President getting bum rap over oil and energy policies

President Obama is taking a lot of heat from his critics for the rising gasoline prices. Unfairly so, I believe.

For example, an Inter Lake letter writer claimed Obama is not issuing enough “drilling permits” for oil exploration. Actually, the permitting function belongs to the various states in most instances not the federal government. The exception is for federal lands as to which drilling permits are issued by the Bureau of Land Management.

According to an authoritative Petroleum Industry publication, in 2010 BLM issued 4,090 drilling permits, but only 1,480, 36 percent of the wells permitted, were actually drilled. The record is not much different for 2009 and 2011. The reasons for not drilling could be many including unattractive prospects for investors or crude prices too low to justify the investment required.

The pollsters and media say that Obama’s favorability numbers drop as the price of gasoline goes up. Of course, gasoline prices affect more people than almost every other commodity, although I’ve never heard anybody give a credible reason for blaming the president for rising gasoline prices which have occurred periodically since WWII. The only thing I have heard is that the president could tap into the strategic oil reserve, which several presidents have done. But the purpose of that reserve is to bail us out in time of emergency or war if our imports were cut off.

The critics are not specific on what should be done. Crude oil production in the U.S. has actually risen in each month of the Obama administration over the same month in the last year of the Bush administration, and in the last six months alone, production under Obama exceeded that under Bush by over 120,000 barrels.

Newt Gingrich in his Republican primary campaign this winter claimed that if he were elected president, he would bring back $2 a gallon gasoline, which would be a very attractive proposition for the electorate if it was believable. But it is a promise he could never fulfill. The problem is that $2 gasoline requires $50 a barrel oil. To make a profit in the Bakken, they need to get $60 a barrel for oil and for the Canadian shale oil which is even more expensive to produce, they need $70 oil to make a profit. The simple fact is that the oil producers will either get the price they need to make a profit, or they won’t drill.

President Obama has also been attacked for refusing temporarily to green light the Keystone Pipeline which would bring crude oil from Canada and the northern part of U.S. across the Midwest to refineries on the Texas Gulf coast. His refusal to OK the project is based on the need for further studies into ways to safeguard the environment.

The very big problem is that the proposed pipeline to get to its destination on the chosen route, must cross the Ogallala Aquifer, which underlies 174,000 square miles. It lies primarily under the state of Nebraska and extends southward underlying parts of seven other states including the Oklahoma Panhandle as well as the Texas Panhandle. It provides drinking water to 2.3 million people, 82 percent of the population within the eight states which it underlies. The aquifer lies 100 to 400 feet below the surface and supplies the water for 27 percent of the irrigated land in the U.S. and contains 30 percent of the nation’s groundwater.

The Ogallala Aquifer is without doubt the most important fresh water resource in America. President Obama would be derelict if he did not insist on the greatest possible safety precautions before approving Keystone, a project which he would love to see as a reality, providing many jobs both in construction and operation and increasing prosperity for those companies utilizing its advantages.

Early studies indicate that under present Keystone routing plans and with currently utilized technology, 1.6 to 13.2 spills per year over the aquifer can be expected. Even a pinhole leak at the maximum flow rate for 14 days could release many thousands of barrels of crude. The worst part of it is that the release would contain substantial amounts of benzene, a poison and carcinogen and frequent component of Canadian shale oil. We have seen in the media the difficulty of cleaning the shorelines of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a few years ago the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, but how if at all you clean an underground aquifer, I have no idea. It seems obvious though that any release must be discovered as quickly as possible and fully remedied before the spill reaches the aquifer. Maybe the only safe answer is to reroute the pipeline.

Actually, Keystone has had a number of spills already. One source says there have been 12. One occurred in Sargent County, N.D., May 16, 2011, near Brampton, about 20 miles southeast of Oakes. It was a relatively small release reported to be 500 barrels. The cause was attributed to the over-torquing of a fitting which caused a crack in the pipeline which was propagated further by vibrations caused by the movement of product through the line. By all accounts, Keystone responded quickly to correct the situation and clean the contaminated area, but of course, it was very small spill as those things go.

On July 1, 2011, Exxon spilled 1,509 barrels into the Yellowstone River near Laurel and only 10 barrels were recovered. Exxon said it cost them $1.35 million in clean-up costs. Damage to the river, who knows?

Almost any spill you look at involves minimal damage compared to the potential for damage to the Ogallala Aquifer. President Obama should be honored for for acting against his political interests in trying to protect it.

Breidenbach is a resident of Whitefish.