Evidence of a striking shift in public opinion has begun to crystalize over the last few months: Poll after poll is finding staunch majorities of Americans view global warming as a “serious problem” and that human activity is a major driving cause.

In defiance of received Beltway wisdom, voters even told a recent Yale poll that a candidate’s views on global warming will affect their vote, and that the issue should be a top priority for the President and the Congress. Majorities have even stated that when it comes to deficit reduction, they prefer a tax on carbon emissions to cuts in education, Social Security, Medicare, or environmental protection.

Yesterday, Pew Research released new poll research that re-confirms the trend. When asked to choose between developing “alternative sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen” and expanding “exploration and production of oil, coal and natural” gas as their preferred priority for addressing America’s energy needs, 54 percent of Americans went with alternative energy. Only 34 percent chose continued prioritization of fossil fuels. That’s a drop from the 63 percent high in 2011, but an uptick over the 52 percent response last year.

Furthermore, Independents and Democrats were largely in concert, preferring alternative energy sources by 64 and 59 percent, respectively. Only 33 percent of Republicans went with solar and wind, in contrast to the 54 percent who preferred expanded fossil fuel use. But the distance between the two positions within the Republican group was smaller than the distance in the other two collections of voters.

And that wasn’t all. 62 percent of overall voters favored “setting stricter emission limits on power plants to address climate change,” with Democrats once again taking that position by a wide margin of 72 percent, and Independents coming in at a lower-but-still-impressive 64 percent. Republicans opposed the stricter standards by a 48 percent majority, but were again much more evenly split — the minority of GOP voters who favored the emissions limits close at the majority’s heels with 42 percent.

The age divide also stood out: Voters 18 to 29 supported alternative energy by a whopping 71 percent, and it wasn’t until voters crossed the age 65 that majorities flipped in favor of coal, oil and natural gas expansion.

And if the recent behavior and pronouncements of top lawmakers are any indication, this shift in the national mood is being felt. Newly minted Secretary of State John Kerry, who will shortly decide the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, declared in his first big speech since his confirmation that, “We as a nation must have the foresight and courage to make the investments necessary to safeguard the most sacred trust we keep for our children and grandchildren: an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly superstorms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate.” President Obama came out swinging on the issue of climate change in both his Second Inaugural address and the State of the Union speech calling for new renewable electricity and energy efficiency targets, and warming that “if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations [from climate change] I will.”

The latest signs from the White House are that Obama may very well use his executive authority to limit the carbon existing power plants may emit, on top of the regulations the Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing for new power plants.

Oil drilling in Utah's Uinta Basin. (Photo: S. Winterton, Deseret Morning News)

By Tom Kenworthy

Extensive oil and gas drilling in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah produces the great majority of the chemical air pollution that produces winter ozone in that rural region, a new interagency study has concluded.

“An emissions inventory developed for the study indicates that oil and gas operations were responsible for 98 to 99 percent of” volatile organic compounds “and 57 to 61 percent of” nitrogen oxides in the basin, the study concluded. Those substances combine in the presence of sunshine to produce ozone, which a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency links to heart and lung diseases and mortality.

The Utah study, conducted by Utah state and federal agencies and three universities, collected data on pollutants last winter. The study said that ozone formation occurs in the region in about half of winter seasons, with severe ozone occurring about one year in four. It said that transport of ozone-producing chemicals from outside the Uinta Basin “is not likely to represent a major contribution to peak ozone events.”

At the press conference announcing the study results, the deputy director of Utah’s Air Quality Administration said ozone levels this year have at times exceeded 130 parts per billion in the basin, far above the 75 parts per billion level considered a health hazard by EPA.

The Utah study follows a recent investigation into ozone in Colorado which found that more than half of the ozone producing chemicals came from oil and gas operations in a community in Weld County, a region that has nearly 20,000 operating oil and gas wells.

Ozone has been a frequent problem during summer months in urban areas of the United States. Wintertime ozone in heavily developed oil and gas regions of the West, including northeastern Utah and western Wyoming, is a relatively new phenomenon fueled in part by snow cover that reflects sunlight and temperature inversions.

The Utah study said that new rules from the EPA requiring so-called “green completions” of oil and gas wells will reduce emissions of VOC’s. A study sponsored by the oil and gas industry criticized that effort, contending it would sharply reduce production.

The Utah study also recommended additional studies to develop ways of reducing ozone in the Uinta Basin. But Brock LeBaron, the deputy head of the state air quality administration, said the state plans no new regulations on the oil and gas industry, favoring instead voluntary steps by energy developers.

“Right now we’re not passing any new rules or regulations,” LeBaron said, according to a report in E&E’s Energy Wire. “We’re not saying you have to control these VOCs from this piece of equipment.”

Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

On Monday, USA Today reported that the price of gasoline hit $3.60 a gallon for the first time since October — an early start in comparison to the usual price rise seen in the spring. The increase occurred despite world oil production climbing to 88.8 million barrels per day in 2012, about 2 million barrels higher than two years ago according to the Washington Post’s Brad Plumer. And about half of that increased production is due to an oil boom in the United States that’s driven imported oil to its lowest level since 1987.

That increased oil production will bring down gas prices is one of the most reliable Republican canards when it comes to energy, so what gives?

As Plumer points out, “The big thing to remember is that oil prices are a function of both supply and demand. If world demand for oil rises faster than producers can pump the stuff out, prices will go up.” Plumer cites a piece by James Hamilton of UC San Diego, which shows China’s consumption of oil is booming, and that the world economy as a whole is growing apace — and thus demanding more oil — even as fuel efficiency increases.

Technically, the world isn’t even producing enough oil to keep pace with the rise in global incomes. Oil supply has risen by 2.3 percent since 2010. But the world economy has grown by 7.1 percent since then. The only reason that oil prices haven’t soared to record highs, Hamilton points out, is that countries have been undertaking new conservation measures. Americans, for instance, are buying more fuel-efficient cars in droves.

Granted, oil prices would almost certainly be even higher than they are now without the drilling boom over the past two years in places like North Dakota. But at this point, the extra drilling is struggling to keep up with the pace of global economic growth.

Here are the global production and consumption numbers for the last few years from the U.S. Energy Information Agency (note the numbers to the left start at 84,000 thousand barrels per day):

And despite forecasts from BP and the International Energy Agency that domestic and global oil production will continue rising, Plumer notes that high gas prices aren’t going away anytime soon:

The [IEA] recently projected that U.S. oil production would continue rising through 2020 and beyond, as companies extract more “unconventional” oil from shale rock and other sources. But global demand was also expected to rise 35 percent between now and 2035, with China on pace to become the largest oil consumer in the world in the next two decades.

And that’s the optimistic scenario. Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, a geophysical sciences professor at the University of Chicago and a lead author on the third IPCC Assessment Report, recently pointed out in Slate that while going after unconventional oil remains profitable, and thus likely to continue, it requires ever greater effort to retrieve the same amounts of oil:

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NRDC President Frances Beinecke. (Photo credit: Matt Greenslade/photo-nyc.com)

By Tom Kenworthy

The head of the Natural Resources Defense Council appeared before a Senate committee looking into the implications of the nation’s shale gas revolution yesterday. Frances Beinecke issued a compelling appeal for tougher federal oversight of the oil and gas industry and its drilling practices that have raised widespread concerns about public health and safety.

“I have never seen a single issue that has frightened, antagonized and activated people across this country like the practice of fracking,” NRDC president Beinecke told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Referring to the industry practice of stimulating oil and gas production by injecting a mix of chemicals, water and sand into underground rock formations, Beinecke said:

“Families are angered and frustrated by their inability to control fracking in their towns, and sometimes on their own property. They want to know that their water is safe, their air is clean and their lands and farms are protected. They want to know their children are healthy.”

Beinecke’s comments captured a troubling truth for the oil and gas industry, which to a large extent has been caught off guard by the mounting public hostility to fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. Fracking is now used in the vast majority of drilling operations and has opened up vast new domestic reserves of oil and gas previously locked in shale formations. As Beinecke noted, a December Bloomberg poll found that 66 percent of U.S. respondents believe there should be more aggressive government oversight of fracking, a majority that surged by ten points in just the previous three months.

While the industry favors the current patchwork of state regulation, Beinecke said states have neither the technical ability nor the political will to adequately protect the public from ill effects of drilling that can include air and groundwater pollution, hazardous wastes, and carbon pollution from methane leaks.

In addition, as other groups like the Center for American Progress have pointed out, Beinecke said that numerous oil and gas exemptions from bedrock national environmental laws make federal oversight also insufficient. “There is simply no justification for exempting fracking from the basic environmental laws that have applied to other industrial activities for four decades,” she said in written testimony, noting exemptions enjoyed by oil and gas from statutes such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act among others.

She also called on the federal Bureau of Land Management, which oversees drilling on some 700 million acres of federal land and other properties where the federal government controls the mineral rights, to toughen pending fracking rules that now appear to be in the process of getting watered down. The BLM, she said, “may be going in exactly the wrong direction.”

That concern was also raised last week by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who chairs the Senate energy panel. In a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Wyden urged that he ensure a “properly constructed rule with sound requirements for public disclosure, well integrity, and monitoring.”

Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By Tom Kenworthy

When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, power plants are the 800-pound gorilla in the room. But a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that oil and natural gas are a pretty sizable monkey on our climate back as well.

Reporting for the first time on GHGs from petroleum and natural gas systems, the EPA this week said that the oil and gas sector ranked second in emissions to power plants, releasing 225 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2011. More than a third of that came from methane, the main constituent of natural gas, and a far more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide.

The oil and gas sector was responsible for 40 percent of total U.S. methane emissions. In terms of greenhouse gas equivalent, the sector’s overall emissions were only about 1/10^th those of power plants.

Emissions from petroleum and natural gas systems come from a range of activities from drilling oil and gas wells both onshore and offshore, and the processing, transmission, storage and distribution of natural gas.

This was the second year that EPA, directed by Congress, has reported U.S. GHG emission data. The 2011 data includes a total of 41 sources, 12 of them new in the second year of the program.

This year’s release of the data shows that power plant emissions, which account for about one-third of all U.S. emissions, were abut 4.6 percent lower than 2010 levels.

Refineries ranked number three on the list of biggest emitters, with about 182 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Tom Kenworthy is a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By Noreen Nielsen and Jackie Weidman

Today, Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips were the first of the Big Five Oil companies to announce their total 2012 earnings, raking in $7.3 billion and $1.8 billion in the fourth-quarter, bringing their yearly profits to a whopping $27 billion and $8.4 billion, respectively.

Despite being some of the most profitable companies in the world, analysts are expressing disappointment with both Shell and ConocoPhillips’ posted earnings. According to the New York Times, the lower than expected profits from Shell are “largely due to lower earnings in Shell’s core exploration and production business, mainly because of weak performance in the Americas, where Shell’s multibillion Alaska drilling program has encountered multiple snafus and delays.” Conoco’s lower earnings are partly a result of the split last year of ConocoPhillips into two companies — ConocoPhillips and Phillips66 — with ConocoPhillips controlling upstream business, and Phillips66 taking over the refineries side.

Shell and ConocoPhillips, which are ranked as the first and ninth-largest companies on the Fortune 500 Global companies list, continue to receive billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsides, while at the same time, funneling millions of dollars toward lobbying against vital environmental and public health protections.

Below are the highlights of where Shell and ConocoPhillips spend their earnings:

Royal Dutch Shell:

• Shell received a $200 million annual tax break in 2011.
• Shell has $18.5 billion in cash-on-hand.
• In the fourth quarter, Shell used $1.7 million of its profits to buy back its own stock.
• Shell’s oil production decreased by 3 percent (1.599 barrels of liquids/day vs. 1.644 barrels per day) compared to this time last year.
• Shell was the top lobbying spender of the oil and gas industry in 2012 – spending over $14.4 million in 2012. It also ranked in the Top 20 Lobbying Spenders across all industries last year.
• Questions have been raised that the impetus for Shell to move the Kulluk on New Year’s Eve, despite the harsh weather conditions, was an attempt to avoid paying an additional $6 million in states taxes. Company spokesman Curtis Smith recently admitted that a Jan. 1 state tax assessment was “a consideration” in the timing of the rig’s move. Shell has a history of tax dodging. For example, it has offshored pre-tax profits to avoid UK taxes.

ConocoPhillips:

• ConocoPhillips receives an estimated annual average of $600 million dollars in tax breaks.
• ConocoPhillips spent $3.8 million lobbying Congress in 2012.
• Conoco has contributed over $622,000 to federal campaigns in 2012, with 89 percent of the contributions going to Republicans.
• Conoco is sitting on $750 million in cash reserves.
• Throughout 2012, the company spent 60 percent of its annual profit — or $5.1 billion — buying back its own stock, enriching its largest shareholders and executives.
• Conoco’s oil and oil equivalent production is 2 percent higher than this time last year.
• Conoco paid an 18 percent effective federal tax rate in 2011. This is nearly half of the 35 percent standard top corporate tax rate.
• Current CEO, Ryan Lance received over $5.9 million in compensation in 2011. He sits on the board of the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying arm of the oil and gas industry.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron will be the next of the Big Five Oil companies to announce their 2012 profit earnings on Friday, February 1.

By Tom Kenworthy

Oil and gas development in an area of Colorado that is in the midst of a huge drilling boom is contributing more than half of the chemical pollution that contributes to the formation of ozone, a new study by University of Colorado scientists has found.

The research by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado may have important implications for the shale oil and shale gas revolution underway in many parts of the U.S. It may have particular relevance to other rural areas of the West – in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah and Sublette County, Wyoming south of Jackson — that have been plagued by high ozone alerts in recent winters, sometimes higher than the Los Angeles basin.

Both the Utah and Wyoming regions have intensive oil and gas development and the ozone alerts in those areas have often been described as a puzzle with possibly many contributing factors. A $5 million study is underway in the Uinta Basin to ferret out the likely causes of the region’s ozone problem.  Ozone pollution is a factor in a range of health problems including respiratory illnesses and asthma.

In the Colorado study, published online in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers determined that 55 percent of the airborne volatile organic compounds that contribute to ozone in the town of Erie were coming from oil and gas operations. The scientists were able to make that precise determination using a recently discovered chemical signature that can differentiate between oil and gas emissions and those coming from vehicles and other sources.

“We had a very strong signature from the raw natural gas,” said Jessica Gilman the CIRES study lead author in an interview with the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper.

The town of Erie is located in Weld County, a 4,000 square mile county northeast of Boulder and east of Fort Collins. That county, which overlays a hot new oil and gas play in the Niobrara Formation, has nearly 20,000 oil and gas wells, though it had about 15,000 during the study period.

Recent intensive development of oil and gas that is creeping into urban and suburban areas has prompted widespread concern in some Weld County communities about health and social impacts, with residents complaining about ill effects ranging from nosebleeds and headaches to asthma attacks.  The town has imposed a six-month moratorium on new drilling permits, and another community to the north, Longmont, has voted to exclude drilling within city limits, prompting a suit by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that regulates drilling.

Tom Kenworthy is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

After a year of warnings, mishaps, and legal violations, the press is paying closer attention to Shell’s efforts to drill offshore for oil in Arctic waters.

But few have depicted what it really means to drill in such a remote region with almost no infrastructure to deal with an oil spill.

Now that people are coming to grips with the kind of emergencies that could take place in the remote region, it’s helpful to revisit an important resource put together last year by my colleagues on the oceans team at the Center for American Progress. They documented roads, airports, disaster response staging areas, coast guard stations, and everything else needed to respond to an oil spill in the Arctic. They then compared that infrastructure to the Gulf Coast, where response crews dealt with a massive well blowout in 2010 that spewed 5 million barrels of oil into ocean — a crisis that lasted three months, even with an all-out emergency response.

So what would happen if there’s a major blowout in Arctic waters? Here’s a stunning visual representation of just how little is available for response. (Click to enlarge). An explanation follows below.

In 2011, the Admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard, Robert Papp, summed up the situation pictured above in testimony to Congress: “If this [an oil spill] were to happen off the North Slope of Alaska, we’d have nothing. We’re starting from ground zero today…We have zero to operate with at present.”

When we consider all of Shell’s mishaps this year, most of them occurred in very benign settings where help was close by. When Shell’s underwater oil spill containment unit failed during testing and “crushed like a beer can,” it was in the Puget Sound — a completely different setting from the harsh conditions of the Arctic.

And when Shell’s Kulluk drilling rig ran aground near a remote Alaskan island during a nasty storm, the company was lucky enough to have a permanent Coast Guard station 50 miles away. As a result, the situation was under constant monitoring and the Coast Guard was able to respond quickly to the incident. By comparison, the closest permanent Coast Guard station to Shell’s proposed offshore drilling site is 1,000 miles away by plane, and more than 2,000 miles by sea.

Here are some more stark comparisons between the Gulf Coast and the Arctic in that recent CAP report, called “Putting a Freeze on Arctic Drilling“:

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