Proponents of oil development in Alaska have been making promises, and breaking them, for decades. More than thirty years of industrial activity in Alaska have demonstrated that oil production is inherently a dirty business. Despite the industry’s best intentions to minimize impacts, environmental and social effects are accumulating and resulting in lasting harm to ecosystems and indigenous cultures. This report calls attention to the many gaps between promise and reality, casting doubt on the reassurances being made by drilling proponents and their allies.
Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," is a resource extraction method used to break down underground rock formations to release natural gas or oil. To release gas trapped within thin layers of rock, natural gas producers inject a pressurized mixture of water, sand, and chemical into oil or gas wells or coalmine methane beds, a process that breaks down the formations and allows the gas to flow.
A teleconference was held after the House Natural Resources Committee held hearings on reforms to the nation’s oil and gas program to discuss the growing impacts of hydraulic fracturing, a process used in most natural gas drilling projects.
Listen to the teleconference below.
As the debate over climate change and energy policy legislation heats up, the natural gas industry and its allies in Congress have taken to describing natural gas as a "clean bridge fuel" to a clean energy future, and are promoting various federal policies to encourage the wider use of natural gas.
Compared to the combustion of coal as a boiler fuel, natural gas is indeed a "cleaner" fuel. However, it is important to bear in mind that:
The oil and gas industry and their political allies persistently argue that “the answer” to America’s energy needs is “more drilling” and “more access” to federal lands and waters. However, recent data from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Minerals Management Service (MMS) indicate that, though tens of millions of acres of onshore and offshore federal lands are already leased to oil and gas companies, the vast majority of these lands are not producing oil or gas.
The natural gas industry and its allies have lately portrayed natural gas as a "clean bridge fuel" to a more benign energy future for America. They and their political allies have called for legislation providing incentives that promote the wider use of natural gas.
At the tail end of the Bush presidency, the Bureau of Land Management worked overtime to grease the skids for turning over large tracks of western public lands to international oil companies that want to commercially develop the West’s oil shale resources, no matter the environmental, economic, and social costs to our wild lands and local communities.