Written by: Dr. Randi Pokladnik | Posted on: 12-27-2023 |

FaCT: Faith Communities Together for a Sustainable Future

Category: fracking | oil and gas commission

On Monday, September 18th, about 75 Ohio citizens traveled from all over the state to attend the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission meeting. The meeting was to decide if thousands of acres of public land in Ohio including Salt Fork State Park, Wolf Run State Park, Zepernick Wildlife Area, and Valley Run Wildlife Area, would be open to bidding for oil and gas companies seeking to frack their acreages.

Legislation (HB 133) (passed in 2011 under then Governor Kasich) opened up state lands to fracking. However, public outcry against the bill was so intense that Governor Kasich “instituted a de facto moratorium on drilling in these areas by refusing to appoint members to a leasing commission mandated in the bill.” Fast forward to December 2022, when Ohio’s majority Republican legislature fast-tracked HB 507, dubbed the “stuffed chicken bill”, through the lame duck session. In addition to opening state lands to oil and gas development, this bill also declared methane gas to be “green energy.” In a totally undemocratic process, the bill was quickly signed into law without any public comment period.

As mandated by the Ohio Revised Code 155.31, Governor DeWine appointed a 5-person oil and gas land management commission. They include: two members with knowledge or experience in the oil and gas industry, and recommended by a statewide organization representing the oil and gas industry; tne member of the public with expertise in finance or real estate; one member representing a statewide environmental or conservation organization. The commission consists of: Ryan Richardson (attorney), Jim McGregor, Matthew Warnock (an energy attorney), Stephen Buehrer (attorney) and Michael Wise (also an attorney, who was not present at the last 2 meetings).

Not one member has a background in environmental science, technology, engineering, or the medical field. Yet they are charged with making decisions on whether or not to frack our state parks. At the latest meeting, the commission was met by a very emotional crowd. People held up signs that read “deny” and “fake emails.” Several times members of the crowd yelled out things like “these are our parks” and “don’t frack our water.” The Commission chair, Ryan Richardson, warned the crowd that she would clear the room if the comments were not stopped. At one point Stephen Buehrer, a commission member who represents real estate interests on the commission, responded, “We’re trying to conduct the state’s business here.”

It is ironic that these meetings claim to be open to the public. The public is not allowed to comment or ask questions of the commission at any time. Even though citizens are paying for state parks through their taxes, their voices have been silenced throughout this entire process. I have attended four of the OGLMC meetings this year and I can only describe the commission as ineffective and biased. Some of the anger expressed by citizens in attendance was in part due to the way the commission and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has chosen to ignore falsified email comments that were fraudulently submitted, suggesting that the named person was in favor of fracking the parks. “Dozens of citizens told Jake Zuckerman that their names and addresses were used without their knowledge on public comments supporting drilling for oil and gas in Ohio’s state parks.”

Grassroots groups warned ODNR Director Mary Mertz that they had discovered fraudulent emails. Despite evidence of this illegal activity, Mertz chose to do nothing to correct the record. Mertz “defended the decision to neither independently investigate nor remove from the official record, disputed, pro-fracking public comments.” The Attorney General has launched an investigation into the falsified documents.

Thousands of Ohioans took time to submit real comments urging the commission to SAVE OHIO PARKS. Many of these comments referenced peer-reviewed studies on the effects of fracking on both humans and ecosystems. By contrast, other than two sets of form letters, there were fewer than twelve comments in support of fracking our public lands.

Nine criteria were to be used when considering fracking in Ohio parks (Ohio Revised Code 155.33). It was quite obvious, however, that economics was far more important to the commission than any environmental damage or effects to the local tourism industry or visitors. The commission spent a great deal of time debating the current amount of royalties being paid by oil and gas companies for state lands. Matthew Warnock said the state legislature, which set royalties at 12.5 percent, set the value too low.

The four members present were split over whether restrictions on fracking under parks sought by the Department of Natural Resources should be considered. These restrictions include: no well pads within 1,000 feet of the park boundary, a ban on use of park roads by oil and gas vehicles, rules about water and light pollution, as well as a temporary shutdown of some areas during hunting season. Because the commission could not agree on the ODNR restrictions, the matter was tabled until the next meeting.

The chair, Ryan Richardson, repeatedly claimed “I think the statute is very clear about what the scope of our authority is and is not, I don’t think we have the ability to simply say no.” But her statement is not accurate.

Why were nine specific criteria set for the commission to review if they did not have any recourse other than to say yes to all of the nominations? The relevant statute, ORC 155.33, says the commission can “approve or disapprove” lease nominations on the basis of the nine considerations, including economic benefit, environmental impact, geological impact, impact on visitors, and public comments and objections.

The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission is a prime example of “regulatory capture,” a form of corruption of authority that occurs when a political entity, policymaker, or regulator is co-opted to serve the commercial, ideological, or political interests of a minor constituency, such as an industry. The commission is stacked in favor of the oil and gas industry, and the meetings are merely a puppet show with the strings being pulled by oil and gas interests.

Citizens, hoping for an authentic process, diligently try to educate the commission on the many reasons why our Ohio Parks should not be fracked. Yet, the commission, statehouse, and Governor DeWine have made it impossible for Ohio’s citizens to participate in a democratic process.

Written by: Dr. Randi Pokladnik | Posted on: 12-27-2023 |

FaCT: Faith Communities Together for a Sustainable Future

Category: action | fracking carbon capture and storage

The United State Forest Service has proposed a rule change to allow carbon dioxide captured directly from the air or from industrial processes to be stored permanently on public lands. This carbon dioxide would be pumped into Class VI injection wells drilled 3000 feet deep in national forests and grasslands.

Carbon capture utilization and storage has become the new “darling” of the fossil fuel industry and was touted at the climate discussions during the COP28 recently. “Along with 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists, there were 475 lobbyists specializing in Carbon Capture (Utilization) and Storage (CC(U)S) projects at the COP28.” If you have any doubt as to who is pushing this unproven and expensive technology, just look at the membership of carbon capture organizations.

In its current state, carbon capture is another false promise when it comes to addressing the urgent need to decrease carbon dioxide emissions. A 2019 Report by the Center for International Environmental Law, “Fuel to Fire”, states, “It is not surprising that the fossil fuel industry has invested and is investing heavily in the technologies that would render a transition from fossil fuels less urgent.” Carbon capture is one of those technologies.

“The International Energy Agency estimates that the world will need to be able to capture 1.2 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2050; today, the world’s total carbon capture amounts to just 4 percent of that goal.” The IEA data shows the U.S. could see CO2 capture capacity increase five-times to over 100 metric tons (Mt) CO2 annually with 80 projects coming on line by 2030, but this is hardly enough to make a dent in emissions as more fossil fuel development continues to add to current emissions.

There are several techniques that have been used to capture CO2. These include: absorbing it with a sponge-like material; separating it with membranes; or cooling and condensing it using a cryogenic process. These processes all require high energy inputs, and once captured, the carbon dioxide is either stored or used. Storage involves the gas being transported to locations where it is injected deep underground into saline deposits or rock strata. Biden’s Administration on Environmental Quality said a CCS system that could meet a net zero goal of emissions by 2050 would require a pipeline system of close to 68,000 miles at a cost of $230 billion. The USA currently has 5100 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines.

Tenaska, a company with headquarters in Texas and Nebraska, recently announced that they will be receiving “an award of up to $69 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to assist with new CCS projects.” These include: seven carbon dioxide injection wells in West Virginia (Hancock, Brooke and Marshall counties; twelve wells in Ohio (Jefferson, Harrison and Carroll counties); and three in Pennsylvania (Washington County).

These wells would create 49 permanent jobs.

There is big money to be made by the fossil fuel industry when it comes to carbon capture. Instead of being penalized for polluting, they are being paid. What a deal!

The Biden Administration is all in on CCS and CCUS projects and has even sweetened the pot. The Inflation Reduction Act increased tax credits from $35 to $85 per ton of CO2 captured and stored and $50 to $180 for every ton of CO2 removed through direct air capture and permanently stored. Companies get $60 ton for industrial CO2 captured and used for EOR and $130 ton for direct air CO2 used for EOR. We are subsidizing the polluters’ emissions.

Industry claims that the carbon dioxide can be used for things besides EOR, for example, beverage carbonation. But according to a recent paper in Nature Climate Change, “the tonnage of CO2 humanity emits simply dwarfs the tonnage of carbon-based products it consumes.” Also consider that CCS only addresses the carbon dioxide emissions from stack gasses. It does not curb methane gas emissions from fossil fuel extraction such as coal mines and fracking. It does not address additional sources of carbon dioxide emissions from transportation of equipment, construction of a CCS facility and the emissions from the CCS facility itself.

Carbon dioxide injected into rock strata can also contaminate ground and surface water as it combines with water, creating carbonic acid. In many cases CCS facilities greatly increase the amount of water needed for power plants fitted with the technology. In addition to using more water, power plants fitted with CCS technology need more energy to power the CCS portion of the facility.

Finally, there are issues of safety involved in CCS, especially during the transportation portion. In 2019, in Yazo, Mississippi, a 24-inch carbon-dioxide containing underground pipeline ruptured. Over 300 people were evacuated and 46 people were treated at hospitals. The concentration of carbon dioxide was high enough to cause gas-powered car engines to stop. First responders said some people were unconscious while others wandered around like zombies.

Unlike solar and wind energy, which according to Clean Technica are “roughly displacing 35 times as much CO2 every year as the complete global history of CCS”, carbon capture technology is still in the early stages of development. It is not ready to be used in the scale necessary to curtail the climate crisis. It has however become a diversion used by the fossil fuel industry and governments to encourage the continued use of oil and gas while ignoring the climate crisis.

Do we want toxic carbon dioxide emissions stored in our national forests or our communities? Do we want more pipelines destroying the landscape?

**The proposed rule, “Land Uses; Special Uses; Carbon Capture and Storage Exemption,” and instructions on how to comment are available in the Federal Register at https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-24341.