoid the costly stumbles that’ve hampered Europe’s carbon reduction efforts.

For The Environment Report, I’m Liam Moriarty.

Related Links

Regulating Hydrofracking

  • Natural gas well drilling site. (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)

A new drilling technique called
hydrofracking has opened up previously
inaccessible natural gas fields all
over the country and created a boom
in natural gas production. But it’s
also generated a lot of controversy,
since hydrofracking is exempt from
almost all federal regulations.
Samara Freemark reports
that legislation currently moving through
Congress would change that:

Transcript

A new drilling technique called
hydrofracking has opened up previously
inaccessible natural gas fields all
over the country and created a boom
in natural gas production. But it’s
also generated a lot of controversy,
since hydrofracking is exempt from
almost all federal regulations.
Samara Freemark reports
that legislation currently moving through
Congress would change that:

Hydrofracking involves pumping millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals a mile into the ground to break up rock and extract gas. But since 2005 the technique has been exempt from federal environmental legislation like the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.

Now some members of Congress have introduced a bill to restore federal oversight over fracking. Kate Sinding is with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which supports the bill.

“So what has been proposed is known as the FRAC act. And what that would do is restore regulatory authority over hydrolic fracturing which means we would have some federal standards about how to regulate this activity. And it would require the public disclosure of the fracturing fluids that are used in fracturing fluids.”

That’s an important point for fracking opponents, who say those chemicals have contaminated wells and groundwater across the nation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Lead in Toys, Despite Law

  • This toy was recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission because it violated federal lead paint standards. (Photo courtesy of the CPSC)

This year, there have been far fewer
toys recalled because of lead contamination
than in past years. But Rebecca Williams
reports, even with a tough new federal
law limiting lead, toys with illegal
levels of lead are still being found
on store shelves this shopping season:

Transcript

This year, there have been far fewer
toys recalled because of lead contamination
than in past years. But Rebecca Williams
reports, even with a tough new federal
law limiting lead, toys with illegal
levels of lead are still being found
on store shelves this shopping season:

So far this year, more than one million toys and kids’ products have been recalled because they contain high levels of lead. That’s actually a big drop from the past two years.

The toy industry, government officials, and even environmental groups all say this holiday season is safer.

“This is all due to parent and consumer demands and outrage over what’s happened in the past.”

That’s Mike Shriberg. He’s with the Ecology Center. Parents were outraged because lead exposure can cause the loss of IQ points, brain damage and even death. The American Academy of Pediatrics says there is no safe level of lead exposure.

But Shriberg says there’s a little good news here. Most toy companies and retailers have heard parents’ demands.

“Companies are trying to prove their safety to customers. And so, many of them have announced voluntary standards above federal laws. They’re more motivated to test and show that their products are safer and that’s where we’re seeing some of the improvement.”

Both Walmart and Toys R’ Us responded by email to questions from The Environment Report. Both retailers say they are thoroughly testing toys, and in some cases, hold their suppliers to stronger standards than the federal law.

But Mike Shriberg says the news is not all good.

“We’re still finding about 3% of toys we tested actually exceed recall levels which means they have lead above level deemed to be safe by federal laws.”

The government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission is in charge of making sure toys are safe. Three billion toys are sold in the US each year. The federal government does not test every kind of toy.

Nychelle Fleming is with the commission. She says the commission has a team of people testing toys, and inspectors do random toy checks at ports and retail stores. But she says the commission also relies on toy makers, advocacy groups and even parents to report problems with toys – including lead contamination.

“Unfortunately there’s no real way I can tell shoppers to know how to look out for or avoid. I think the best way for shoppers to know that is to really be in loop with the commission, to be a part of getting our recall announcements directly so you don’t have to question or wonder which product is affected.”

The Toy Industry Association says it’s not just the government’s job to make sure toys are safe. It says the industry has undertaken an unprecedented level of inspections and re-inspections to keep lead out of toys.

But some shoppers are not getting a clear message about lead in toys. Like these people we caught up with at a Target store.

“When you’ve got little kids that say I want this or I want that when they see it on TV or in the store it’s kind of hard to balance that against whether something has lead or not.”

“Usually they’ve been pulled haven’t they? I don’t know! Maybe they haven’t.”

“Well I just watch for it because I know you’re supposed to, but I don’t know the guidelines or the limits or anything like that, I really don’t.”

So clearly, not everybody knows what to look for when they’re shopping.

Mike Shriberg with the Ecology Center says it really shouldn’t be this hard.

“Part of our message as parents is, your lives are already complicated. The fact that our federal chemical regulatory system is completely failing means that really you almost have to be a chemist to do your shopping and that’s not… that shouldn’t be.”

Shriberg says, when it comes to lead, you can be a little more confident this holiday season. But he says there’s still no guarantee that all toys will be lead-free.

He says you should avoid children’s metal jewelry and toys from vending machines. He says simpler toys, like unpainted wood toys, tend to be the safest choices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

New Regs for Old Homes

  • The rules the EPA is proposing would apply to homes built before 1978. (Photo source: Daniel Schwen at Wikimedia Commons)

Renovating old homes or apartments can
mean scraping or sanding lead paint.
That lead paint dust can settle where
children play. That can put them at risk
for learning disabilities. Shawn Allee reports why the government’s
tightening rules on home renovation:

Transcript

Renovating old homes or apartments can
mean scraping or sanding lead paint.
That lead paint dust can settle where
children play. That can put them at risk
for learning disabilities. Shawn Allee reports why the government’s
tightening rules on home renovation:

The Environmental Protection Agency just finished rules about home renovation and lead paint, but children’s advocacy groups said they weren’t strong enough.

Anita Weinberg is with Lead-Safe Illinois. She says some rehab contractors are trained on how to handle lead paint safely, but only some property owners are required to hire them. Weinberg says the rules didn’t apply if there were no kids in that unit at the time.


“That’s perfectly fine, but tomorrow you turn around and sell your home to a family with children. And the work that was done, if it wasn’t done safely, there’s certainly the possibility there’s still going to be a lead hazards in that home.”

So, now the EPA’s proposing, if you hire a rehab contractor at all, that contractor must be trained to handle lead paint – regardless of whether children live there now or not.

The rules would apply to homes built before 1978.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

The EPA and CO2 Regulations

  • This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Graph courtesy of NASA and NOAA)

The Environmental Protection Agency
is trying to figure out how it might
regulate greenhouse gases. Lester
Graham reports language in the
Clean Air Act is not helping:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency
is trying to figure out how it might
regulate greenhouse gases. Lester
Graham reports language in the
Clean Air Act is not helping:

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the EPA to decide whether greenhouse gases are pollutants. The EPA is making the case that they are.

But setting rules to reduce those emissions is problematic.

The Clean Air Act says it you emit 250-tons a year of a pollutant, you need a pollution permit. 250-tons of CO2 a year is not a lot.

Jeff Holmstead worked in the EPA on air pollution issues during the last Bush Administration. Now, he’s a lawyer with the Washington DC firm Bracewell and Giuliani.

“You know, 250-tons of CO2 according to EPA would include most schools, most apartment buildings, any kind of commercial building. It just isn’t possible to develop permits for all of these sources.”

So the EPA plans to raise the amount to 25,000-tons. But, that’s not what the Clean Air Act says.

That’s one reason why the Obama Administration prefers a climate change law passed by Congress.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Interview: EPA’s Lisa Jackson

  • Lisa Jackson is the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)

Some members of Congress feel they’re being coerced into approving a Climate Change bill that would force industry to reduce greenhouse gases. Republicans and some Democrats feel the Obama Administration is telling Congress to either approve legislation or the Environmental Protection Agency will use its authority to restrict greenhouse gases. Lester Graham spoke with the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, about that perception:

Transcript

Some members of Congress feel they’re being coerced into approving a Climate Change bill that would force industry to reduce greenhouse gases. Republicans and some Democrats feel the Obama administration is telling Congress to either approve legislation or the Environmental Protection Agency will use its authority to restrict greenhouse gases. Lester Graham spoke with the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson about that perception.

Administrator Lisa Jackson: They want to say that it’s EPA’s action that’s compelling them to be forced to address energy and climate change legislation. I certainly hope that’s not the case. We are actually in a race here to move to a greener energy economy. And the rest of the world is certainly doing it. And I always tell people that if you don’t want to do it for the environmental reasons, you need to look at the economics and where the world is going, and realize we need to break our dependence on fossil fuels that come from out of our country. We need to move to clean energy. That should be the imperative. I hope it becomes the imperative.

Lester Graham: There’s a new treaty coming up to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the UN Climate Change Conference will meet in Copenhagen in December for a new climate change agreement – if Congress does not pass climate change legislation by that point, how will it affect the standing of the United States in those talks?

Administrator Jackson: Well, certainly it’s fair to say the eyes of the world are upon us, to some degree. Each country is dealing individually with their own situation on energy and climate, and then obviously those are big multi-lateral talks. But I do think people are watching to see if the United States is in this game of clean energy and addressing carbon.

Graham: If Congress does not pass a measure this year before that conference, but there’s a likelihood of it passing next year, will that change – I’m just trying to figure out how we enter into those negotiations if we don’t have a solid plan for reducing greenhouse gasses.

Administrator Jackson: I know lots of people are trying to figure out whether or not the United States will be at the table and in a big way. It certainly is the most important thing to be able to say to the rest of the world, is that not only President Obama is clearly behind this, but the Congress representing the people of the United States has moved to embrace new energy policy, and clean energy, and low-carbon. We’re not there yet, obviously. I’m still optimistic, despite all the other discussions going on, because I know that there’s been real progress made to date.

Graham: You’re just a few months into the job, and already seeing a little heat from Congress and big, big challenge – how do you feel about the job and what do you hope to accomplish in the first year?

Administrator Jackson: I already know that it’s the best job I’ll ever have. I understand that the push and pull of the system is that we’re going to have some dialogue on issues that are of great concern to members of Congress, to the American people, to various stakeholders, and I’m eager to have those conversations. And I think as long as we keep in mind that we’re going to follow the best science we can, we’re going to follow the law, we’re going to be honest, we’re going to be transparent, we’re not going to hold information back. You know, I think that was the most damning criticism of EPA – that there was information out there that might have protected the environment or the American people that was held back. And that time and trust, we have to now re-earn. So that’s what we’re about.

Graham: Administrator Jackson, thanks for your time.

Administrator Jackson: Thank you so much, Lester. Nice talking to you.

Lisa Jackson is the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

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Chairman Criticizes Climate Change Bill

  • Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Collin C. Peterson from Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the House Committee on Agriculture)

A dispute about bio-fuels could put passage of a climate change bill at risk. Lester Graham reports corn ethanol is at the center of a dispute among some Democrats:

Transcript

A dispute about bio-fuels could put passage of a climate change bill at risk. Lester Graham reports corn ethanol is at the center of a dispute among some Democrats:

Conventional wisdom in Washington these days is: it’s not a good idea to use food for fuel, so corn ethanol should be replaced by cellulosic ethanol – made from crops such as switchgrass.

The chairman of the Ag Committee, Democrat Collin Peterson, believes the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress are putting rules and legislation in place to put corn ethanol at a disadvantage to cellulosic ethanol.

He says they’re forcing changes on corn ethanol makers and farmers that could ruin the future of the bio-fuels industry.

“They are setting this up to guarantee there will never be second-generation ethanol or bio-diesel.”

Congressman Peterson says the Climate Change bill is just more of the same. He says he won’t vote for it and he doesn’t think any of the 46 members of the House Agriculture committee will either.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Senator Exposes Smoking Gun?

  • Senator John A. Barrasso from Wyoming (Photo courtesy of the United States Congress)

Conservative bloggers, radio talk show hosts, and even Republican leaders are making a big deal about a White House memo. Lester Graham reports the White House seems surprised by the furor:

Transcript

Conservative bloggers, radio talk show hosts, and even Republican leaders are making a big deal about a White House memo. Lester Graham reports the White House seems surprised by the furor:

During a hearing Republican Senator John Barrasso waved around a memo he said was proof the Obama administration was moving ahead with the regulation of global warming gases without having the science to back it up.

“It’s here, nine pages. This is a smoking gun, saying that your findings are political not scientifica (sic) — not scientific.”

The memo was part of a larger document from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

It’s routine to get opinions about potential regulations from different agencies.

We called the Office of Management and Budget repeatedly, asking which agency wrote the unsigned memo. No one would go on tape, but instead referred us to their blog – which basically said: this opinion is not a big deal; the EPA is operating under the law, and the science backs up any potential regulation of greenhouse gases.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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