Posted on 03/05/2022 3:48:56 AM PST by Kaslin
"WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joined Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to introduce the American Energy Independence Act of 2022, which reverses President Biden's shutdown of the American energy sector and returns American energy to full production."
"Shortly after taking office, Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline, blocked new oil and gas leases, (especially offshore) issued regulations designed to stymie domestic energy investment and advocated for measures that focus more on Green New Deal priorities than on American security. As energy prices soared at home, Biden turned to Russia and the global oil cartel OPEC for help driving down energy costs. Now more than ever, we need to reclaim our energy independence … That's why I'm proud to support the American Energy Independence Act, which will take critical steps to lower gas prices and unleash energy production right here in the United States," Grassley said.
Mega kudos to these lawmakers for introducing this vitally necessary act —though I doubt that they're aware of the collateral environmental benefits that will result from an upswing in offshore oil production.
"Huh," you ask?
You see, amigos, more than 70% of federal oil production comes from offshore drilling. Yet 94% of federal offshore acreage remains off-limits to development, according to the American Petroleum Institute.
Environmental superstitions account for most of this exploration ban. Because if bonafide science has crowned "Global Warmists" with 10-foot dunce caps, then over half a century of scientific evidence has crowned anti-offshore drilling activists with 50-foot dunce caps. That offshore oil drilling—far from an environmental disaster, is empirically an environmental bonanza—has been pounded home with a vengeance in study after study. The science, you might say, is settled.
To wit: According to the Energy Information Administration, "Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 17% of total U.S. crude oil production." Yet with over 3,000 of the 4,000 plus offshore oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico off her coast, Louisiana provides almost a third of North America's commercial fisheries.
Astoundingly enough, Hollywood once hailed the environmental benefits of offshore oil drilling. The first offshore oil production platforms went up off the Louisiana coast in 1947. By 1953 Hollywood was already hailing the pioneering wildcatters who moved major mountains – technological, logistical, psychological, cultural – to tap and reap this source that today provides a quarter of America's domestic petroleum.
In the 1953 movie "Thunder Bay," Jimmy Stewart plays the complicated protagonist, Steve Martin, the hard-bitten, ex-navy oil engineer who built the first offshore oil platform off Louisiana in 1947. "The brawling, mauling story of the biggest bonanza of them all!" says the Universal ad for the studio's first wide-screen movie.
Much of the brawling by Stewart and his henchmen was against the local Cajuns who fished and shrimped for a living. Their livelihood, it seemed obvious at the time, would soon vanish amidst a hell-broth of irreversible pollution. The movie covers a time period of barely one year yet ends on a happy note of conciliation as the fishermen reaped a bonanza almost as big as Jimmy's itself. The oil structures had kicked in as artificial reefs and made possible a bigger haul of seafood than anything in these fishermen's lifetimes.
Fast forward half a century, and a study by LSU's sea grant college showed that 70 percent of Louisiana's offshore fishing trips target these structures. "Oil platforms as artificial reefs support fish densities 10 to 1,000 times that of adjacent sand and mud bottom, and almost always exceed fish densities found at both adjacent artificial reefs of other types and natural hard bottom," revealed a study by Dr. Bob Shipp, professor at the Marine Sciences department of the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. "Evidence indicates that massive areas of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico were essentially empty of Red Snapper stocks for the first hundred years of the fishery. Subsequently, areas in the western Gulf have become the major source of red snapper, concurrent with the appearance of thousands of petroleum platforms."
In brief, "villainous" Big Oil produces marine life at rates that puts to shame "wondrous" Earth Goddess Gaia. "The fish biomass around an offshore oil platform is ten times greater per unit area than for natural coral reefs," also found Dr. Charles Wilson of LSU's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Science (emphasis added): "Ten to thirty thousand adult fish live around an oil production platform in an area half the size of a football field."
"Oh, SURE!" comes the Greenie-Weenie retort, "but you're very conveniently 'forgetting' the infamous BP oil spill!"
Glad you mentioned that. Because only one year after the infamous spill, the FDA's Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Seafood Inspection Laboratory, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, along with similar agencies from neighboring Gulf coast states, have methodically and repeatedly tested Gulf seafood for cancer-causing "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons."
"Not a single sample [for oil or dispersant] has come anywhere close to levels of concern," reported Olivia Watkins, executive media advisor for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
"All of the samples have been 100-fold or even 1,000-fold below all of these levels," reported Bob Dickey, director of the FDA's Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory. "Nothing ever came close to these levels."
"Huh," you ask?
You see, amigos, more than 70% of federal oil production comes from offshore drilling. Yet 94% of federal offshore acreage remains off-limits to development, according to the American Petroleum Institute.
Environmental superstitions account for most of this exploration ban. Because if bonafide science has crowned "Global Warmists" with 10-foot dunce caps, then over half a century of scientific evidence has crowned anti-offshore drilling activists with 50-foot dunce caps. That offshore oil drilling—far from an environmental disaster, is empirically an environmental bonanza—has been pounded home with a vengeance in study after study. The science, you might say, is settled.
To wit: According to the Energy Information Administration, "Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 17% of total U.S. crude oil production." Yet with over 3,000 of the 4,000 plus offshore oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico off her coast, Louisiana provides almost a third of North America's commercial fisheries.
Astoundingly enough, Hollywood once hailed the environmental benefits of offshore oil drilling. The first offshore oil production platforms went up off the Louisiana coast in 1947. By 1953 Hollywood was already hailing the pioneering wildcatters who moved major mountains – technological, logistical, psychological, cultural – to tap and reap this source that today provides a quarter of America's domestic petroleum.
In the 1953 movie "Thunder Bay," Jimmy Stewart plays the complicated protagonist, Steve Martin, the hard-bitten, ex-navy oil engineer who built the first offshore oil platform off Louisiana in 1947. "The brawling, mauling story of the biggest bonanza of them all!" says the Universal ad for the studio's first wide-screen movie.
Much of the brawling by Stewart and his henchmen was against the local Cajuns who fished and shrimped for a living. Their livelihood, it seemed obvious at the time, would soon vanish amidst a hell-broth of irreversible pollution. The movie covers a time period of barely one year yet ends on a happy note of conciliation as the fishermen reaped a bonanza almost as big as Jimmy's itself. The oil structures had kicked in as artificial reefs and made possible a bigger haul of seafood than anything in these fishermen's lifetimes.
Fast forward half a century, and a study by LSU's sea grant college showed that 70 percent of Louisiana's offshore fishing trips target these structures. "Oil platforms as artificial reefs support fish densities 10 to 1,000 times that of adjacent sand and mud bottom, and almost always exceed fish densities found at both adjacent artificial reefs of other types and natural hard bottom," revealed a study by Dr. Bob Shipp, professor at the Marine Sciences department of the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. "Evidence indicates that massive areas of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico were essentially empty of Red Snapper stocks for the first hundred years of the fishery. Subsequently, areas in the western Gulf have become the major source of red snapper, concurrent with the appearance of thousands of petroleum platforms."
In brief, "villainous" Big Oil produces marine life at rates that puts to shame "wondrous" Earth Goddess Gaia. "The fish biomass around an offshore oil platform is ten times greater per unit area than for natural coral reefs," also found Dr. Charles Wilson of LSU's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Science (emphasis added): "Ten to thirty thousand adult fish live around an oil production platform in an area half the size of a football field."
"Oh, SURE!" comes the Greenie-Weenie retort, "but you're very conveniently 'forgetting' the infamous BP oil spill!"
Glad you mentioned that. Because only one year after the infamous spill, the FDA's Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Seafood Inspection Laboratory, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, along with similar agencies from neighboring Gulf coast states, have methodically and repeatedly tested Gulf seafood for cancer-causing "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons."
"Not a single sample [for oil or dispersant] has come anywhere close to levels of concern," reported Olivia Watkins, executive media advisor for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
"All of the samples have been 100-fold or even 1,000-fold below all of these levels," reported Bob Dickey, director of the FDA's Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory. "Nothing ever came close to these levels."
That will work out find until President Ding Dong’s people find some “threatened” or “endangered” critter on your land. So if you see some unique-looking critter in your oilfield, shoot, shovel and shut up.
Absolutely! Those in the hydraulic fracturing business are not producers. I’m right here in the middle of the Permian Basin and have been an oil and gas producer for many decades. We’re burning the roads up will all types of equipment running around trying to get wells drilled and online. I’ve already completed 4 of 16 wells chosen for re-entries since November. The speed at which they can drill these horizontals is amazing. From building location to selling oil out of the battery in 3-4 months.
Thanks for the info.
“Has oil shale production ramped back up?”
Not to date. Producers are wary of taking on the debt needed to expand operations past a very conservative point. They correctly see the hostile regulatory environment as a business risk.
Removing energy restrictions imposed by Brandon need to be priority 1, 2 and 3. Get to work GOP!
Fed’s showing up in the middle of a boom in West Texas run the risk of being on the Threatened of Endangered species list.
Good news! One dedicated oil and gas man is more patriotic than all the Turds in DC put together.
Drill, frack and open the pipeline, now not later.
Unless we expect to run out of oil soon it’s better to extract, use or sell it while it’s profitable.
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Yes. True dat.
Time to stop attacking Putin and start attacking Democrats.
We need more energy production and we need it now.
No excuses.
The GOP is inept
Word. We have the opportunity to throw as many of these dirtbags (along with weak Republicans) out of office in NOvember. Will we do it?
Pipeline, baby, pipeline.
Starting with finishing the Keystone.
Start with lifting the hundreds of energy restrictions that Brandon has put in place for the past year totally handcuffing domestic production.
Will we do it?
**********
Depends upon how many we’s that are going to vote. Depending
upon the locations it may take a lot more we’s.
The GOP is inept
***********
That may well be true. But who is the replacement and where
do they stand as being able to take over? Right now I don’t
see anyone in place with enough support to take over. Do You?
That too. And those smaller pipelines as well.
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