American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2016 - 37

4775. "Our nation's air has been getting
cleaner without costly new regulations,"
states API's Finkel, who says ground-level ozone declined by 18 percent between
2000 and 2013.
He adds, "Tightening the standards will
not improve air quality any faster, but these
regulations could hurt jobs and the economy by imposing unachievable emission
reduction requirements on many parts of
the nation."
Adds AFPM President Chet Thompson,
"Significant investments and job growth
opportunities from the refining and petrochemical industries-and others-are threatened by the current implementation schedule for the 2015 ozone standards."
The California Independent Petroleum
Association quotes House Majority Leader
Kevin McCarthy, R-Ca., saying, "When
the administration's air regulations result
in even Yosemite Park struggling to reach
compliance, it is time to step back and survey the common sense of this regulation."
Oppose New Taxes
The House passed a pair of concurrent
resolutions on June 10 opposing Obama
administration tax proposals.
IPAA says HCR 112, introduced by
Representative Charles Boustany, R-La.,
opposes the $10 tax on each barrel of U.S.
crude oil President Obama proposed in the
FY 2017 budget plan he submitted to Congress.
The association cites a report it says calculates the tax "would be one of the
largest tax increases on gasoline in history," and HCR 112 itself estimates the tax
could translate to as much as an additional 25 cents on a gallon of gasoline.
The National Ocean Industries Association comments, "While this resolution
is not binding and does not have the
force and effect of law, the (253-144) vote
and bipartisanship on the issue send a
strong signal to this and future administrations that new taxes on oil will not pass
in Congress."
HCR 89, which House Majority Whip
Steve Scalise, R-La., says expresses the
sense of Congress that a carbon tax would
be detrimental to the U.S. economy,
passed 237-163.
Isaac Orr, a research fellow for energy
and environmental policy at The Heartland
Institute, calls a $25 a ton tax on carbon
dioxide "a total disaster for the poor, single mothers, and the elderly . . . (because)
it would reduce average household income
by approximately $1,400 a year."
Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, says, "We send our
elected officials to Washington with the expectation they will support policies that
strengthen our economy and allow every

American an equal opportunity to succeed.
A national energy tax fails on both counts."
The Heartland Institute Science Director Jay Lehr points out that plants will not
grow below 150 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 and comments, "Before World
War II, we were perilously close to having too little CO2 in the atmosphere. The
industrial revolution has saved us, and
hopefully we are on our way to 500 and
600 ppm, which the planet has exceeded
for much of its history. It surely is time to
end the insanity and defeat the idea of imposing a carbon tax."

vironmental Enforcement's offshore well
control rule.
NOIA notes that neither of the offshore
provisions is contained in the Senate Appropriations Committee's DOI spending
bill, which was reported out June 16. That
bill totals $32.03 billion and funds EPA at
$8.1 billion, BLM at $1.24 billion, and USFWS at $1.49 billion. It also prohibits
EPA's WOTUS rule, and continues a prohibition on listing the sage grouse as an endangered species, according to an Appropriations Committee news release.
❒

DOI Appropriations
In appropriation news, both the House
and Senate Appropriations committees
passed their versions of the FY 2017 Department of Interior appropriations bills,
which also include funding for the EPA,
Bureau of Land Management, and U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service, among others.
The House bill, which was reported by
the committee on June 15, provides DOI
$32.1 billion, which the Appropriations
Committee reports is $64 million below
the FY 2016 enacted level and $1.0 billion
less than the president's budget request.
Within that, the committee says, EPA
is funded at $7.98 billion ($164 million less
than 2016), BLM gets $1.2 billion (a $10
million decrease from 2016), and USFWS
gets $1.5 billion (a $17 million decrease).
Importantly, says IPAA, the House
bill contains an amendment by Representative Kevin Yoder, R-Ks., that prevents
USFWS from listing the lesser prairie
chicken as threatened or endangered.
The Texas Independent Producers &
Royalty Owners Association points out
that other amendments prohibit EPA from
implementing its Clean Power Plan, new
methane emission limits for oil and gas facilities, and the "waters of the United
States" rule making.
An amendment by Representative
Mike Simpson, R-Id., orders BLM to
extend the comment period for its resource
management Planning 2.0 proposal (see
story page 20).
The International Association of
Drilling Contractors hails an amendment
by Representative John Culberson, R-Tx.,
that prevents the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management from enforcing its final
rule on offshore air quality (see "BOEM
Proposes New Air Quality Rule," AOGR,
April 2016, pg. 34) until after it completes
its air quality modeling studies.
NOIA, meanwhile, cites an amendment
from Representative Ken Calvert, R-Ca.,
that rolls back the 0.5 pounds per gallon
"safe drilling margin" between the weight
of drilling fluids and formation pressure
specified in the Bureau of Safety and En-

Meridian Seeking Permits
For North Dakota Reﬁnery
BELFIELD, N.D.-Meridian Energy
Group Inc. has filed applications for a zoning certificate and conditional use permit
with Billings County, N.D., as its first
round of applications relating to its proposed 55,000 barrel-a-day Davis Refinery.
The Davis site is in the heart of the
Bakken Shale play, near Belfield, N.D.
The proposed refinery will be the first
green-field complex, high-conversion refinery built in many years, the company
says. Meridian adds the new plant will use
state-of-the-art instrumentation and control technology, and will comply fully with
environmental and safety requirements.
According to Meridian, the Davis Refinery will address two pressing needs:
* It will expand refining capacity to
near the more than 1 million barrels a day
of crude oil being produced in the Bakken
region, most of which is transported out
of North Dakota for refining at higher
costs.
* It will turn locally produced crude
into superclean transportation and heating
fuels, providing a supply to the oil service, agriculture and trucking industries, as
well as consumer vehicles that now is
shipped into the state.
"By building the Davis Refinery close
to the oil producers, Meridian can enter
into long-term process tolling agreements with producers and refined product
distribution firms that make these firms
stronger financially, and at the same time
substantially reduce the refinery's feedstock costs," says William Prentice,
Meridian's chairman and chief executive
officer.
❒

Coming In August
Horizontal & Innovative Drilling,
looking at how CONSOL Energy is
achieving record Marcellus horizontal drilling footage rates of up to one
mile a day.
JULY 2016 37

American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2016

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