Bob McCarty Writes

When I visited sites in Western Colorado’s Piceance (pronounced “pee-ahnce,” not “Pic-ee-ahnce”) Basin in April, I was able to take an up-close look at natural gas facilities there and learned a lot about the care and concern employees of companies like Tulsa, Okla.-based Wiliams demonstrate for the environment:

• They reuse and recycle almost all of the water they use and boast almost 100 percent “green” completions of well sites;

• They minimize the environmental impact of their drilling operations by using above-ground pipelines, instead of trucks, to transport water to drilling sites; and
  

• They apply cutting-edge offshore drilling technology and, as a result, are able to drill as many as 22 wells from a single drilling site and able to do completion work on as many as 172 wells from a single location; and
  

• Despite the fact that they have been operating in the area for more than 25 years, the drinking water in the Piceance Basin remains clean enough that one can actually drink it directly from the rivers and streams in which it flows.
  

Fast forward to today when I received a news release from Jane Van Ryan at the American Petroleum Institute.  The release highlights the findings of a new study which warns that U.S. oil and natural gas production would drop significantly if Congress passes legislation to place additional federal regulations on the use of a widely used well-completion technique known as hydraulic fracturing.  In addition, it said jobs could be lost, government revenues would fall and the U.S. would be less energy secure.

If Congress were to place additional federal regulations on top of the state and local regulations that govern the oil and gas industry practice of hydraulic fracturing, the number of new U.S. wells drilled would plummet 20.5 percent over a five-year period, IHS Global Insight’s study, “Measuring the Economics and Energy Impacts of Proposals to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing,” found. Lower development activity would potentially reduce natural gas production by about 10 percent from 2008 levels by 2014, and leave the United States more reliant on imported sources of natural gas and oil.

“Hydraulic fracturing is a safe, proven, 50-year-old technology that is critical to developing the natural gas used to heat homes, generate electricity, and create basic materials for fertilizers and plastics,” said API President Jack Gerard. “More than one million wells have been completed using this technology. Unnecessary regulation of this practice would only hurt the nation’s energy security and threaten our economy.”

If you want to keep Americans like those working in the Piceance Basin productive and making this country less dependent on foreign sources of energy, CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS in Washington, D.C., and demand they oppose any attempts to place additional regulatory burdens on the nation’s oil and gas industry.

Click here to read more about my adventures in the Piceance Basin.