Carbon Capture Capers

The state is rushing headlong into carbon capture despite many remaining questions as to the efficacy and safety of the process. It definitely feels like we're going to learn about the consequences the hard way.  Anyway, it doesn't inspire confidence that companies are limiting public scrutiny by doing everything in their power to keep the site locations secret for as long as possible.

Without information about where CO2 injection wells will be located, Eustis said it’s not possible to notify local landowners of the potential risks to their drinking water or assess if there are pathways for leaks, such as underground faults. In areas with underground salt domes, like Vermilion Parish, CO2 leakage and pressure can extend up to 12 miles away from the injection site, according to research by the University of Texas at Austin. A new report commissioned by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project warns of the risks of proposing carbon disposal wells in areas dense with abandoned oil and gas wells.

“Class VI applicants cannot keep the locations of the underground plume secret, and also have a comment period,” Eustis said. He questioned how his organization could warn the public about the potential safety hazards of pollution in such a short time frame. Most projects in the state only require a 30-day commenting period. “The risks extend far from the injection site, and can affect hundreds to thousands of landowners, although we hope that will be unlikely,” he said.

Also in the above story, Exxon seems keen to place injection wells on state-owned land in order to limit liability. Also it looks like they're taking advantage of the state's "orphaned well" clean up fund in order to do their prep work for them.  Other shenanigans afoot.  Anyway, for now all we can do is hope it doesn't end in too many sinkholes or poisoned aquifers. But we won't know that until it's too late either.

ITEP Pep rally

They took it out of the headline but originally the Advocate described this as a "pep rally." I thought that was pretty apt.

In the halls of the legislature and on the steps of City Hall, in advertisements, social media and meetings with the press, Baton Rouge leaders are still at work trying to manage the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program, or ITEP,  after local giant ExxonMobil failed to secure a pair of tax breaks.

Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome called scores of people in the business community on Monday to City Hall, where she and her guests praised the corporation’s commitments to local investment, philanthropy and job training.

None uttered the phrase “industrial tax exemption” until prompted by reporters, but the timing was clear: Less than a week before, faith-based nonprofit Together Baton Rouge gathered at the opposite side of the building to celebrate the parish school board’s rejection of two ITEP proposals that prompted ExxonMobil to pull similar requests before they made it to the Metro Council.

Did Baton Rouge voters know they were electing Broome mayor of the Exxon pep squad?  Did they know how fragile their feelings were before we decided that maybe we ought to consider their tax exemptions a little bit before just approving every request by rote? Did they know how eager Broome would be to make sure their feelings were not hurt? 

When she ran for office in 2016, the mayor campaigned on setting limits for ITEP but backed off shortly upon taking office. She did not take any hard stances Monday on ExxonMobil’s applications but spoke approvingly of the Metro Council's ITEP guidelines, which will determine when an exemption is warranted.

Ah yeah, gotta have those guidelines.  Anything to take the actual hard work of being politically responsive to constituents such as the poor and working class people who have to pay the taxes Exxon doesn't.  Better to just let BRAC set the rules and put everything on auto-pilot.

It’s a sentiment BRAC also emphasized in an open letter to the community, published in a full-page ad in The Advocate’s Sunday edition. The local ITEP guidelines might not be perfect, but the Chamber likes them well enough. The problem will be making sure the rules are strictly and uniformly enforced, not given to interpretation or political sway. The School Board rejected one ExxonMobil ITEP application even though it met all their requirements, Knapp charged, a charge that TBR contests.

Probably won't have to worry about any of this for much longer, anyway. Not if these legislators have anything to say about it. 

Two Republican state lawmakers plan to file legislation that would return sole authority of the Industrial Tax Exemption Program back to the state, essentially restoring the process in place before Gov. John Bel Edwards’ 2016 executive order gave local governments a say in granting the property tax exemptions. 

Sen. Mack “Bodi” White, R-Central, and Rep. Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge, will co-file the bill in the upcoming legislative session, which begins April 8. They say it will restore a “consistent process” for manufacturers applying for the lucrative property tax breaks. 

A "consistent process" is one where the oligarchs decide how much public money to hand over to the other oligarchs without any meddlesome input from the public whose money it is in the first place.  Not very fair. But it's consistent.

Competition

Thank the Lord for our Free Market economic system where we foster competition among states to dole out the largest taxpayer financed subsidy to international industrial behemoths so that they might spoil our wetlands and pollute our atmosphere.

The school board in a south Texas community competing with two Louisiana sites has approved an estimated $1.2 billion in tax breaks to entice Exxon Mobil Corp. and its Saudi partner to build a $9.3 billion petrochemical plant within its district along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil officials said Ascension and St. James parishes are in the running for the petrochemical complex, though company officials have said the Portland, Texas, site is the front-runner and another Texas site is also under consideration.

Thus the invisible hand of the market maximizes everyone's utility. 

Probably didn't ask for enough seafood marketing money

It's been twenty-five years since the Exxon Valdez disaster.  Alaskan fisheries and wildlife have yet to fully recover.

Bernie Culbertson was preparing to fish cod when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. With oil in the water, fishing came to a standstill and life for he and other fishermen drastically changed.

"The bottom fell out of the price of fish," he said. Pink salmon that sold for 80 cents per pound fell to 8 cents per pound. Consumers turned to farm fish or tuna out of fear of tainted salmon. His boat caught 2.5 million pound of pinks one season and lost money.

Culbertson turned to other fisheries, traveling as far as California. Fishing 12 months a year, his marriage failed. Friends couldn't repay loans and lost boats or homes. Exxon compensation checks, minus what fishermen earned on spill work, arrived too late for many.

The fisheries today are not the same. "The shrimp are slowly, slowly coming back. The crab aren't back. The herring aren't back. The salmon are back in abundance," he said.

Exxon claims this land in the name of.. all this oil Exxon spilled all over it

Reporters in Mayflower are being threatened with arrest by the local police there because, well, because that's what Exxon wants.

Local media in Mayflower have been hampered in their reporting by a pliant county sheriff's office who has been taking orders from ExxonMobil about who can enter the site of the spill. A no-fly zone was set up by the FAA after ExxonMobil requested it, and now news organizations must ask for the oil giants' permission before flying over the site.

On top of those restrictions, on Wednesday, a group of reporters were given permission to escort Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel on a tour of the spill site. Their tour, however, was cut short. Local reporter Michael Hibblen told Mother Jones that after being lead to holding area,

It was less than 90 seconds before suddenly the sheriff's deputies started yelling that all the media people had to leave, that ExxonMobil had decided they don't want you here, you have to leave. They even referred to it as "Exxon Media"…Some reporters were like, "Who made this decision? Who can we talk to?" The sheriff's deputies started saying, "You have to leave. You have 10 seconds to leave or you will be arrested."

We've seen this before, of course.  During the height of the BP disaster, reporters were repeatedly harangued and denied access to beaches by private security, by  sheriff's deputies, and by the United States Coast Guard.

The frustrating absurdity of this was best captured by Mother Jones' Mac McClelland's series of blog posts that spring and summer including this one where she was denied access out of concern for her "pores."

When I tell Barbara I am a reporter, she stalks off and says she's not talking to me, then comes back and hugs me and says she was just playing. I tell her I don't understand why I can't see Elmer's Island unless I'm escorted by BP. She tells me BP's in charge because "it's BP's oil."

"But it's not BP's land."

"But BP's liable if anything happens."

"So you're saying it's a safety precaution."

"Yeah! You don't want that oil gettin' into your pores."

"But there are tourists and residents walking around in it across the street."

"The mayor decides which beaches are closed."

So I call the Grand Isle police requesting a press liason, only to get routed to voicemail for Melanie with BP. I call the police back and ask why they gave me a number for BP; they blame the fire chief.

I reach the fire chief.  "Why did the police give me a number for BP?" I ask.

"That's the number they gave us."

"Who?"

"BP."