American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2015 - 120

ConventionCoverage: Texas Alliance of Energy Producers

Federal Regs Point In Wrong Direction
WICHITA FALLS, TX.-The Obama
administration has it backward, insisted
the keynote speaker at the Texas Alliance
of Energy Producers annual convention.
The oil and gas industry has not made
the climate dangerous, maintained Nicolas
Loris, senior policy analyst on energy,
environment and regulatory issues at The
Heritage Foundation. Rather, he said, it
has made a dangerous climate safer.
"Because of access to such things as
affordable air conditioning and heating,
and strong infrastructure and transportation, climate related deaths worldwide
have decreased from 3 million a year in
the 1930s to fewer than 30,000 today,"
Loris told an Alliance luncheon audience,
April 22 in Wichita Falls.
Loris was joined in excoriating Obama's climate policies by Texas Railroad
Commissioner David Porter, who told a
seminar audience earlier in the day, "Perhaps our greatest challenge comes from
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
regulations brought on by Obama's war
on fossil fuels."

Social Cost Of Carbon
Calling climate change regulations
one of The Heritage Foundation's two
biggest priorities, Loris recited the litany
of ways the Obama administration was
attempting to force its climate views on

the nation, ranging from the Keystone
XL Pipeline to emissions controls for
new and existing power plants to regulations for hydraulic fracturing operations
on federal and Indian lands.
But perhaps the administration's most
insidious climate policy, Loris suggested,
was introduced in a technical support
document that accompanied efficiency
standards for microwave ovens, which
were announced in May 2013. In that
document, he said, EPA raised its estimate
for the social cost of carbon from $23.80
a metric ton to $38.00.
Even though people on both sides of
the anthropogenic climate change debate
have denounced EPA's social cost of
carbon models as lacking any theoretical
or empirical foundation, Loris pointed
out that a higher SCC nevertheless allowed
the administration to calculate greater
economic benefits from regulations to
limit greenhouse gas emissions.
"It may not be a huge deal when you
are talking about microwave ovens, but
you are talking about significant regulatory
and compliance costs for drilling and extraction, and for power plants, liquefied
natural gas terminals, and pipelines-virtually every aspect of the economy," he
charged.
Employing the same model used by
the U.S. Energy Information Adminis-

Texas Railroad Commissioner David Porter (left) shares a light-hearted moment with
Texas Alliance government relations adviser Bill Stevens prior to Porter's presentation
at the Alliance's annual convention, April 22 in Wichita Falls.

120 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

tration, Loris said The Heritage Foundation
calculated a carbon tax equivalent to
EPA's revised social cost of carbon would
cost the United States 1 million jobs
during the next 15 years and $2.5 trillion
in gross domestic product. And all for
virtually no climate benefit, he emphasized.
He cited calculations by the Cato Institute that showed if U.S. carbon dioxide
emissions fell to zero-"turn off all the
lights and hold your breath forever"-it
would reduce global temperatures by
only 0.3 degrees Celsius by 2100. "Modeling only the climate regulations the administration is proposing changes the
earth's temperature by a few hundredths
of a degree by the turn of the century,"
he added.
The Heritage Foundation's second priority, Loris said, is lifting the ban on
crude oil exports. He said the problem
was not that most federal lawmakers
didn't believe the many analyses that indicated allowing oil exports actually
would lower domestic gasoline prices.
The problem is their fear that if gasoline
prices subsequently rise, a less educated
public will blame them anyway.
"I think we can get more members
onboard by talking about the geopolitical
benefits of lifting the ban (on exporting
crude) and expediting LNG exports,"
Loris offered. "The reason Russia can
manipulate natural gas markets and Saudi
Arabia can flood oil markets is because
(U.S. producers) don't have access to
those markets in the way they should.
Opening opportunities to export LNG
and crude sends a message to any nation
that derives its power from manipulating
energy markets that this strategy is not
going to work forever."
Better Regulation
Remarking that "I am convinced President Obama wants to shut down the oil
and gas industry," Commissioner Porter
said the rise in Texas oil production from
about 1 million barrels a day in 2008 to 3
MMbbl/d in 2014 was not simply a matter
of resources. "We aren't the nation's
leading energy producer just because of
our geology," he insisted. "Regulatory
framework matters."
As an example, he pointed to the Appalachian Basin's Utica and Marcellus
shales. "Those formations do not stop at



American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2015

Contents
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2015 - Contents
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