'Harm' under Endangared Species Act now means direct harm, not indirect, such as habitat loss; many states object

Protection of northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest
under the Endangered Species Act led to the end of logging
in their habitat. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo by Tom Kogut)

"The Trump administration is removing protections from the key places where endangered species live, saying states can keep the areas safe, but experts say states aren’t equipped for the task," Alex Brown reports for Stateline.

On July 10, the administration finalized regulations redefinng the word "harm" in the Endangered Species Act, to make it cover only cases where endangered animals are directly harmed. That ruled out such actvities as "logging projects that would cut old-growth trees where owls build their nests, and agriculture operations that diverted water from streams where salmon return to spawn," Brown explains.

A 2019 study of animals added to the Endangered Species List from 1975 to 2017 "found that only 17 percent of them faced threats from direct killing, while 81 percent faced habitat loss," Brown reports. The change means “You can destroy the resources a species requires as long as you don’t do it when the species is at home,” Karrigan Börk, a law professor and director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California Davis Institute of the Environment, told Brown.

"In public comments after the rule was initially proposed, wildlife agency leaders from both liberal and conservative states said the change would be a blow to their conservation efforts," Brown reports. "Wildlife officials in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont and Wyoming also expressed concern about the loss of habitat protections, as did the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, a nonprofit that represents state wildlife managers. Of the public comments reviewed by Stateline, only Alaska’s wildlife agency leader offered wholehearted support for the change. . . . Even if states were to pass laws and invest in programs to protect wildlife habitat, they would be unable to enforce those measures on federal land."

Federal officials said the change would let states "manage wildlife without burdensome federal regulations," Brown writes.  "But legal experts and wildlife veterans say that almost no states have endangered-species laws on the books that allow state officials to prevent habitat destruction in the name of saving wildlife. . . . Many wildlife experts also noted that state wildlife agencies are already underfunded as it is. Taking on the massive regulatory system that prevents developers and extractive industries from destroying critical habitat would require far more resources than those agencies have available. A coalition of environmental groups and tribal nations have filed lawsuits challenging the federal rollback."

Scientists 'drill, baby, drill,' and find freshwater deep beneath the ocean floor off the North Atlantic coast

The U.S. already faces a freshwater crisis, brought on by drought, higher temperatures, overuse and pollution. But a scientific dig into the North Atlantic seafloor more than 50 years ago could offer a surprising solution. "It found, of all things. . . fresh water," report Calvin Woodward, Carolyn Kaster and Rodrique Ngowi of The Associated Press. 

Fast forward to this summer, when researchers were following up on the past discovery. "A first-of-its-kind global research expedition [is] drilling for fresh water under the salt water off Cape Cod," AP reports. Researchers pulled thousands of water samples from what is now "thought to be a massive, hidden aquifer stretching from New Jersey as far north as Maine."

Do these freshwater troves exist in coastal areas around the globe? Scientists agree that it's likely that the aquifers exist in shallow salt waters around the world. Even so, the "secret fresh water" comes with a litany of challenges, from how to get it to the surface without harming surrounding marine life to questions about who owns it.

As data centers and record heat in some areas rapidly slurp up fresh water, researchers and world leaders are motivated to finance a different kind of drilling. AP reports, "No one globally had drilled systematically into the seabed on a mission to find freshwater."

Under-ocean water samples are being analyzed to discover where they came from, how old they are and what microorganisms thrive in water hidden under the ocean. The discovery and sampling are so dramatic that some scientists are ecstatic. Geophysicist Rob Evans, whose 2015 expedition helped point the way, told AP, “There’s a ton of excitement that finally they’ve got samples.”

A historic first in Alaska may mean drilling in an untouched national refuge; Native Alaskans want a 'seat at the table.'

Map by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder, from Bureau of Land
Management data. Click on map to enlarge.

Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is big, beautiful, and rich in natural resources and biodiversity. It has also been the "focal point of more than six decades of drilling controversy," which will come to a tentative resolution when tracts within the region's 19-million-acre expanse open for oil and gas leases this month, reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. Native Alaskan communities want to be among the decision-makers for the coastal land that "is estimated to contain 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil."

Drilling in ANWR has never been done before. The region is home to "charismatic species like polar bears, wolves, and the caribou that are sacred to the Gwich’in, a Northwestern Alaska tribe," Melotte writes. "Oil and gas operations elicit mixed responses from Alaskan Natives. . . Some worry that drilling activity will hurt vulnerable wildlife and subsistence living, others say the oil and gas industry funds important infrastructure for their communities."

The coastal region, also known as the North Slope Borough, receives 95% of its total budget from oil and gas development taxation. Reservation members also depend on shareholder income regional corporations generate and pay out to Alaskan Natives. The Artic Slope Regional Corporation serves as an example. The company "has over 13,000 shareholders who receive dividends," Melotte notes. "Since its establishment in 1972, the ASRC has distributed more than $1 billion in dividends."

"Many leaders of the Iñupiat, an indigenous people native to Alaska’s North Slope Borough, say that oil and gas operations can be good for native communities if conducted responsibly," Melotte reports. Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a nonprofit organization that advocates for Alaska’s Iñupiat people, told Melotte, "Before oil and gas, you couldn't graduate high school and stay in the North Slope. Now there are K-12 schools in every North Slope village."

Harcharek used a past North Slope drilling project to help explain how Native Alaskans want to be included in drilling activity and practices. Melotte writes, "He said they were consulted 'early and often' in the decision-making process. . . . He said they want to be included before decisions are announced publicly."

Despite Alaska's rich natural resources, many Alaskan Natives live in poverty and still hunt for food, and drilling activities could interfere with their reliance on wild game. "Hunting is more than just a hobby in many native villages with high poverty rates," Melotte writes. "Hunting is a method of survival, said Dr. A.L. Lovecraft, professor of Political Science and director of the Center for Arctic Policy Studies at the University of Alaska. '[Drilling] also comes with all of this other baggage... Problems related to health, indoor health, indoor air quality, outdoor air quality.'"

Bound by a passion to protect a 'pristine corner of Colorado,' this 'ragtag organization' helped change government policy

A hiker enjoys the White River National Forest, which overlaps
with the Thompson Divide. (Adobe Stock photo)

A shared passion for protecting Colorado's Thompson Divide brought together a group of people with few other interests in common. "The drilling leases in a pristine corner of Colorado seemed like a done deal. But then an unlikely alliance of cowboys and environmentalists emerged. And things changed," reports Zoë Rom for The New York Times. "Their campaign could serve as a model for future environmental efforts."

Located in west-central Colorado, the Thompson Divide "overlaps with part of the White River National Forest, one of the most visited national forests in the U.S.," Rom explains. The area is also "home to endangered lynxes and one of the expansive organisms in the world: the state’s largest Aspen stand, a colony of trees connected by a lateral root system."

The region is beloved by hikers, conservationists, ranchers, cyclists and snowmobilers, some of whom formed "the self-described ragtag organization" now known as the Thompson Divide Coalition, Rom writes. The coalition added legal assistance from Peter Hart, legal director for Wilderness Workshop, a nonprofit environmental group in Carbondale, Colorado. Together the movement developed "a novel legal strategy that helped win a 20-year pause on new oil and gas development across the area."

Originally, the group tried and failed to buy back the 80-some oil and gas leases the Bush Administration had issued on the Thompson Divide. When leaseholders turned down the the coalition's offers, Hart's legal team scrutinized the sales. There they found "that the federal government’s haste to issue leases had left them with vulnerabilities," Rom reports. "For one thing, opportunities for public comment during the leasing process appeared to be inadequate, an apparent violation of the National Environmental Policy Act."

More legal digging led to "administrative challenges, which eventually sent one leaseholder to federal court against the Bureau of Land Management," Rom explains. With the lease's legal and administrative problems exposed, "leaseholders who had declined to sell were now eyeing the exits in light of potential legal complications and public discontent around drilling."

New Bureau of Land Management rule puts conservation work 'on equal footing' with commercial land uses

Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management via the Montana Free Press

Five years ago, leasing land for conservation purposes wasn't allowed, but leasing it for commercial uses was. A new Bureau of Land Management rule has changed that dynamic. "The BLM adopted a long-awaited rule that aims to put conservation initiatives 'on equal footing' with oil and gas leasing, grazing and other commercial uses of federal land," reports Amanda Eggert of the Montana Free Press. "This shift by the country's largest land manager has been applauded by conservation and environmental organizations and criticized by oil and gas and agricultural groups."

The rule intends to "allow the BLM to lease land for 'restoration' and 'mitigation.' The agency said these leases will help it meet water security, biodiversity and climate objectives," Eggert writes. White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory said in a release, "From the most rugged backcountry spots to popular close-to-home recreation areas, these reforms will help deliver cleaner water, healthier lands, abundant wildlife, and more recreation opportunities for all of us."

The Business for Montana's Outdoors and The Wilderness Society applauded the rules, while the Western Energy Alliance criticized it as government overreach. WEA President Kathleen Sgamma told Eggert, "There are hundreds of millions of acres set aside for wilderness and national parks. . . . But there are also working landscapes all across the West that provide food, fuel and fiber for all Americans." Eggert adds, "She anticipates her group will file a lawsuit to overturn the rule."

Eggert reports, "The BLM manages more than eight million acres in Montana, making it the state's second-largest land manager behind the U.S. Forest Service. . . . The agency received more than 216,000 comments on the proposal during a 90-day public comment period it initiated last spring."

New rule increases royalties for oil and gas companies that drill on public lands; bond will be at least 15 times more

The Interior Department worked to bring oil and gas management
into the 21st century. Drillers are angry. (Photo by J. Evans, Unsplash)

 

For decades, companies that  drilled on public lands for oil paid the federal government small royalties and spent little on cleanup funding, but that era is about to change. "A suite of regulatory changes from the Bureau of Land Management will increase royalties on oil and stiffen cleanup requirements," reports Heather Richards of E & E News. "The rule caps a multiyear effort by the Interior Department to 'modernize' how the U.S. manages vast resources of oil and natural gas under public lands in states like Wyoming and New Mexico."

Initially, President Joe Biden planned to end drilling on public lands "to shrink the future footprint of the nation’s oil program. . . but he retreated due to legal setbacks early in office," Richards writes. "The rule requires a minimum bond for drilling a federal lease that's 15 times higher than the previous minimum of $10,000. Environmental groups and government watchdogs like the Government Accountability Office have asked BLM for years for stronger bonding requirements to cover decommissioning costs of wells and pipelines when they are abandoned."

The new rule angered drillers who "are already panning the rule as an attack on their industry and threatening to sue," Richards reports. "The final rule suggests the Bureau of Land Management will have a higher responsibility to limit oil and gas in areas that are considered valuable for wildlife or recreation by prioritizing leasing in areas with greater oil potential. Oil companies nominate lands for lease, but BLM decides what acres are ultimately offered for sale."

Environmental advocates praised the action as a good stewardship plan. Emily Olsen, vice president of the Rocky Mountain Region for Trout Unlimited, told Richards, "Energy development and conservation need not be mutually exclusive. The BLM is prioritizing energy development where it will have the fewest resource impacts."

Interior Dept. proposes restrictions on mining, energy work, grazing in 'sagebrush sea' to protect greater sage-grouse

Bureau of Land Management map; for a larger version, click on it. For more maps and the whole plan, click here.

The bird's mating dance (Photo by Bob Wick, BLM)

The Bureau of Land Management proposed Thursday to save the greater sage-grouse "by limiting oil and gas drilling, mining, livestock grazing and other activities across much of the American West," reports Maxine Joselow of The Washington Post. That "sets up a fierce clash with the fossil-fuel industry, which has long seen the bird as a barrier to extracting some of the richest oil and gas reserves in the region."

The BLM's draft plan "outlines several alternatives for managing nearly 67 million acres of the birds’ habitat across 10 Western states," the Post reports. "The 'preferred alternative' would restore some restrictions on drilling and other activities that the Obama administration imposed in 2015, although it would maintain some elements of the Trump administration’s 2019 strategy." Those plans weren't fully implemented because of court action.

The greater sage-grouse — known for its mating dance — numbers as many as 200,000 and is not listed as threatened or endangered but there were once a million. In 2015, the Fish and Wildlife Service, another arm of the Interior Department, said that was unnecessary because the Obama-era plan would protect it enough. "Since then, congressional Republicans have inserted provisions into must-pass spending bills to prevent a future listing," the Post reports. "Much of the birds’ habitat, known as the 'sagebrush sea,' has been destroyed by huge wildfires and an invasive plant called cheatgrass. Climate change has hastened the habitat loss, since fires have spread more easily through a warmer, drier landscape parched by a two-decade megadrought.”

Publicly at least, energy groups took a wait-and-see attitude, noting variations among areas, while "Conservation groups offered a mixed reaction to the draft plan," the Post reports. "Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, called it the 'last best hope' to save the sage grouse. But Vera Smith, senior federal lands policy analyst at Defenders of Wildlife, said the proposal does not go far enough. . . . . Although sage grouse regulations have rankled the oil and gas industry, they could also curtail clean-energy projects essential to the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels. Such projects include wind farms, solar installations, and mines for minerals used in electric vehicles and other green technologies. That poses a conundrum for the Biden administration, which has set a goal of permitting 25,000 megawatts of renewable energy on federal lands by 2025 — a key pillar of its climate agenda."

States having issues with federal program to plug orphan oil and gas wells: not enough pluggers, new rules from Interior

Crude oil, water, chemicals and probably methane leak from an orphaned well’s

borehole in West Texas. (Photo by Shelby Webb, Energy & Environment News)

The federal government has $4.7 billion to plug orphaned oil and gas wells, "but the new federal money is creating logistical and regulatory challenges . . . raising many questions about whether the money will live up to its promise," Shelby Webb reports for Energy & Environment News.

"Some officials say they are having a hard time finding enough crews to plug the wells under the timelines dictated by the federal funds, and available workers are charging higher prices than originally anticipated," Webb reports. "Many orphaned wells also remain undiscovered, putting pressure on states to develop new methods for finding and plugging them."

The latest hiccup is the Interior Department's new rules for the grant money, which it announced last week. They "will require states to track methane emissions, develop screening processes to check for groundwater pollution and prioritize plugging wells near historically underserved communities," Webb reports. "However, Lori Wrotenbery, executive director of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, said in an email that Interior cannot require states to track methane or groundwater pollution and can instead only tell states they are 'expected' or 'encouraged' to do so. The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission represents all but one of the 26 states that have been deemed eligible to receive the federal orphaned well plugging funds."

The Interior Department told Webb that while methane and water-pollution measurements were encouraged in its initial grants, they are now “requirements.”

Webb writes, "There may be as many as 800,000 orphaned wells across the country, according to some estimates. In 2021, states reported 126,806 to the Department of Interior, although many experts say that number vastly understates the problem. Along with being eyesores, the wells may be polluting groundwater and are estimated to be the 10th largest source of methane emissions in the U.S., according to a study by McGill University in Canada."

Feds want to allow leasing of federal land for conservation; critics call it a back-door attack on grazing, mining, drilling

Cattle graze along a section of the Missouri River in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument near Fort Benton, Montana. Much federal land in the West is used for grazing. (Photo by Matthew Brown, The Associated Press)

The Biden administration's plan to sell leases of federal land for conservation, just like it does for "oil drilling, livestock grazing and other interests," has drawn "pushback from Republicans and ranchers," reports Matthew Brown of The Associated Press. 

"The proposal is stirring debate over the best use of public land, primarily in the West," Brown writes. "Opponents . . . are blasting it as a backdoor way to exclude mining, energy development and agriculture. Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the Bureau of Land Management, said the proposed changes address rising pressure from climate change and development. She said it would make conservation an 'equal' to grazing, drilling and other uses while not interfering with them."

The bureau, part of the Interior Department, "has a history of industry-friendly policies for the 380,000 square miles it oversees, an area more than twice the size of California," Brown writes. "Those holdings put the agency at the center of arguments over how much development should be allowed." At the first virtual public meeting about the proposal, "There was no opportunity for public comment, and the agency screened questions . . . Officials acknowledged receiving numerous queries about grazing and drilling potentially being excluded. Brian St. George, acting assistant director for the bureau, said the conservation leases would not 'lock up land in perpetuity'."

Stone-Manning said conservation-leased property could still be used for hunting or recreation. "Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada — where the federal land bureau controls about two-thirds of the land — urged the administration to work with ranchers and farmers before finalizing the proposal."

Decline in output of nation's largest oil region signals the fracking-driven U.S. oil boom is at its peak, or just past it

Wikipedia map, adapted, highlights Culbertson County

The U.S. oil boom created by horizontal hydraulic fracturing of deep shale beds "is nearing its peak" if it hasn't passed it already, report Collin Eaton and Benoit Morenne of The Wall Street Journal.

"Frackers are hitting fewer big gushers in the Permian Basin, America’s busiest oil patch, the latest sign they have drained their catalog of good wells. Shale companies’ biggest and best wells are producing less oil," the Journal reports. "The average well put out 6% less oil than the prior year, according to an analysis of data from analytics firm Novi Labs."

More recent results from the basin, which stretches across New Mexico and west Texas, "are mimicking the onset of a production plateau that has taken place at other, more mature U.S. shale plays," the Journal reports. "Chevron, one of the largest landholders in the Permian, drilled some of the region’s most prolific wells in Culberson County, Texas, but some of its newer wells there have seen productivity decline. . . . Chevron executives said last week the company missed its oil-production target" in the richest section of the basin. . . Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth said last week the rate of production growth and drilling activity the U.S. shale industry saw a decade ago 'is unlikely to be repeated,' though the Permian still has areas that haven’t been developed."

Latest set of methane-emission rules seeks to curb waste and prevent harmful leaks on public lands

Shots with a regular camera (left) and with an infrared camera (right)
to reveal methane leaks. (Screenshots from NYT video by Jonah Kessel)

The Biden administration has delivered on its promises to crack down on methane leaks on public lands, "Washington's latest move to crack down on emissions of the potent greenhouse gas," Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom report for Reuters.

The proposal intends to "complement new rules the U.S. government already proposed for the industry on private land," they report. "It would place monthly limits on flaring and require oil and gas companies to undertake methane leak detection programs for operations on federal lands," which produce almost a tenth of U.S. oil and gas.

The proposed rules received some industry push-back: "The issue is not as cut and dried as this regulation would make it seem, as there are many reasons to vent and flare gas, such as safety concerns and connectivity" to pipelines said Mallori Miller, vice president of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

But "There’s no reason for oil and gas companies to waste a publicly owned resource, much less a powerful greenhouse gas like methane," said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental group.

"The rules will cost oil and gas companies around $122 million per year to implement but will give them $55 million per year of recovered gas," Volcovici and Nichola Groom write, per BLM. "That gas will also boost royalty revenues paid to U.S. coffers by $39 million per year."

Methane is the main component of natural gas and tends to leak into the atmosphere from drill sites and pipelines. It is about 80 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide during a 20-year timeframe, but disappears from the atmosphere about 10 times as quickly as CO2, which lasts about 200 years.

EPA aims to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas facilities

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a regulation Friday "that agency officials said would, by 2035, lower the amount of methane emissions from oil and gas operations by 36 million tons — more than the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from all coal-fired power plants in a single year," The New York Times reports. Methane is "a greenhouse gas that scientists say is one of the most powerful contributors to climate change."

"The rule is part of a global effort led by the United States to control methane," the Times notes. "Although the pollutant gets far less attention than carbon dioxide, it is 80 times more powerful at heating the atmosphere in the short run. Last year, more than 100 countries joined a coalition led by the United States and Europe to cut 30 percent of methane emissions by 2030. This year, U.S. leaders are leaning on other countries to produce their plans for making good on their pledge."

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said, “We must lead by example when it comes to tackling methane pollution, one of the biggest drivers of climate change.” The proposed regulation buts flesh on the bones of the agency's existing plan to reduce methane emissions, and is the hand in the glove of the tax-and-climate bill Congress passed recently, which includes "money to stop methane leaking from oil wells, pipelines and other sources," the Times notes. "The new law includes fines of up to $1,500 per ton of methane released, to be imposed on the worst polluters. There also is $1.55 billion in the package to help companies avoid those fines by upgrading equipment."

The proposed regulation would require more monitoring and reporting by oil and gas operators, and require them to respond to credible third-party reports of significant leaks from their sites.

Interior announces first phase of grants to stop methane leaks from oil and gas wells, totaling $560 million; rural jobs!

Advocates of measures to fight climate change argue that the actions will create jobs, but most of those are likely to be in urban areas that have advanced manufacturing. But one aspect of the infrastructure bill that Congress passed this spring seems likely to do more for rural areas.

That is the $4.7 billion that the bill appropriated for plugging old oil and gas wells that are leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The Interior Department announced Thursday that 24 states will share the money. "Thursday’s funding is part of a phase-one investment of $1.15 billion," The Hill reports. "Officials say there are more than 129,000 abandoned oil and gas wells across the country."

In Kentucky, which is estimated to have up to 14,000 unplugged or leaking wells, the state will get $25 million to plug up to 1,200 in the first phase, and estimates that the work will create 180 jobs. "Kansas has more than 2,300 wells and Oklahoma has about 1,196" in the first phase, Brad Drees of The Hill reports. "Six states, including California, Mississippi and West Virginia, will begin measuring methane emissions at wells they plug up and remediate."

Interior opens federal land for new drilling but raises fees

"The Interior Department announced on Friday plans to hold its first onshore oil and gas lease sales since President Biden took office," Anna Phillips reports for The Washington Post. "The department said it plans to open roughly 144,000 acres up for lease next week and will charge oil and gas companies higher royalties to drill on federal land, raising the fees for the first time. Under the plans unveiled Friday, royalty rates would increase to 18.75 percent from 12.5 percent for oil and gas lease sales. The long-awaited announcement follows a report the department issued last fall, which called for royalty fees to be more in line with the higher rates charged by most private landowners and major oil- and gas-producing states."

Matthew Brown reports for The Associated Press, "Friday’s announcement comes amid pressure for Biden to expand U.S. crude production as the pandemic and war in Ukraine roil the global economy and fuel prices have spiked. The Democrat faces calls from within his own party to do more to curb emissions from fossil fuels that are driving climate change."

 

The announcement angered climate activists and violates a campaign promise not to allow any more drilling on federal lands. Biden tried to follow through on that promise, and suspended new leasing a week after taking office to give Interior time to create a report on the state of the leasing programs. But a federal judge in Louisiana ordered the administration to resume the sales, Brown reports.

"In opening new land for drilling, while at the same time requiring companies to pay more to drill, Biden appears to be trying to walk a line between trying to both lower gas prices and fight climate change," Coral Davenport reports for The New York Times. "While Biden came into office with the most ambitious climate-change agenda of any president in history, his climate policies have been largely stalled, stymied by inaction in Congress."

Interior may make make oil, gas companies pay more to drill on federal lands; wouldn't affect home energy costs much

The Interior Department announced plans Friday to make oil and gas companies pay more to drill public lands and waters. The federal leasing program is outdated, fails to serve taxpayers, and worsens climate change, said an18-page report from the department.

"The document calls for increasing the government’s royalty rate — the 12.5 percent of profits fossil-fuel developers must pay to the federal government in exchange for drilling on public lands — to be more in line with the higher rates charged by most private landowners and major oil- and gas-producing states," Sarah Kaplan reports for The Washington Post. "It also makes the case for raising the bond companies must set aside for cleanup before they begin new development." Raising the royalty rate could generate between $1 billion and $2 billion a year annually, and wouldn't significantly impact energy prices for American households.

The report focuses on fiscal rather than environmental benefits of updating the law, but "Interior officials say they will also consider how to incorporate the real-world toll of climate change into the price of permits for new fossil fuel extraction," Kaplan reports. "Economic analyses suggest the changes to royalty and bonding rates will increase revenue, but they will not significantly curb carbon emissions." That's because "Less than 10 percent of oil and gas produced in the United States comes from Interior-controlled land, and cuts to U.S. production will be partly offset by increases in other countries."

Interested parties on both sides of the issue expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal. A representative of the American Petroleum Institute said it would increase the cost of production, Kaplan reports. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Center for Biological Diversity noted that one-third of Americans experienced a disaster driven by climate change this summer, and called for the Biden administration to end drilling on public lands rather than reform it.

The administration is under pressure to deliver on President Biden's campaign promises to protect the environment, especially after the recent United Nations climate agreement. "Even as he has come under criticism for not moving quickly or boldly enough to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs in a greener economy and alleviate pollution impacting poor and minority communities, Biden has continued to pursue swaths of his climate agenda," Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and John Muyskens note for the Post. "Less than a year after taking the oath of office, Biden has now targeted half of Donald Trump’s energy and environmental policies." Click here for the Post's frequently updated list of the Biden administration's environmental actions.

New system categorizes rural census tracts by their assets; chief designer in online event Wednesday afternoon

Census tracts in nonmetropolitan counties, categorized (Urban Institute map; click on the image to enlarge it)

The federal government measures rurality in several ways, such as population, commuting destination, and market areas. But the nonprofit Urban Institute concluded that most federal definitions tend to focus on what rural areas don't have (i.e., population and/or proximity to cities) rather than reflecting the wide variety of rural resources and economic drivers. So it created a new system of categorizing rural America that aims to reflect such assets.

Most data analyses of rural areas rely on county-level data, which "can fall short in describing rural realities," so the new typology uses census tracts "that may have different assets and strengths than what overall county data might show," Corianne Scally, the lead researcher, told The Daily Yonder. "Our typology compares rural areas to one another and leaves out urban ones. This allows diverse rural realities to stand out more clearly."

At the same time, any such system of categorization has its pitfalls, "and a close look at some of the categorizations illustrates that," said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog. "Many rural census tracts are so small that categorizing them can be tricky. In this case, most of south-central Kentucky, where I grew up, is categorized as 'remote, energy-rich tracts' though they have no coal and most of their oil and gas production has faded in recent years."

Scally told Yonder Editor Tim Marema, "Even if we could perfectly capture the spirit of the framework nationally with numbers, they don’t provide the needed nuanced context of local histories and capacities someone would need to make well-informed decisions on investments and supports." Marema writes, "The new typology defines different groups of rural communities based on a wide range of physical, financial, environmental, and social assets. The hope is that the assets-based analysis will guide how public and private institutions can invest most effectively in rural communities." Essentially, the new system superimposes Purdue University's Community Capitals Framework divisions onto census tracts in nonmetropolitan counties (based on the U.S. Agriculture Department's rural-urban continuum). 

Scally will be among the speakers at an Urban Institute online event, “What Does It Take to Transform Persistent Rural Poverty into Opportunity?” from 2:30 to 3:30 ET Wednesday, Oct. 13.

Biden restores Bears Ears and other national monuments to Obama-declared sizes and protections, reversing Trump

Bears Ears National Monument in Utah (Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey)

"President Biden on Friday restored full protections to three national monuments that had been slashed in size by former president Donald Trump, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah — known for their stunning desert landscapes and historical treasures of Native American art and settlements, as well as a rich fossil record," Joshua Partlow reports for The Washington Post.

Invoking the 1906 Antiquities Act, "Biden used an executive order to protect 1.36 million acres in Bears Ears — slightly larger than the original boundary that President Barack Obama established in 2016 — while also restoring the 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante monument," Partlow reports. "Biden also reimposed fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument . . . off the coast of New England that Trump had opened to commercial fishing."

President Biden campaigned on restoring protection to the monuments, and in June Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recommended that Biden do so, but conservationists and tribal activists had become frustrated that he hadn't done it yet, Partlow reports.

"Biden’s decision on the monuments, while expected, remains controversial, particularly in Utah. Miners are interested in the area for its stores of uranium and other minerals. Ranchers also use the land for grazing cattle. The area is popular with tourists, RV campers and those who ride off-road vehicles," Partlow reports. "Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) and the state’s congressional delegation have argued that land use rules for the area should be established by legislation, rather than executive order, to avoid regular changes to the boundaries by future presidents."

Permian Basin wells leak huge amounts of methane; plugging them could help slow climate change

A tank battery near Big Spring, Texas, spews methane through an open hatch, visible only with infrared cameras. (Photo and video by Sharon Wilson; image on right is a screenshot of the video, in which the gas emission is more apparent.)

A recent United Nations climate report stressed the need to cut back fossil-fuels emissions to stave off the worst effects of climate change. A Harvard University postdoctoral student's research found that one measure could go a long way toward doing that: find and plug methane leaks in hydraulic fracturing wells in Texas and New Mexico, Zachary Mider reports for Bloomberg Businessweek.

Yuzhong Zhang, now at Westlake University in China, found that fracking operations in the Permian Basin were dumping 2.9 million metric tons of methane into the air each year, enough to negate most of the environmental gain from burning natural gas instead of coal. "By one measure, that cloud of gas is contributing as much to global warming as Florida—every power plant, motorboat, and minivan in the state," Mider reports. "Identifying and plugging these leaks could do more to slow climate change than almost any other single measure. Unlike carbon, methane breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere. That means efforts to curtail it can pay off within a generation."

Permian Basin (Bloomberg map)

One recent estimate found that reducing human-caused methane emissions could stave off nearly one-third of the global warming expected in the next few decades without having to cut overall consumption or invent new technology. That would involve plugging leaky wells and reducing emissions from other sources such as landfills and cattle feedlots, Mider reports. But plugging Permian oil and gas wells could offer the biggest payoff for the least money.

Though companies such as BP have significantly reduced their emissions, state and federal laws haven't really forced drillers to take action. That's changing, little by little. A federal methane rule, which applied to a limited number of oil facilities, was restored this year after being gutted by the Trump administration. "Now the Environmental Protection Agency is crafting a rule that would apply to more wells," Mider reports. 

And "Senate Democrats plan to include a 'methane polluter fee' in their $3.5 trillion budget resolution that would hit energy producers that vent or burn off excess methane and compressors used to pressurize and transport natural gas," Ximena Bustillo reports for Politico's Weekly Agriculture.

At the state level, the New Mexico Environment Department is phasing in limits on flaring and methane. Texas has not taken significant action on either front, Mider reports.

And, as Inside Climate News notes, Texas is diverting one-third of the money meant for clean-air initiatives to widening highways in order to reduce congestion. Vehicle licensing and sales fees and surcharges generate as much as $250 million a year for that fund. The state has about $2 billion in unspent funds meant to mitigate air pollution.

Biden bid to save prairie chickens could spark oil-patch fight

A lesser prairie chicken
(USFWS photo by Greg Kramos)

"The Biden administration called for new protections under the Endangered Species Act for an iconic bird of the Great Plains on Wednesday, a move with major consequences for the oil and gas industry," Joshua Partlow and Juliet Eilperin report for The Washington Post.

"U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials proposed listing as endangered a portion of the lesser prairie chicken’s population living in Texas and New Mexico, whose range overlaps with the oil- and gas-rich Permian Basin," the Post reports. "The agency stopped short of awarding the same protections to the birds’ northern population, in Oklahoma and Kansas, on the grounds that their numbers had declined less drastically. The decision, one of nearly two dozen new conservation measures the administration has adopted in the past four months, underscores President Biden’s push to unravel his predecessor’s environmental policies."

The move echoes the years-long battle over the sage grouse, a similarly oddball-looking cousin of the lesser prairie chicken that also nests on prime drilling land.

Biden workgroup calls for broadband, reallocation of federal aid, to boost areas most hurt by fossil-fuel job losses

Map highlighting areas highly dependent on fossil-energy activities and jobs

In January President Biden appointed an interagency working group to study how to boost local economies in areas hurt by a decline in fossil-fuel jobs such as mining, drilling, processing, refining, and power generation. Its first report, released earlier this week, "calls for more spending on high-speed internet, environmental clean-up and other efforts to create jobs," Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The report did not propose any new pots of money to accomplish those goals. Rather, it identified more than $37 billion in existing funding that could be used for projects in 'energy communities' affected by the job losses."

The group recommends prioritizing coal-reliant communities for federal aid, and identifies the 25 most in need of aid; the top four are all in Central Appalachia. It also recommends prioritizing tribal energy communities and "fenceline communities," those near energy or industrial facilities. Their residents are often people of color and disproportionately exposed to pollution and other environmental impacts from such facilities, but without the benefit of energy employment, the report says.

The report also recommends a series of town-hall meetings in affected communities within the next three months to hear residents' perspectives and ideas. The group's next steps include increasing federal funding and identifying ways to ensure that funding makes it to energy communities. "The group also expects to compile a list of projects that could be funded, and is supposed to set up a 'one-stop shop' for energy communities seeking access to federal help," Estep reports.