Hardline drilling rhetoric hinders partisan support for US E&P:
congressman
Washington (Platts)--26Mar2013/541 pm EDT/2141 GMT
US Representative Kevin Cramer, a Republican and North Dakota's lone
House member, believes that hardline, pro-drilling arguments from his
own party may be hindering the chances of bipartisan support for
increasing oil and gas production on federal lands.
"As conservatives, as pro energy development people, we have to give
confidence that we're not interested in just sort of raping federal
lands, that we are sensitive to the fact that these properties are not
owned by a single individual that has individual property rights, but
they're owned by the aggregate of individuals of this country," Cramer
said in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday. "That requires a little more
diligence, it requires a little more care, it requires more consensus in
how we approach that."
Public lands production can happen "without compromising the integrity
of environmental protection," Cramer said.
Cramer, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee who has
introduced a bill, HR 767, that would open a more than seven-year pilot
program to streamline the Bureau of Land Management's permitting process
for federal land projects in the Dakotas, said there is a stark division
between Republicans and Democrats over permitting timelines.
"I sometimes sit in the committee and think some people want to make it
10 [days] and some want to make it 3,000," he said.
Those party line differences are becoming the norm in the ongoing energy
debate and are readily apparent during congressional hearings on fossil
fuel and renewable issues, where witnesses are typically only "there to
embarrass Barack Obama on our side and [with] witnesses on the other
side that support only far left green organizations that think jet
planes can fly on solar panels."
"The environment around Congress is such that it seems to almost enhance
a greater polarization than I think is really instinctive in all of us,"
he said. "Maybe I'm naive and I'm a freshman and so I still have this
idea that somehow we can find a way to discuss these things more
rationally."
OBAMA TRUST FUND PLAN BAD FOR ECONOMY
Still, while Cramer believes that the rhetoric should be toned down and
that permitting on federal lands should be more stringent than on
private lands, he claims the Obama administration has been an impediment
to US fossil fuel production and is promoting energy policies that could
derail the ongoing economic recovery.
Cramer, for example, blasted Obama's recent call for a special $2
billion trust fund that the government would use to shift the US
transportation sector away from gasoline-powered vehicles. He said the
proposal, which would be funded by royalties that drillers pay on their
offshore oil and natural gas production, would eliminate fossil fuel
industry jobs and cause oil and gas prices to rise.
"It would have a terrible downside to our economy," he said. "Not only
because it would hurt the actual energy industry and all of the wealth
and jobs and the economic opportunities it creates, but then it puts us
at a further disadvantage globally when energy costs and availability
are becoming a more important factor in siting decisions, for example,
for manufacturing facilities."
The effort, Cramer said, is an attempt to "demonize" the fossil fuel
industry.
"It's not a healthy economic attitude," he said.
Cramer served as a North Dakota public service commissioner overseeing
the environmental siting of oil and gas pipelines, electric transmission
lines, wind turbines and gas combustion turbines before he was elected
to Congress last year with 55% of the vote.
Nearly 17%, or $224,300, of his $1.3 million campaign fund came from
oil, gas, mining or other energy industry sources, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign funding.
Last week, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican,
picked Cramer to serve as a member of the House Energy Action Team, but
Cramer conceded Tuesday that Congress is likely too divided to get any
meaningful energy legislation completed this session. He said any
accomplishments would be "low-hanging fruit," such as hydropower bills
or energy efficiency initiatives.
He said, however, that he expects Obama to approve construction of the
Keystone XL pipeline.
"While it will create some heartburn among his base, I just think it's a
loser for him to not do it," he said.
--Brian Scheid,
brian_scheid@platts.com
--Edited by Lisa Miller,
lisa_miller@platts.com
© 2013 Platts, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
To subscribe or visit go to:
http://www.platts.com
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Oil/21877210?WT.mc_id=&WT.tsrc=Eloqua
|