GOP, witnesses make case for exploring Atlantic

E&E News
By Phil Taylor
January 10, 2014

But Democrats and a professor of marine science warned that Congress must codify and enhance offshore safety regulations before allowing exploration in frontier waters.

Today's hearing focused on advances in seismic surveying technologies and how they could inform future energy production off the East Coast.

A top Interior Department official said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management next month plans to finalize a sweeping plan to allow the first new seismic tests since the late 1980s in the mid- and south Atlantic.

But Republicans said they were frustrated at the time it has taken for BOEM to finish the plan, which it began in January 2009, saying new three-dimensional oil and gas survey data are critical to informing future leasing decisions.

They said environmental groups and some Democrats are shortsighted in opposing new surveys.

"I cannot imagine a single person who would choose ignorance over scientific discovery," said Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.).

Walter Cruickshank, BOEM's deputy director, said the agency's programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for geological and geophysical (G&G) exploration has been "very complicated and challenging" and has been set back by the need for consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, the discovery of new science, last October's government shutdown, and the need to review 55,000 public comments.

Richie Miller, president of Houston-based Spectrum Geo Inc., a seismic surveying firm, said the G&G industry now tows longer air gun streamers that can reveal deeper oil and gas deposits with greater precision than in the 1980s. That's helped lead to a fivefold increase in oil estimates in the Gulf of Mexico and would reveal a similar increase in the Atlantic, he predicted.

"We no longer explore with the drill bit," he said. "The best decisions are made when we have the best available data."

James Knapp, an earth science professor at the University of South Carolina, said that in early days of surveying, a typical success rate for wildcat wells was three out of 10 but that with 3-D and in some cases 4-D technologies, the success is seven in 10.

In addition, he said, "using onshore seismic and well data has called into question more than 30 years of research on the Atlantic continental margin, suggesting that many previous interpretations of the geologic evolution were in error, and accordingly, so too is the estimate of the resource potential."

Republicans and witnesses also disputed arguments by environmentalists that seismic surveying, which involves loud, prolonged air gun blasts, would harm marine wildlife including whales.

Knapp called those impacts "putative," while Miller pointed to guidelines published by the International Association of Geophysical Contractors calling for marine mammal observers on vessels and the use of passive acoustic monitoring to avoid harm to wildlife.

Cruickshank said BOEM has spent nearly $40 million over the past decade on research into the acoustic impacts of seismic surveys on marine life. The agency is contemplating a suite of wildlife mitigation steps to include in its PEIS, including seasonal restrictions to protect right whales.

But Democrats and Donald Boesch, a marine scientist at the University of Maryland who served on President Obama's BP PLC oil spill commission, said opening the Atlantic is premature since Congress is yet to implement key safety reforms recommended by the commission.

"They're really a predicate before we make these decisions to move into other areas," said Boesch, who, along with his fellow commission members, has given Congress grades of D+ and D over the past two years. "What's lacking, of course, is the law."

New Jersey Democratic Reps. Rush Holt and Frank Pallone both warned of potential harm to the Garden State's robust tourism and fishing sectors if offshore exploration were allowed.

Finalization of the PEIS would not allow drilling -- nor would it allow any site-specific seismic surveys -- but it would signal political momentum toward opening the Atlantic to production.

"I believe that would be a huge mistake," Holt said. "We should not be risking our fishing and tourism industries, sustainable industries, bringing in over $45 billion each year and support half a million jobs in New Jersey alone, because the energy companies want to get their hands on a quick oil buck -- a little extra oil, I might add, that the industry has made clear they'd rather export."

Pallone, one of the fiercest critics of BOEM's seismic survey plan, asked Cruickshank to wait for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to finalize new guidelines for assessing acoustic impacts on marine wildlife before finalizing the PEIS.

Cruickshank said those guidelines have been issued in piecemeal fashion and there's no timeline for their finalization, so BOEM will not wait.

Environmental groups are lobbying strongly for BOEM to delay its PEIS, arguing that surveys would harm an unacceptable number of whales and fish and that compelling new science must be considered.

For example, new research from Cornell University suggests endangered right whales migrate farther from Virginia's shores than previously thought, suggesting the safety buffers BOEM is contemplating are inadequate, Oceana and the International Fund for Animal Welfare told Interior Secretary Sally Jewell last month (E&ENews PM, Dec. 19, 2013).

Oceana's campaign director, Claire Douglass, criticized the lack of scientists on the witness panel.

"In a hearing about 'seismic exploration,' one can only wonder where the wildlife, fisheries and acoustic experts are," she said. "These dynamitelike blasts can cause temporary or permanent hearing loss, which can seriously harm animals that depend on their hearing for critical life-sustaining behaviors such as feeding, mating and communicating."

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), an outspoken proponent of drilling off the Palmetto State's shores, said BOEM has yet to point to a single instance of seismic surveys harming marine life.