IPAA independent petroleum association of america, america's oil and gas producers

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Nicole Daigle / Brendan Bradley
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For Immediate Release
July 30, 2010


America's Independent Oil, Natural Gas Producers Under Siege in Washington

With "Blood in the Water", Congressional Leaders Throw Kitchen Sink
at Independent Oil, Natural Gas Producers

WASHINGTON - The Obama Administration and leaders in Congress are moving forward with hastily-written, far-reaching legislation in response to the tragic incident in the Gulf of Mexico that could fundamentally change America's ability to produce homegrown, job-creating oil and natural gas resources needed to keep our economy moving.

From unlimited liability levels for offshore production - which would drive independents overseas and out of business - to higher taxes and unnecessary hydraulic fracturing requirements, the actions this Congress is taking have the potential to undermine our nation's energy security, and could continue to kill thousands of good-paying jobs supported by the industry.

The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) - the voice of those responsible for drilling 90 percent of the nation's oil and natural gas wells - and a host of pragmatic members of Congress are working tirelessly to ensure that these wrong-headed policies do not harm America's workforce and our nation's ability to safely and responsibly develop oil and natural gas.

This from The Hill under the headline "House Dems face resistance from their own on spill plan":

[Congressman Gene] Green told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Thursday that he was planning to vote against the bill over the liability language and a provision setting federal authority over wastewater from wells that states currently regulate. "I know a number of members that have said the same thing to her," he said in the Capitol Thursday. 

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), another centrist, said he is also opposing the bill at the moment over language that "imposes fees and taxes on natural gas production, which includes production in my district." He said the provisions should not be in an oil spill response bill. "All that is completely unrelated to the spill in the Gulf of Mexico." 

Reps. Harry Teague (D-N.M.) and Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) also share Green's concern with language that they say would effectively regulate the construction of oil and natural gas wells for storm water runoff under the Clean Water Act the same way that large-scale construction projects are regulated. 

The language is "fundamentally flawed," Teague and Altmire wrote their House colleagues Thursday. 

They cite a report from the Energy Department stating the language "could result in the lost production of as much as 10 percent of current U.S. oil production and as much as 10 percent of current U.S. natural gas production - and the jobs, domestic investment, and state and federal revenues that go with it," they wrote.


And here's a look at the work IPAA is doing to fight the job-killing policies advancing through Congress: 

  • IPAA Chairman: "Obama's trampling of oil doesn't make cents": "Leaders in Congress and in the administration ... are working aggressively to enact far-reaching policies and billion-dollar tax increases that will lead toward less stable energy costs, fewer jobs and increased dependence on unstable regions of the world for the energy we need. ... Putting more job-creating American energy off-limits and discouraging the production of our homegrown oil and natural gas will only deepen our nation's foreign energy dependence, leading to even more unstable prices for struggling consumers across the country. (Washington Times, 7/27/10)
     
  • Misguided Actions in Congress Could "Simply Shut Down" America's Independent Producers: "Independent oil producers own most of the leases in the Gulf of Mexico, and Dan Naatz says his industry can't operate facing an unlimited liability. 'It's going to impact the economy and the jobs in the Gulf, we've seen that already with the moratoria. And second of all, it will drive those producers out of the Gulf. Either they will go to other parts of the world to produce, or simply shut down.'" (PBS, 7/27/10)
     
  • Never Let a Crisis go to Waste: "There's this sense of blood in the water," said Lee Fuller, vice president of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. "The way the politics of this thing is playing out, the oil spill legislation is being used as a mechanism to try to broadly address a lot of other energy-related issues." (Houston Chronicle, 7/30/10)
     
  • Senate Airdrops Potentially Devastating Hydraulic Fracturing Legislation into Bill Behind Closed Doors: "The Senate measure, while not requiring the release of the precise formulas and amounts of fracking fluids used, still poses legal problems for oil and gas operators, said Lee Fuller of Energy In Depth, a leading group formed by independent drillers to promote fracking. "It has the potential to create a series of legal responsibilities that operators, and even service companies, might not be able to fulfill, especially under a scenario where our folks are asked to post information that doesn't even belong to them," Fuller said. (Reuters, 7/28/10)

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IPAA is the national trade association representing oil and natural gas producers that drill 90 percent of the nation's oil and natural gas wells. These companies account for 68 percent of America's oil production and 82 percent of its natural gas production.