Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Comm IOGCC
<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/17/architect-fracking-loophole-trump-environmental-council-bill-cooper" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">The deconstruction continues</strong></a> –> Steve Horn reports for <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">DeSmogBlog</em> that the Trump administration is considering a fracking lobbyist to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Bill Cooper is best known among industry insiders as the man who successfully pushed the “Halliburton loophole,” a provision that exempted fracking from EPA oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act, making it more complicated for regulators to crack down on gas drillers who polluted water supplies.</font></p><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/17/architect-fracking-loophole-trump-environmental-council-bill-cooper">https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/17/architect-fracking-loophole-trump-environmental-council-bill-cooper</a></font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no many link</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Architect of Federal Fracking Loophole May Head Trump Environmental Council</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Steve Horn • Friday, March 17, 2017 - 03:58</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Confidential sources have told Politico that Bill Cooper — current congressional staffer and former fossil fuel industry lobbyist and attorney — is under consideration to head President Donald Trump's White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CEQ works to coordinate various federal agencies dealing with environmental and energy public policy issues and oversees the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process for proposed infrastructure projects.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cooper served as legal counsel for the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on what is today known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” a clause which exempts hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Halliburton Loophole was slipped into the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and became law under President George W. Bush.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A 2005 newsletter published by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) credits Cooper specifically for his work in getting the clause inserted into the bill. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Cooper's concerns about potential EPA regulation of fracking — as championed by Democrats several years earlier — piqued the interest of the Republican chairman of the<b> House Energy and Commerce Committee, Billy Tauzin of Louisiana,</b> as well as <b>Joe Barton of Texas, the chairman of the subcommittee on air quality,</b>” industry publication The Oil Daily furhter reported in December 2013. “Their mantra was 'Let's fix it, and let's fix it right.'”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a Truth in Testimony form Cooper submitted before testifying at a 2013 House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing, he also cited the central role he played in negotiating and writing the <b>Energy Policy Acts of 2002 and 2003,</b> both of which had Halliburton Loophole provisions. On that form, Cooper also listed his experience as an oil and gas industry attorney.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Practiced law, serving clients in oil and gas exploration, development, production, including natural gas gathering, transmission, and distribution, provided counsel in the development of litigation, acquisition, and divestment strategies, personnel policies, regulatory compliance, and long-range initiatives,” reads the form. “Conducted due diligence for oil and gas exploration companies for acquisitions, divestitures, and litigation. Supervised survey crews, independent contractor drilling crews, well stimulation, geophysical, and completion crews for oil and gas wells. Prepared budgets and managed expenditures of all funds for the execution of drilling programs.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cooper presently serves as staff director for the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and formerly was a lobbyist for the<b> Center for Liquefied Natural Gas (CLNG), American Petroleum Institute (API), and Southern Company.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CLNG, where Cooper worked for nearly a decade before passing through the reverse revolving door and returning to work for Congress, was created by the American Petroleum Institute. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Industry-Sponsored Junkets</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cooper's amicability toward the oil and gas industry was clear during his first stint working as a congressional staffer, before he became a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For example, he attended the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) 2004 meeting in Oklahoma City — on the IOGCC dime — while working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to congressional travel disclosure records reviewed by DeSmog. Sponsors of that meeting included BP, Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy, Dominion Energy, Kerr-McGee (now Anadarko Petroleum), Williams Energy, and others.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">IOGCC, a congressionally authorized, interstate quasi-government agency whose members are oil and gas industry state regulators, lobbyists, and executives, played a central role in advocating for the Halliburton Loophole. </span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Thanks to the Halliburton Loophole, the oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials — unchecked — directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies,” Jennifer Krill, Earthworks executive director, told DeSmog.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As a House Energy and Commerce staffer, Cooper traveled on numerous other industry-funded trips beyond IOGCC's 2004 meeting, according to congressional travel disclosure forms reviewed by DeSmog. Among the trips:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">-A junket to the Alberta tar sands sponsored by Shell Oil to visit its Muskeg River site.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">-A 2003 trip to discuss the Energy Policy Act of 2003 at a meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (which today sponsors the influential fracking front group, <b>Energy in Depth).</b> </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">-An <b>El Paso </b>Corporation–funded 2002 paid speaking gig at the annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS, now the Western Energy Alliance, or WEA).</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">-A BP-sponsored speaking appearance in 2004 in which Cooper discussed energy policy, according to his disclosure form, but was listed by BP as an “industry speaker.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CEQ Climate Denial History Redux</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">George W. Bush's CEQ chief of staff Phillip Cooney also was a former API lobbyist-turned-CEQ staffer. During his tenure at the council, Cooney doctored scientific reports about climate change written by U.S. government agencies and then left to become a lobbyist for ExxonMobil. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">History could repeat itself, in a sense, if Cooper takes the helm at CEQ.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That's because the Trump White House CEQ, according to a recent story by Bloomberg, may ax climate change impacts from consideration in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental reviews, a goal of API and CLNG for the past several years. President Barack Obama's CEQ issued the guidance for government agenies to consider climate change in these reviews.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cooper has publicly supported cutting climate change out of the NEPA process, and according to his bio for a recent speech at a Natural Gas Roundtable, he presently acts as a NEPA senior policy advisor for his Committee on Natural Resources job.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Without boxing ourselves in [we plan to] look at the CEQ's guide on [greenhouse gases] as a first step” toward streamlining the NEPA process, Cooper told Inside EPA in December 2016. “We think it's an opportunity for us to correct a lot of wrongs, and that in and of itself should streamline the process.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some are concerned about such maneuvers espoused by Cooper, however.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The push for climate change's non-inclusion in NEPA appraisals “puts our country, our communities, and our people at great risk,” Paul Getsos, national coordinator for the April 29 People’s Climate Movement march, told Bloomberg. “It also sends a dangerous message to the world that the United States does not care about climate change or protecting front-line communities.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cooper did not respond to a request for comment for this story.</div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/12/media-guide-fossil-fuel-industry-players-setting-trump-s-energy-agenda/213618" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/12/media-guide-fossil-fuel-industry-players-setting-trump-s-energy-agenda/213618</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump Connection</font></em></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump is considering <b>Harold Hamm as energy secretary</b>, according to a Reuters <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-hamm-exclusive-idUSKCN10100Z" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">report</a>. Additionally, Trump adviser Stephen Moore <a href="http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/09/takeaways-from-the-clean-power-plans-day-in-court-216558" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">told</a><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Politico</em>’s Morning Energy that Hamm is the “most influential” person in shaping Trump’s energy policies.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Fossil Fuel Connection</font></em></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hamm is the CEO of Continental Resources, one of the <a href="http://www.contres.com/about" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">top</a> independent oil producers in the U.S. and a pioneer in <a href="http://www.contres.com/operations/technologies" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">fracking</a>. Hamm is reportedly <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2016/05/25/even-after-losing-9-billion-in-the-oil-bust-harold-hamm-is-still-richest-in-oklahoma-billionaire-continental-resources/#612737547142" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">worth</a> $10 billion. If appointed, Hamm would be the “first U.S. energy secretary drawn directly from the oil and gas industry since the cabinet position was created in 1977," <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-hamm-exclusive-idUSKCN10100Z" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">according</a> to Reuters.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What Else You Need To Know</font></em></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hamm is a member of the Interstate Oil And Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a “quasi-governmental” organization created by Congress that, according to Donald Flexner, chief of the energy section of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, essentially serves as an oil industry lobbying group and “has been quietly working for decades to restrict federal oversight of oil and gas,</span>” as InsideClimate News (ICN) <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042016/iogcc-secret-oil-gas-lobby-interstate-compact-congress-fracking-halliburton-loophole" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">reported</a>. <b>The IOGCC claimed credit for a measure within the 2005 Energy Policy Act that exempted hydraulic fracturing -- or fracking -- from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. That provision, known as the “Halliburton loophole,</b>” has “helped enable the modern fracking boom that has created vast economic benefits, but also has been implicated in cases of drinking water contamination, air pollution and rising emissions of climate-changing methane,” ICN reported.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2014, a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times </em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html?ref=todayspaper&r=4" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">investigation</a> documented tha<b>t Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general were engaged in an “unprecedented, secretive alliance” with large fossil fuel companies to “push back against the Obama regulatory agenda," and that Hamm was one of Pruitt’s “closest partners.”</b> <b>Hamm <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/07/22/three-things-media-should-know-about-harold-hamm-trump-s-leading-pick-energy-secretary/211836" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">served</a> as chairman of Pruitt’s re-election campaign in 2013 and 2014,</b> and in recent years, Pruitt has been fighting the EPA’s efforts to protect drinking water from industrial pollution and reduce methane emissions, among other environmental and health safeguards.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Hamm also <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/07/22/three-things-media-should-know-about-harold-hamm-trump-s-leading-pick-energy-secretary/211836" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">exploited</a> the June mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub to baselessly call for more drilling. </b>During his July 20 speech supporting Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Hamm stated: "Every time we can't drill a well in America, terrorism is being funded. Orlando brought this home once again. … Every onerous regulation puts American lives at risk. Developing America's own oil supply is a matter of national security.” But the CIA chief said he was not “able to uncover any link” between the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen and ISIS, and increased U.S. oil production has done nothing to weaken -- and may even have helped -- ISIS, as <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fortune </em>reporter Chris Matthews has <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/12/21/isis-oil-prices/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">explained</a>.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px; clear: both; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 153, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a id="moore" name="moore" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stephen Moore</font></a></h2><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>