Energy Roundup: Big Oil faces panel; leaders want subpoena power

On tap Tuesday: Oil execs, Interior officials face oil spill panel

The presidential panel investigating the BP oil spill will turn to
broad questions about industry safety and federal regulation on Tuesday.

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and
Offshore Drilling will hear from ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson and
Marvin Odum, who heads Royal Dutch Shell’s U.S. operations.

The two execs will discuss the industry’s “safety culture” during the
second day of the panel’s two-day meeting in Washington, D.C., this week.

Tillerson, Odum and other oil company executives have distanced
themselves from BP’s practices in the Gulf of Mexico. But the industry
as a whole is battling allegations that safety has fallen by the
wayside in the push to drill in deep waters.

Months ago, oil giants Exxon, Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron launched
a $1 billion program — called the Marine Well Containment Company —
designed to quickly deploy effective equipment if there is another blowout. BP later joined the effort.

On Monday, the spill panel delved deeply into what caused the catastrophic blowout of BP’s Macondo well on April 20.

Interior’s Bromwich to highlight safety overhaul

The spill commission will also hear from Michael Bromwich, who heads the
Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and
Enforcement.

The agency is the rebranded and overhauled version of the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service.

Bromwich’s agency has issued a suite of new drilling-safety mandates in
the wake of the BP spill. But he’s also warning that Congress needs to
cough up more money for the agency’s expanded inspections and oversight
programs.

This week’s hearing is the spill panel’s final public session before presenting its findings to the White House in January.

Commission chairs press for lame-duck action on subpoena power

The
co-chairmen of the commission — as well as its chief investigator Fred
Bartlit — used Monday’s meeting to press Congress for subpoena
power, which they argue is needed to tie up loose ends in their probe.

E2 ran several posts noting that and other highlights from the commission’s meeting (see our pieces here, here, here, here and here). The Associated Press also ran a nice rundown of Monday’s meeting and the overall debate over the causes of the spill.

House Democrats blame Senate Republicans

House
Democrats made good use of the timing of the commission gathering to
bash Senate Republicans for blocking subpoena power for the spill panel.

“It’s really astonishing that Senate Republicans have not
allowed a bill that passed the House nearly unanimously to even come to
the floor for the vote,” Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), whose bill
granting the authority passed the House 420-1, said in a statement Monday.
“They need to stop defending Big Oil and allow this bill to come to the
floor when Congress returns to Washington next week.”
 
“Every
day that Senate Republicans block subpoena power for the independent
commission is another day BP, Halliburton and Transocean can duck and
dodge the panel’s hardest questions,” Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) added.
“The commission has already shown its value, and Senate Republicans
should stop protecting the companies responsible for the spill by
preventing the pursuit of the truth in this disaster.”

Senate
Republicans have criticized the commission, alleging the White House
packed it with members that oppose oil-and-gas drilling. A senior Senate
GOP aide said there has been little precedent in years for granting
subpoena power to a panel that Congress didn’t create. There was a
bipartisan effort this year to set up an alternative spill commission
appointed largely by Congress, but that didn’t get far.

Hayward said BP unprepared for spill, media scrutiny

Embattled
former BP CEO Tony Hayward says his company was unprepared not only for
the Gulf spill but also the media scrutiny that went along with it.

In
an interview with the BBC to be broadcast Tuesday, Hayward admits the
company was “making it up day to day” during the spill, according to AP.
Hayward — in his first interview since he left his post last month
after taking much flak for BP’s poor handling of the spill — also told
BBC the company was “not prepared to deal with the intensity of the
media scrutiny.”

Hayward — who infamously bemoaned in the midst
of the spill that he “would like my life back” — also defends his
much-ridiculed sailing excursion while the spill was still gushing oil
into the Gulf.

“I have to confess, at the time I was pretty
angry, actually. I hadn’t seen my son for three months. I was on the boat
for six hours … I’m not certain I’d do anything different,” he tells
BBC, as quoted by Reuters.

Editorial: Upton “wholly unsuitable” to head House energy panel

The editorial board of the Washington Examiner is attacking
Rep. Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) conservative credentials and calling him
“wholly unsuitable” to lead the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Upton — a moderate who has taken pains to move right and raise a lot of money for fellow Republicans in this past Congress —is the favorite to become the next chairman of the panel.

The
current ranking Republican — Texas Rep. Joe Barton — is seeking another
two years at the helm and is selling his more conservative
philosophies to incoming House GOP freshmen, many of whom share his Tea
Party views.

Barton is bypassing
House GOP leaders, who favor Upton. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) — a
reliable conservative and well liked among House GOP leaders — is also
seen as a potential dark horse candidate to head the committee.

Public health groups press for smog limits

More
than a dozen public health groups on Monday asked Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson to set “much stronger”
agency ozone limits.

The groups — including the American Lung
Association, American Public Health Association and Physicians for
Social Responsibility — want EPA to adopt a standard of 60 parts per
billion, the most aggressive limit EPA science advisers have
recommended.

“These standards must protect those who are most
vulnerable from the potentially negative health impacts of ozone,
including children, older adults, and those with chronic diseases,” the
groups wrote Jackson on Monday. The limit of 60 parts per billion is needed
“to safeguard the health of the American people, help to save lives,
and reduce health care spending,” the groups wrote. They urge Jackson
“to act now” on implementing the lower smog limit.

The groups’ letter
comes shortly after Jackson, for the second time in three months,
delayed finalizing the smog standards. Jackson’s move ensured the
final rules would come after last week’s November midterm elections.

EPA has proposed setting the standard between 60 and 70 parts per billion, down from the current limit of 75 parts per billion.

Industry
and business groups have criticized the cost and health benefits of
lowering the current standard. These same groups are hoping that a
Republican-led House and slimmer Democratic majority in the Senate next
Congress will also block EPA greenhouse gas regulations. 

Ozone protection treaty eyed as tool in climate battle

Could the Montreal Protocol help prevent global warming?

“The
treaty … was adopted in 1987 for a completely different purpose, to
eliminate aerosols and other chemicals that were blowing a hole in the
Earth’s protective ozone layer,” The New York Times reports.

“But
as the signers of the protocol convened the 22nd annual meeting in
Bangkok on Monday, negotiators are considering a proposed expansion in
the ozone treaty to phase out the production and use of the industrial
chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs. The chemicals have
thousands of times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, the
most prevalent greenhouse gas,” their piece adds.

China’s energy needs could drive up oil prices

From The Wall Street Journal:
“China’s insatiable thirst for fossil fuels to power its surging
economy could put pressure on global energy supplies and drive up oil
prices to much higher levels over the next 25 years, according to the
International Energy Agency.”

“Strong growth in Chinese energy demand ‘may well change oil market expectations, and if supply doesn’t respond accordingly, we may see higher prices than we have now,’ said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, in an interview. He said he expects the price of oil to rise to around $110 a barrel in 2015 from $87 a barrel now,” the piece adds.

On Tap Tuesday II: Salazar signs National Mall Plan


Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will be at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
to sign the National Mall Plan, which looks to preserve many of D.C.’s
famous landmarks. He tours the memorial at 12:45, holds a 1:15 press
conference and then talks recycling with a rep from Coca-Cola.

On tap Tuesday III: Biden, Chu, Sutley lay out home energy-efficiency policies

Senior Obama administration officials led by Vice President Joe Biden will “announce a series of federal actions designed to lay the groundwork for a strong, self-sustaining home energy efficiency retrofit industry.”

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will join Biden at an 11:45 a.m. event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building sponsored by the Obama administration’s Middle Class Task Force.

On tap Tuesday IV: Climate change linked to wildfires

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) holds an 11 a.m. conference call regarding new research charging a link between climate change and an increase in wildfires. Participants will be UCS Climate Scientist Brenda Ekwurzel; Olga Pechony, research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; and Mark Eakin, coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch.

In case you missed E2 yesterday

Check out our Monday posts:

Gulf commission co-chairman questions ‘compulsion’ to finish well

EPA chief, previewing 2011 battles, strikes back at House GOP critics

Gulf spill panel wants Congress to approve subpoena power

Markey hits spill commission finding on BP cost-cutting

Sensenbrenner: Keep House climate panel as a check against EPA

Spill panel chief counsel bemoans lack of subpoena power

Report slams G-20 nations on fossil fuel subsidies

Gulf spill investigators wonder why rig workers didn’t raise alarm over test

Costello cedes top spot on Science and Technology panel

Report: GOP dangles Energy Committee spot to spur Manchin party switch

Gulf spill panel: No evidence BP, firms cut corners to save money

Analyst sees oil-and-gas drilling resumption ahead of GOP control

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