American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2016 - 85

ConventionCoverage: Permian Basin Petroleum Association

Victories Fuel Inspiration
To Keep On Fighting
By Danny Boyd
Special Correspondent
MIDLAND-Members of the Permian
Basin Petroleum Association can expect
plenty of battles over endangered species
listings and federal methane regulations,
but PBPA leaders, industry players and
policymakers speaking at the association's
annual meeting, held Oct. 26-27 at the
Midland Petroleum Museum and Midland
Petroleum Club, can point to recent successes as a reason why members should
remain optimistic.
"We won victories with data, facts
and policy, not politics," said R. Danny
Campbell, who passed the PBPA chairmanship to Clint Walker. He urged members to continue their financial support
to continue the sort of victories that included overturning an endangered species
listing for the lesser prairie chicken.
Walker vowed PBPA would continue
to fight, but stressed that member involvement was crucial. "You need to get
involved," insisted Walker, general manager at CUDD Energy Services in Midland.
He went on to recall how he first got
involved with the organization after Representative Henry Waxman, D-Ca., launched
a congressional inquiry into hydraulic
fracturing, which eventually led to his
company receiving a fracturing fluid questionnaire. "I couldn't get any help," Walker
recounted. "PBPA stepped up."
Although the downturn has taken a
sizeable bite out of industry investment
and activity across the country, the Permian
is leading the recovery, assessed PBPA
President Ben Shepperd. He pointed to
the basin's acquisition and divestiture
market, which he said was expected to
total $12.8 billion this year, an extraordinary amount of regional oil and gas investment during a market slump.
"I hope all this continues and the
pricing environment helps us, because
we are going to need all the help we can
get," Shepperd said. "The endangered
species battles alone are enough to swamp
our boat. How do we continue? We have
to depend on your input in committees

PBPA is winning public policy victories
with substance and not political armtwisting, reﬂects outgoing Chairman R.
Danny Campbell, during PBPA's 54th annual meeting, Oct. 26-27 at the Midland
Petroleum Museum and Midland Petroleum Club. During the convention, Campbell
passed the PBPA chairmanship to Clint
Walker.

and at our workshops. That is where we
bring in the subject matter experts to
help us make informed decisions."
The association will continue to influence Texas Railroad Commission sunset
legislation, the state budget and allocation
well legislation in the Lone Star State,
Shepperd said, while it will continue
work on issues in New Mexico that
include upcoming battles on the state
budget and pre-emption bills.
ESA TBD
Members of an industry issues panel
warned about ongoing efforts to expand
Endangered Species Act listings.
Myles Culhane, managing counsel at
Occidental Petroleum Corp., applauded
PBPA's work to persuade a federal judge
in Midland to overturn USFWS's decision
to list the lesser prairie chicken. In that
case, he said, the association and its allies
demonstrated that USFWS essentially ignored its own policies.
Culhane praised the industry for stepping up during the LPC listing process
and pledging 10 million acres-an area
four times larger than Yellowstone Park-
toward conservation and $60 million for

a non-wasting conservation fund.
"That decision violated USFWS's own
policy to figure out if your plan is going
to work," he said.
Previously, no ESA listing had been
overturned, Culhane noted. Even so, at
least 522 species are on schedule for a
listing review in the coming year, he said.
Panelist Robert Gulley, the Texas
comptroller's director of economic growth
and endangered species, said his office
would continue to help state and local
agencies and the private sector deal with
the ESA's complexities, and help minimize
any negative impact the ESA had on the
Texas economy.
The spotted tail earless lizard could
get the most attention because of its expansive range, which includes much of
the Permian Basin and the South Texas
region encompassing portions of the Eagle
Ford Shale, Gulley said. He added that a
major change on the horizon could involve
a move by USFWS to expand its definition
of critical habitats in listing decisions so
that candidate species need not actually
live in a designated habitat, Gulley said.
Panelist Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs
for the Western Energy Alliance, told
PBPA that green groups WildEarth
Guardians and the Center for Biological
Diversity, both at the center of a 2011
closed-door agreement with USFWS to
consider the listing status for 878 species,
were motivated by goals far more radical
than species preservation.
"CBD is on record as saying its goal
for the ESA is to shut down industrialized
civilization," said Sgamma, whose organization has resisted questionable listing
moves in the West. "It is not about protecting
species. Despite that, the agency handed
power to these unaccountable and unelected
groups, but it didn't satisfy them."
Moreover, she observed, throughout
the ESA's history, only 39 listed species
have been recovered, which translates to
a 1.7 percent success rate, Sgamma pointed
out. Only about $100,000 is available for
USFWS to spend on conservation for
each of about 62 percent of species currently listed as endangered, she said.
DECEMBER 2016 85

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