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Cabot Oil and gas

coterra rebrand polluter, dr gag

CORRECTION poster?

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/12/14/headlines/coterra_energy_given_green_light_to_resume_fracking_in_dimock_after_admitting_it_contaminated_water

Dimock, Pennsylvania, residents expressed outrage after the Department of Environmental Protection lifted its drilling moratorium on Coterra Energy just weeks after the fracking company pleaded “no contest” to polluting the community’s water. Coterra, formerly known as Cabot Oil & Gas, also agreed to pay $16 million to build a new public water system and pay local water bills for 75 years. Food & Water Watch said allowing Coterra to drill again was an unconscionable “betrayal of suffering communities,” and urged incoming Governor Josh Shapiro to undo the deal when he takes office.

TOPICS:

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/14/815039722/trump-steps-in-to-help-oil-industry-facing-its-own-coronavirus-crisis

he tired to play it like shrew bottom feed strat but actually bailout to frakkers?

npr 3/14?

...Oil prices bounced back a bit after President Trump said the Department of Energy would buy crude for the nation's strategic petroleum reserve.

"We're going to fill it right to the top," Trump said Friday in a wide-ranging news conference at the White House. He said it will save taxpayers "billions and billions of dollars" while helping an industry that's been reeling.

While oil prices increased nearly 5% after Friday's announcement, that was just a fraction of the amount they lost earlier in the week.

In South Texas, Rudy Martinez immediately experienced the effects of the past week's collapse in crude oil prices.

"I actually have a little man camp and these guys are on the way out because they lost contracts," says Martinez, who has eight rooms he rents to out-of-town oilfield workers in Karnes City, Texas.

"The workers get their per-diem and I charge them $100 a person [per week]. Actually I'd like to charge them a little more than that, but now that it's tapered off, it's hard to charge them that because they can't pay it," he says.

This is one small example of what declining oil prices mean for the rural communities that depend on the oil business. And there's a lot at stake for the U.S., the world's largest producer of crude oil.Back when the oil business was really booming in Karnes City, Martinez says he could charge up to $2000 a week per person.

Oil prices had been falling out of fears the coronavirus epidemic threatened world economic growth. Demand was also down as large gatherings were canceled and people started staying home to avoid getting sick.

Then prices plunged after Saudi Arabia and Russia failed to agree on production cuts and instead entered a price war last Sunday. In a stunning reversal, Saudi Arabia said it would actually boost oil production and offer a massive discount for its customers.

U.S. oil companies, especially smaller ones, are now looking to make deep cuts. Industry analysts warn of possible bankruptcies, especially if oil remains where it's fallen to, in the $30 per barrel range. Companies operating in Texas's Eagle Ford Shale need prices between $40 to $60 a barrel to remain profitable....

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/02/suing-spree-oil-and-gas-industry-risks-speech-chilling-precedents

In 2017, while the Trump administration absorbed media attention with its cries of “fake news,” the oil and gas industry was busy launching private legal actions across the U.S., attacking critics who presented information and opinions to the public.

Those lesser-noticed legal maneuvers, if successful in 2018, could create chilling new precedents, keeping important facts away from the public eye and making it more expensive and risky to talk about the fossil fuel industry's real and potential impacts on human health and the air, land, and water.

The past year brought some of the most aggressive lawsuits by the oil and gas industry against environmentalists in recent decades. They included legal moves aimed at preventing researchers from discussing their findings, motions painting political movements as for-profit conspiracies, and even a $5 million dollar lawsuit brought against a cancer patient whose tap water, state investigators determined years ago, was contaminated by gas drilling — by the company that is now suing him.

That lawsuit, filed by a shale gas drilling company, claims that a Pennsylvania landowner violated a non-disclosure agreement by talking to the press about his fouled drinking water, his home's plummeting property value, the impacts of truck traffic on his community, the poor air quality around his home since drilling and fracking began in the area, or other problems he believes the company itself caused.

These oil and gas industry cases — involving novel uses of conspiracy, defamation, and even wire fraud laws — represent new and concerted efforts by large corporations to make individuals and groups pay for presenting information and opinions to the public.

Cancer Patient Gagged

Dimock, Pennsylvania, landowner Ray Kemble, who was diagnosed with bladder cancer in March 2017, was sued in August by Cabot Oil and Gas, which drilled a series of Marcellus shale wells in Kemble's hometown.

Back in 2010 state environmental regulators concluded that Cabot Oil and Gas's drilling operations had contaminated the area's groundwater and ordered the company to cough up $4.6 million. In May 2016, federal health officials concluded that the drinking water in Dimock was indeed unsafe, and in December 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) long-awaited national study warned that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has contaminated drinking water supplies across the U.S. (without directly commenting on Kemble's situation).

Cabot signed settlements with virtually all of the families drawing water from the contaminated Pennsylvania aquifer, though the precise terms of those agreements remain secret. A separate federal lawsuit, brought by two families down the road from Kemble, the Elys and the Huberts, was settled in September for an undisclosed amount, a sign that the Ely and Hubert settlement also includes a non-disclosure clause.

Cabot's new lawsuit argues that a 2012 settlement bars Kemble from “disparaging” the companyby discussing any harm he believes the company caused him — or even talking about things the company did after the settlement was reached.

But good luck finding out what exactly a settlement agreement between Kemble and the company might have said: In December, Cabot argued in court that it didn't need to provide the document at the heart of the case to the attorneys representing Kemble's co-defendents, nevermind the public.

Non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements have been in the public spotlight lately amid the #MeToo scandals, after it came to light that powerful sexual harassers and assaulters frequently used the clauses to prevent those they assaulted from talking publicly.

Critics argue that non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements (NDAs) should also not be used in cases where the public health could be at risk, warning that NDAs could, for example, keep someone sickened after drinking bad water from warning their neighbors about the danger.

Legal experts have questioned whether courts would ever actually enforce such an order — so the case brought by Cabot against Kemble could set a significant precedent.

Cabot also sued Kemble's attorneys and the law firms where they work for representing Kemble in his earlier lawsuit against Cabot, which Kemble withdrew a few months after his cancer diagnosis (Kemble's attorneys have cited unspecified “new information” in explaining the decision to drop the case). Kemble's supporters say they fear that by including Kemble's attorneys in the lawsuit, Cabot is trying to make it harder for those harmed by powerful companies to find representation.

On December 21, 2017, Susquehanna County Judge Jason J. Legg allowed Cabot's claims against the attorneys to go forward, while admonishing Cabot for breaking Pennsylvania's Rules of Civil Procedure by claiming $5 million in damages, even though the rules forbade Cabot to name a specific figure higher than $50,000 in their complaint. The judge noted that the claiming damages of $5 million “may have been designed to attract media attention” and “likely” served no legitimate legal purpose.

To Kemble, the lesson is clear. “This is just a way to shut the people up of the county and of the state, and I just don’t think it’s right,” Kemble said, according to NPR's State Impact. “We the people have the right to talk.”

Stop Citing Working Paper, Gas Supplier Demands

In a December 11, 2017 letter, natural gas supplier Eversource Energy demanded that environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) stop citing a study that found evidence that Eversource and another utility legally manipulated natural gas pipeline markets in ways that caused astronomical gas price spikes during cold snaps from mid-2013 to mid-2016.

That analysis found that Eversource and Avangrid booked pipeline capacity and then left it unused, driving down New England's natural gas supplies while demand was high, costing New England's power customers over $3.6 billion. This working paper, prepared by a group of researchers including an EDF economist, emphasized that researchers hadn't found that anything the company's did was illegal, but suggested that the laws might need reform.

Those price spikes have been heavily touted by pipeline builders, who say they prove that New England needs to build more pipelines to carry fracked natural gas to the northern states in winter. The new study calls into question whether gas shortages were caused by a lack of pipelines or a failure to fully use the ones already built.

“Limited pipeline capacity is indeed partly responsible for these extreme prices,” the researchers wrote. “But we also find strong evidence that two firms that held significant shares of the contracts to flow gas on the Algonquin Gas Transmission Pipeline — one of the two major pipelines serving New England — regularly restricted capacity to the region by scheduling deliveries without actually flowing gas.”

The cease and desist letter warns EDF that Eversource could sue the environmental group if it continues to cite claims the company describes as “unsupported by fact.”

EDF told DeSmog that the study has been presented for peer review, the method the scientific and academic communities use to ensure research is rigorous. “The Working Paper is going through the process for academic publication in a peer-review journal,” EDF spokesperson Jon Coifman told DeSmog. “Versions have been presented at several academic conferences and workshops.”

Cease and desist letters are often sought in defamation cases, which allow people and companies to sue when someone harms their reputation by deliberately spreading false factual claims — which means it's unusual to see a cease and desist letter sent over scientific analysis.

The study was authored by Levi Marks, PhD candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Charles Mason, Chair in Petroleum and Natural Gas Economics at the University of Wyoming, along with EDF researcher Kristina Mohlin, and Matthew Zaragoza-Watkins, Assistant Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt.

In November, Eversource and Avangrid were hit with a class action lawsuit over the same general allegations made in the study. The class action argues that the companies violated consumer protection and anti-trust laws, and unjustly enriched themselves by driving up power prices by 20 percent.

EDF has rebuffed the cease and desist demand. “We stand by the analysis and reject this obvious attempt to intimidate and chill legitimate public inquiry,” Coifman told UtilityDive shortly after receiving Eversource's letter.

Suing the Grassroots

In August, Dakota Access pipeline builder Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) filed a major lawsuit alleging racketeering and conspiracy by the grassroots environmental movement Earth First!, along with environmental groups Greenpeace and Banktrack.

The lawsuit accuses the non-profits of seeking to profit through environmental activism. “Maximizing donations, not saving the environment, is Greenpeace's true objective,” ETP's complaint alleges, while accusing pipeline opponents of violating anti-racketeering laws (meant to protect against mafia-style organized crime) and characterizing emails and tweets sent by Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) critics as wire fraud.

The lawsuit claims that ETP suffered nearly a billion dollars in damages and seeks to legally bar defendants from engaging in political protests. But civil rights advocates have taken issue with the coporation's approach.

“Defendants employed time-honored, lawful means to advance their views, protected by core constitutional rights of free speech and association,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief objecting to ETP's claims of racketeering, defamation, and conspiracy. “Under ETP’s theories, ordinary political speech that runs counter to a corporation’s business interests could expose the speaker to enormous, unwarranted liability.”

In December, attorneys for Earth First Journal, a publication whose name echoes the name of the activist group Earth First!, arrived in federal court to argue that Earth First! is a social movement based on a shared set of ideas, and not a legal entity like a corporation, and therefore isn't a thing that you can sue.

Earth First!, the journal's attorney said, lacks the sorts of characteristics you'd find at something like a corporation, like a leadership structure, employees, or even members.

Even if the oil industry's 2017 lawsuits don't make it very far, the specter of defending multi-million dollar legal claims could make non-profits and social movements nervous about publicly criticizing powerful corporations.

And that, opponents say, is exactly the point.

“Defending major lawsuits like these against deep-pocketed corporations is extremely expensive, time consuming, and stressful, particularly for cash strapped non-profits,” ACLU staff attorney Brian Hauss wrote in a December 6, 2017 postabout ETP's 231-page lawsuit. “If the courts have any sense, this case won’t get to trial. But ETP doesn’t need to win in court to do major damage.”

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https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-dimock-2474053132.html

Fracking Giant Sues Dimock Resident for $5M for Speaking to Media About Water Contamination

Ever since the dangerous consequences of natural gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing—popularly known as "fracking"—entered the national consciousness, the small town of Dimock, Pennsylvania has arguably been "ground zero" for water contamination caused by the controversial practice.

Now Cabot Oil & Gas, the massive energy company responsible for numerous fracking wells near Dimock, is suing one of the town's residents for $5 million, claiming that his efforts to "attract media attention" to the pollution of his water well have "harmed" the company. According to the lawsuit, Dimock resident Ray Kemble's actions breached an earlier 2012 settlement that was part of an ongoing federal class action lawsuit over the town's water quality. Kemble has stated that Cabot's fracking turned his groundwater "black, like mud, [with] a strong chemical odor."

Earlier this year, Kemble filed a follow-up lawsuit against Cabot, which was based on new findings that could help him prove the link between Cabot's fracking operation and the contamination of his well. Cabot, at the time, argued that the case was built on "inflammatory allegations" intended to "poison the jury pool" and "extort payment" from the company.

Kemble eventually dropped his lawsuit, acting in response to new information that he thought might negatively affect the case. Kemble's lawyers have declined to comment on the nature of that information. Cabot alleged that this lawsuit was a breach of the 2012 settlement contract Kemble had signed, prompting them to counter-sue Kemble.

Cabot's decision to sue Ray Kemble may be motivated by more than their distaste for his now-dismissed lawsuit. In context, it appears meant to intimidate and "send a message" to Kemble and any other resident thinking of voicing similar concerns and objections. Days before Cabot's lawsuit against Kemble was filed, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR) arrived in Dimock to examine the groundwater of several homes close to Cabot fracking wells, including Kemble's.

Kemble described the state of his groundwater to the Associated Press: "Take a skunk and every household chemical, put it in a blender, puree it for five minutes and take a whiff. It burns the back of your throat, makes you gag, makes you want to puke. It's all still bad. That's why they're back up here."

The ATSDR told the AP that it is testing Dimock's water for bacteria, gases and chemicals in order to "determine if there are drinking water quality issues that may continue to pose a health threat." Their previous study in 2012 found high levels of chemicals such as methane, cadmium, lead and arsenic. They also found that several residences were "at risk of explosion or fire" due to high methane levels. In the past, several drinking water wells in Dimock have exploded due to the high amount of methane now present in the town's water.

Dimock residents have been expressing concern over the quality of their water for nearly a decade. In 2009, Pennsylvania state officials determined that Cabot Oil & Gas was responsible for the contamination, though the EPA complicated this decision by announcing in 2012 that Dimock's water was "safe" to drink. The EPA arrived at this conclusion despite the fact that its investigators—along with the ATSDR—had found "significant damage to the water quality" due to the presence of nearby fracking wells.

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CF Correction: epa blew frack call b/c bound by superfund regs? nb desmog role

Back in 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a startling announcement, shaking up the battle over fracking in one of the nation’s highest-profile cases where drillers were suspected to have caused water contamination.

Water testing results were in for homeowners along Carter Road in Dimock, Pennsylvania, where for years, homeowners reported their water had turned brown, became flammable or started clogging their well with “black greasy feeling sediment” after Cabot Oil and Gas began drilling in the area. The EPA seemed to conclude the water wasn’t so bad after all.

“The sampling and an evaluation of the particular circumstances at each home did not indicate levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take further action,” EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin said in a press release.

The drilling industry crowed. “The data released today once again confirms the EPA’s and DEP’s [Department of Environmental Protection] findings that levels of contaminants found do not possess a threat to human health and the environment,” Cabot said in a statement.

“It’s obviously very good news for the folks who actually live there and pretty squarely in line with what we’ve known up there for a while now,” Energy in Depth told POLITICOPro. “It’s not very good news for the out-of-state folks who have sought to use Dimock as a talking point in their efforts to prevent development elsewhere, but I’m sure they’ll be working hard over the weekend to spin it differently, notwithstanding the pretty clear statement made by EPA today.”

Now, a newly published report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry(ATSDR), part of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), puts EPA’s testing results into an entirely new light.

The water was not safe to drink after all, the ATSDR concluded, after a lengthy review of the same water testing results that EPA used back in 2012.

“ATSDR found some of the chemicals in the private water wells at this site at levels high enough to affect health (27 private water wells), pose a physical hazard (17 private water wells) or affect general water quality so that it may be unsuitable for drinking,” the ATSDR’s health consultation—launched in 2011 and published May 24—concludes.

The new report lists 10 contaminants, including arsenic, lithium and 4-chlorophenyl phenyl ether, that are “chemicals of health concern,” at the levels found in Carter Road wells, found that five homes were at “immediate risk of fire or explosion” because of methane in their water and another dozen showed lower, but still worrisome, levels of methane and found that the water was laced with elevated levels of metals, salts and total dissolved solids.

The underlying data isn’t new to the residents of Carter Road. The EPA provided it to them individually back in 2012, which is why the EPA’s announcement that the water was safe was so baffling at the time.

“I’m sitting here looking at the values I have on my sheet—I’m over the thresholds—and yet they are telling me my water is drinkable,” Nolan Scott Ely, one of the Carter Road homeowners, told ProPublica when EPA made its announcement. “I’m confused about the whole thing … I’m flabbergasted.”

Opposite Conclusions?

So how could two different agencies look at the exact same data and come to opposite conclusions?

“Although the same data set was used, the EPA as a regulatory agency specifically looked at whether or not it was required to take action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, more commonly known as Superfund, which governs responses to environmental emergencies,” StateImpact, a National Public Radio project, explained. “The ‘health consultation’ looked at the entire data set from a public health standpoint, assessing whether or not it was safe to drink the water.”

In other words, EPA’s findings, which seemed to show that the water was “safe” and which were promoted by drillers as proof that nothing was wrong in Dimock, instead represented a very carefully parsed legal finding that the water did not reach Superfund levels of contamination for the specific substances EPA focused on.

And the EPA’s 2012 findings had left out some of the very contaminants that had caused locals the most concern—including the natural gas or methane, itself. “EPA’s investigation does not include an evaluation of the risk posed by elevated levels of methane—which continue to exist in some homes in Dimock—and which, at extreme levels and if unaddressed, can lead to explosions,” Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Attorney Kate Sinding wrote in a blog post at the time.

The EPA’s strained official interpretation of the data perhaps shows why EPA staff remained concerned even after the agency dropped its Dimock investigation in July 2012, just months after its testing results had been announced in March and April.

In 2013, a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that EPA’s own staff had disagreed with the agency’s public statements that the water shouldn’t be considered hazardous. An internal EPA Powerpoint presentation, later obtained and published by DeSmog, showed that agency scientists had concluded that the drilling and fracking process “apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.”

The ATSDR’s new report very specifically notes that it does not look at whether the water hazards stem from drilling or pre-date Cabot’s arrival in the area. In part, that’s because of a lack of pre-drilling testing for gas and other common fracking-related chemicals in the water. “It is important to note that methane was not assessed in residential water wells prior to the initiation of natural gas drilling activities in the Dimock area,” the ATSDR wrote.

Cabot Oil and Gas emphasized their belief that methane in the water was “naturally occurring” and pre-dated their arrival in a statement provided to StateImpact. “This data is consistent with thousands of pages of water data collected by both Cabot and the Pennsylvania DEP and does not indicate that those contaminants detected have any relationship to oil and gas development in Dimock,” Cabot said.

The ATSDR report does often note when substances discovered in the Carter Road water are known to be associated with hydraulic fracturing or drilling industry activities, but does not reach any conclusions about whether the chemicals came from Cabot’s operations.

“It’s not their job to look at who caused whatever contamination there is,” Bryce Payne, a Pennsylvania environmental scientist, told E&E News. “It’s their job to see if there are health implications. They did that and concluded there are health implications.”

The new report is also limited to data from four years ago—and conditions have changed, the ATSDR noted, in part because a state moratorium on fracking along Carter Road was briefly lifted after the EPA dropped its investigation and locals quickly reported more changes to their water, including higher levels of methane.

Cabot Oil Settles

In August 2012—right around the time that EPA abandoned its investigation—Cabot Oil and Gas announced it had settled the vast majority of lawsuits against it by Carter Road residents for an undisclosed amount of money and under terms that barred the plaintiffs from speaking negatively about their experiences with the company.

This March, a federal jury handed down a $4.24 million verdict to the remaining two Carter Road families, concluding that the water was in fact contaminated because of the negligence of the drilling company. Cabot has begun the process of appealing that verdict.

But while the legal filings and agency reports continue to stack up, the problem on Carter Road remains the same as it has for many years now.

While those who settled with Cabot had water treatment systems installed by the company, locals familiar with those systems say that even the treated water seems too contaminated to drink and the water treatment systems break down frequently.

The ATSDR’s report provides recommendations that water should have been treated to address dangerous contamination levels—but those recommendations are not binding and the agency noted that while the state government collected samples more recently, the ATSDR did not have access to the newer data.

Community organizers are still calling for the federal government to resume an active role, arguing that the groundwater remains undrinkable.

“We’re demanding that they reopen the investigation,” Craig Stevens, a local organizer, toldDeSmog after the March verdict was announced, “and also get water to these people.”

http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/03/dimock-water-unsafe-fracking/

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Jury Awards Two Dimock Couples $4.2 Million After Finding Cabot Oil & Gas Negligent in Fracking Contamination Case

http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/10/cabot-dimock-fracking-case/

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http://www.alternet.org/print/environment/scientific-sleuth-gets-call-when-communities-are-contaminated

...These exposures occur throughout the U.S., yet there are no requirements to report the events or their noxious contents.

Recently, a compressor station in Hancock, NY, announced a blow-down event occurring over a 12-hour period. But the fracking operators were not required to report the quantity or makeup of the chemicals released. Any other type of chemical plant or refinery would be required to report the specific releases.

“If following an event, people go to the gate of a well site or facility, to seek information, frequently the facilities are not manned and no one is there,” Subra points out. “Or if they are manned, the personnel will say that, 'We don’t have to tell you what we released or whether we had a release or not.' These facilities are only required to report to the state once a year. They are not required to report when they have an accident or event of any kind,” she says. “Meanwhile the people downwind are very, very sick. And they are trying to figure out should they leave the area, what could they do to reduce their exposure, and how long is this event going to go on for?”

Although not everyone has the chutzpah to drive right up a fracking well pad to obtain information, there is no other way to get it. Recently, Cabot Oil & Gas obtained a sweeping injunction against Vera Scroggins, a Bradford County, PA grandmother. The decision prohibited her from setting foot on 312 square miles of her local community (including the regional hospital) because she had gone to fracking sites seeking information.

Due to the dispersion of drilling infrastructures, a much wider population is now being exposed to these hazards via pipelines and compressor stations. Small leaks can occur anywhere along a gas pipeline, which now criss-cross the nation. Many people don’t know that they live near a gas pipeline. In Subra’s native Louisiana, after a sugar cane harvest, farmers burn the stalks to clear the cane field. The next day, it’s possible to find pipeline locations because the flammable gas emitted by leaking pipelines keeps on burning.

According to Subra, since many pipelines were laid down in the 1920s and '30s, there are few records of their locations. Recently constructed pipelines do map their locations, but pipeline companies are loathe to show them to the public, due to concerns over terrorism. Once a pipeline is built, its site becomes confidential. As a result, people are being exposed without knowledge that a pipeline is in their area....

Published on Sunday, January 16, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Bush’s Choice for Energy Secretary Was One of Texas’ Top Five Worst Polluters
by Jason Leopold

In the bizarro world that President Bush lives in, it pays�literally�to be a miserable failure, a criminal and a corporate con man. Those are just some of the characteristics of the dastardly men and women who were tapped recently to fill the vacancies in Bush�s second-term cabinet.

But one of the President�s most outrageous decisions (besides naming Alberto Gonzales, who concocted a legal case for torturing foreign prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Attorney General) has got to be choosing 66 year-oldSam Bodman to serve as Secretary of Energy. This is a guy who for a dozen years ran a Texas-based chemical company that spent years on the top five lists of the country�s worst polluters.

It�s not just a few clouds of smoke emanating from an oil refinery or a power plant that got Bodman�s old company, Boston-based Cabot Corporation, those accolades. It was the 54,000 tons of toxic emissions that his company�s refineries released into the air in theLone Star state in 1997 alone that made Cabot the fourth largest source of toxic emissions in Texas. Cabot is the world�s largest producer of industrial carbon black, a byproduct of the oil refinery process.

In 2000, the year Bodman left Cabot to join the Bush administration as Deputy Commerce Secretary, Cabot accounted for 60,000 of the more than half-a-million tons of toxic emissions released into the Texas air, according to report by the Texas State Summary of Emissions.

A loophole created in the 1972 Texas Clean Air Act exempted or �grandfathered� industrial plants built before 1971 from new, stricter pollution control rules. But in the mid-1990s companies such as Cabot were supposed to curb the pollution coming from its refineries. Environmentalists demanded that then Gov. Bush rein in the polluters and close the so-called grandfather loophole as the air in Texas became smoggier.

Instead, in 1997, then Gov. Bush asked two oil company executives to outline a voluntary program that allowed the grandfathered pollutersto decide on their own exactly how much to cut the pollution at their plants. The oil execs summoned a meeting of two dozen industry reps at Exxon offices in Houston and presented them with the program.

In a memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, one executive wrote that "clearly the insiders from oil and gas believe that the Governor's office will 'persuade' the (Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission) to accept what program is developed between the industry group and the Governor's Office."

�And they did. And two years later this joke of a program was enacted into law by a bill written by the general counsel for the Texas Chemical Council who also lobbies for energy and utility companies. The bill was denounced by newspapers across the state,� according to a March 5, 2000 report in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

According to people familiar with the legislation, Sam Bodman was part of the original working group that drafted legislation that then Gov. Bush signed into law that basically permitted Cabot and other companies to continue to emit the same level�and in some cases more�toxic emissions as they had been years earlier without so much as receiving a slap-on-the-wrist by then Gov. Bush.

Bodman personally contributed $1,000 to Bush's presidential campaign and $20,000 to Republican committees in the 1999-2000 election. Bodman is the wealthiest member of the Bush administration. His net worth is estimated to be between $42 million and $164 million, the bulk of it in Cabot stock, deferred compensation and other benefits.

Bodman shoddy environmental record aside, he may also be complicit in one of Africa�s deadliest wars.

In October 2002, Bodman�s former company came under fire when a United Nations Panel of Experts produced a report accusing the company, along with several other US corporations, of helping to fuel the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC)while he ran Cabot by purchasing coltan from Congo during the conflict and illegally plundering the country�s vast natural resources.

Cabot has publicly denied the allegations in the UN report, but a report by the Belgian Senate states that Eagle Wings Resources International had a long-term contract to supply Cabot with coltan, which it too purchased from Congo during the war. Eagle Wings was also identified in the UN report as contributing to the war.

In response, environmental Friend of the Earth United States (FOE) and the UK-based human rights group Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) filed a complaint with the US State Department last August against Cabot and several other western corporations for its role in aiding the rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo by conducting business there, essentially inadvertently aiding a violent conflict that contributed to widespread human rights abuses.

AID an FOE filed a complaint with the U.S. State Department last August claiming Cabot and other western corporations having violated the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development�s (OECD) �Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,� a set of international standards for responsible corporate behavior.

The UN panel said in its report that a �three-year investigation found that sophisticated �elite networks� of high-level political, military and businesspersons, in collaboration with various rebel groups, intentionally fueled the conflict in order to retain control over the country�s vast natural resources. The Panel implicated many Western companies for directly or indirectly helping to fuel the war.�

The State Department is the agency in charge of deciding whether US companies breach the OECD guidelines.Despite the allegations included in the UN report and the complaint filed by the two activist groups, the State Department has refused to launch an independent investigation into whether Cabot, under Bodman�s leadership, and the other US companies might have contributed to the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the UN report, an increase in the export of columbo tantalite, otherwise known as coltan from which the metal tantalum is extracted, in 1999 and 2000 resulted in �a sharp increase in the world prices of tantalum�leading to a large increase in coltan production in eastern DRC�While the processors of coltan and other Congolese minerals in Asia, Europe and North America may not have been aware of what was happening in the DRC, the Panel�s investigations uncovered such serious concerns that it was decided to raise the international business community�s awareness��

Cabot is the world�s largest refiner of coltan. The other US corporations identified in the UN report, Kemet and Vishay, both purchase processed tantalum from Cabot. Under Bodman�s leadership an unknown amount of the coltan Cabot Corporation was purchasing could have originated from the DRC. Cabot Corporation has stated publicly that �to the best of its knowledge none [of its coltan came] from environmentally sensitive areas in Africa, but it can�t be sure.�

AsEnergy Secretary,Bodman will be looking out for the energy behemoths he used to commiserate with while he was chairman and chief executive of Cabot, Vice President Dick Cheney being one of them.Many of those energy corporations have donated millions to fund President Bush�s inaugural parties. And Cheney wants Bodman to reward their pals by making a convincing case why the President�s controversial energy policy should sail through Congress, the environment be damned.

Jason Leopold is the author of the forthcoming book Off the Record: An Investigative Journalist�s Inside View of Dirty Politics, Corporate Scandal, and a Double Life Exposed (Rowman & Littlefield). He can be reached at jasonleopold@hotmail.com. Visit his website at www.jasonleopold.com

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cabot_Oil_and_Gas

Cabot Oil & Gas is a Houston, Texas-based oil and gas company. It is involved in the controversial practice of fracking for methane gas in the Northeastern U.S. in the Marcellus Shale region. Cabot Oil & Gas owns 101[1] of the 1,386 wells in the Marcellus Shale formation, as of 2010. Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania is the main focus of Cabot, which has one of the thickest shale areas in Marcellus.[2] Though lauded as an environmentally-friendly alternative to coal, fracking for gas has been linked to depleting drinking water resources of local communities and polluting the wells of the people living around drill sites. According to a 2010 article in Vanity Fair, "as use of the technique (fracking) has spread, it has been followed by incidents of water contamination and environmental degradation, and even devastating health problems." [3] And according to data released to the EPA, Halliburton, a major supplier of fracking fluid, admitted using 807,000 gallons of diesel-based chemicals in its fluids, in violation of an agreement drillers had with the EPA.[4]

Contents [hide]

Executive Summary

Cabot Oil & Gas is one of the fastest growing :{fracking:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: companies in the :{Marcellus Shale:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: region of the U.S. since it began drilling there in 2006, adding 81 [5]wells alone in 2010. Its northeast Pennsylvania leasehold consisted of 190,000 acres in 2010 and Cabot recently started drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale region in Texas. It has been reporting annual revenues of between $732.17 million and $946 million a year over the past four years, with gross profits of between $480 million and $656 million a year in this period. Its CEO has an annual compensation of $3.06 million. Cabot Oil & Gas has one of the most notorious safety records of the Marcellus Shale drilling companies and in 2010, Pennsylvania's Environmental Chief, John Hanger, described Cabot "as one of the worst oil and gas operators he has seen."[6] It have been accused of numerous safety violations, including polluting rivers and spoiling drinking water by contaminating it with methane gas, most notably in Dimock, Pennsylvania. Cabot Oil & Gas and its executives have also been very active in making partisan political donations, predominantly in favor of Republicans. This company, headquartered in Houston, Texas, has invested significant funds in elections in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, states with large shale deposits, and its PAC was a major spender in the election of the new governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett.

Cabot Oil & Gas|   |

TypeMethane gas drilling and oil
Founded1989
HeadquartersHouston, Texas
Number of locationsCharleston, West Virginia; Pittsburgh, PA; Montrose, PA
Revenue$879.3 million

Partisan Political Activity

State Web sites and Open Secrets.org show that Cabot Oil & Gas has been actively donating to pro-fracking candidates and associations since 2009. Although information before 2009 is missing, traditional contributions aren't the only way Cabot has used its money to sway politicians. Cabot, along with other big Marcellus Shale players like Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy, each paid $25,000-$50,000 for Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Corbett's two-day inaugural party.[7]

Cabot's Oil & Gas' PAC and executives together spent $163,450 on politicians and lobbying associations in 2009-2010, the year its own political action committee was started.

Corporate Political Action Committee

With the formation of the Cabot Oil & Gas political action committee (PAC) in 2009, Cabot became a big contributor to candidates and other PACs who support methane drilling and the lenient laws surrounding it. In 2010, Open Secrets shows that Cabot's PAC earned an estimated $84,450 and spent $62,800. Their biggest recipient was Tom Corbett, Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, who supports a no-tax stance for drilling companies in the state. Cabot's PAC also donated $15,000 to Senate and House Republican Campaign Committees and supported America's Natural Gas Alliance,a pro-fracking front group, by donating $5,000.[8]

Here is a breakdown of Cabot Oil & Gas' PAC political donations in 2010:[9]

Most candidates who received contributions are supporters of pro-fracking agendas. William Flores (R-TX), who received $2,400 from Cabot, is on the House Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee and the former CEO of Phoenix Exploration Company.

Political Donations by Company Execs

Individual donations were biggest in West Virginia, unlike most methane gas companies, who concentrate their efforts in Pennsylvania. Cabot has a long history in the state and started its methane gas production there before moving on to Pennsylvania and Colorado.[10] In 2008, the company operated more than 3,000 wells in West Virginia.[11] In 2009-2010, Cabot Oil & Gas executives and employees gave $93, 650 to West Virginia candidates and Cabot's PAC.[12] The majority went to Cabot's PAC just like in Pennsylvania, where $7,000 was donated by executives as well.[13]

Below is a list of Cabot Oil & Gas' Biggest Executive Contributors between 2009-2010:

Lobbying

According to Open Secrets.org, lobbying expenditures for the oil and gas sector have spiked sharply over the past few years - rising to $175,189,824 in 2009 from $134,475,402 in 2008 and $84,555,985 in 2007.[14] Much of this money was spent in the Marcellus Shale region of the U.S., and as "Cabot Oil & Gas is the third-largest drilling lease-holder in the state, behind Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy,"[15] the company's interests are promoted by one of the biggest law firms in the country, Peter Gleason of:{ Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Gate:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:s. In 2010, then Governor-elect of Pennsylvania Tom Corbett, formed a panel to discuss methane drilling and a representative from K&L is on "the committee advising Gov.-elect Tom Corbett on environmental and energy issues which includes several prominent lobbyists who represent Marcellus Shale drilling firms."[16]

Front Groups

Cabot Oil & Gas is a supporter of several special interest groups that push for expanded drilling rights and limited or no regulation of fracking.

Cabot Oil & Gas is involved in the following front groups, who donate to pro-fracking candidates and lobbyists: America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA)[17], American Exploration and Production Council[18], Energy In Depth,[19] Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA),[20] Marcellus Shale Coalition,[21] The Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA),[22] Western Energy Alliance,[23] West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (where Jeff Hutton, Divisional Vice President, is on the Board of Directors)[24] and Colorado Oil and Gas Association.[25]

Claimed Violations of Safety Rules or Other Laws

Health and Safety Violations Alleged

Propublica reported in November 2009 that Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. was fined $120,000 for continuing to contaminate local drinking water supplies and ordered to abide by a set of stricter-than-usual probationary regulations before continuing its methane gas drilling operation in Pennsylvania. "The charges and conditions against Cabot were outlined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in a 23-page document that lists each of Cabot’s offenses – from failure to properly cement wells to failure to maintain and submit proper records – and asks the company to acknowledge and address the findings. The fine is the largest issued by the Pennsylvania agency to a gas company."[34]

Lawsuits

Revenue and Profits

2010[37]

Revenue: $694.6 million

Net Income: $103.4 million (Gross Income stats not available as of February 22, 2011)

2009[38]

Revenue: $879.3 million

Gross Income: $622.83 million

2008[39]

Revenue: $946 million

Gross Income: $655.76 million

2007[40]

Revenue: $732.17 million

Gross Income: $479.63 million

2006[41]

Revenue: $761.99 million

Gross Income: $499.08 million

Executives and Annual Compensation

2010[42][43]

Senior Executives

Contact Information

Corporate

Three Memorial City Plaza

840 Gessner Road Suite 1400

Houston, TX 77024

281-589-4600

Regional

North

5 Penn Center West

Suite 401

Pittsburgh, PA 15276

412-249-3850

Susquehanna

8279 S.R. 29

Montrose, PA 18801

570-278-3518

South

Three Memorial City Plaza

840 Gessner Road Suite 1200

Houston, TX 77024

281-848-2799

Web site: "Cabot Oil and Gas"

Articles & Sources

External Resources

Related SourceWatch Articles

Source Watch has a special clearinghouse on fracking, Fracking for Gas

References

  1. ↑ "Marcellus Shale: Cabot Oil & Gas"
  2. ↑ "Wikimarcellus"
  3. ↑ "A Colossal Fracking Mess", Vanity Fair 2010.
  4. ↑ "Fracking Halliburton", Mother Jones.
  5. ↑ "Marcellus Shale: Cabot Oil & Gas"
  6. ↑ "Cabot Oil & Gas’s Marcellus Drilling to Slow After PA Environment Officials Order Wells Closed", Propublica.com
  7. ↑ "Big Donor Paid for Corbett's Inaugural Bash", Seeking Philly.com 2010
  8. ↑ "Open Secrets Cabot Oil & Gas"
  9. ↑ "Open Secrets Cabot Oil & Gas"
  10. ↑ "Cabot Oil & Gas Stock Rises after Move to Close Charleston Office", WOWK TV 2010
  11. ↑ "Cabot Oil & Gas Stock Rises after Move to Close Charleston Office", WOWK TV 2010
  12. ↑ "West Virginia State Site Donor Look-Up"
  13. ↑ "Pennsylvania State Political Donor Look-Up"
  14. ↑ "Open Secrets"
  15. ↑ "Fight Against State Tax on Gas Extraction Gets Expensive", Pittsburgh Post Gazette.com
  16. ↑ "Corbett Panel Includes Marcellus Lobbyists", Towanda Daily Review
  17. ↑ "ANGA Members"
  18. ↑ "AEPC Members"
  19. ↑ "Energy In Depth Members"
  20. ↑ "IPAA Members"
  21. ↑ "Marcellus Shale Coalition Committee"
  22. ↑ "PIOGA Member"
  23. ↑ "Western Energy Alliance"
  24. ↑ "West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association"
  25. ↑ "Colorado Oil and Gas Association"
  26. ↑ "Dumped Fracking Fluids in Delaware River Watershed", News Inferno.com
  27. ↑ "Dumped Fracking Fluids in Delaware River Watershed", News Inferno.com
  28. ↑ "Dumped Fracking Fluids in Delaware River Watershed", News Inferno.com
  29. ↑ "Marcellus Effect"
  30. ↑ "Marcellus Effect"
  31. ↑ "Odorless, Colorless: The Quiet Rise of American Big Gas", CNN Money 09/29/2010
  32. ↑ "Pennsylvania DEP Fines Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. $56,650 for Susquehanna County Spills", PR News Wire
  33. ↑ "Pennsylvania Tells Drilling Company to Clean Up Its Act", Propublica.com
  34. ↑ "Pennsylvania Tells Drilling Company to Clean Up its Act", Propublica.com
  35. ↑ "Cabot Oil & Gas to pay $4.1 million in settlement agreement with Pennsylvania DEP", Penn Energy.com 2010
  36. ↑ "Pa. Residents Sue Gas Driller for Contamination, Health Concerns", Propublica.com
  37. ↑ "Cabot Oil & Gas Press Release 2010"
  38. ↑ "MarketWatch Cabot Oil & Gas"
  39. ↑ "MarketWatch Cabot Oil & Gas"
  40. ↑ "MarketWatch Cabot Oil & Gas"
  41. ↑ "MarketWatch Cabot Oil & Gas"
  42. ↑ "MarketWatch Cabot Oil & Gas"
  43. ↑ "Forbes Cabot Oil & Gas"
  44. ↑ "Reuters Scott Schroeder Bio"
  45. ↑ "Reuters Jeffery Hutton Bio"
  46. ↑ "Reuters Lisa Machesney Bio"
  47. ↑ "Reuters James Reid Bio"
  48. ↑ "Reuters Abraham Garza Bio"
  49. ↑ "Oil and Gas Investor"
  50. ↑ "Open Secrets"
  51. ↑ "Campaign Money"
  52. ↑ "Marcellus Shale.us"
  53. ↑ [http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4741359g "Common Cause.org"
  54. ↑ "Propublica Web site"
  55. ↑ "WV Donor Lookup"
  56. ↑ "Pennsylvania State Donor Lookup"

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