By Nanette Light
The Norman Transcript
NORMAN — Energy resources that fueled the United States decades ago will continue to help it chug, so long as the government steps off the gas, said Gov. Mary Fallin and oil and gas leaders Tuesday during an energy panel at the University of Oklahoma.
Environmental Protection Agency regulations took a poignant hit by Fallin and industry leaders Harold Hamm, founder and CEO of Enid-based Continental Resources Inc., and Larry Nichols, co-founder and executive chairman of Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., who all said the agency’s oversight of hydraulic fracturing of wells could stonewall natural gas developments.
“The federal government does not have any power or any influence over the wells we drill in Oklahoma ... or anywhere else. And that frustrates them,” Nichols said.
He said efforts to cool the development of oil and natural gas by vying for control under the EPA “in the name of protecting groundwater” would give the leverage needed to slow drilling and drive up the cost.
“And that’s what the battle is all about,” he said. “It’s just idotic to be at war with the fuels we have.”
Before the panel, Fallin said she would fight the agency’s oversight of hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique where large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are injected underground to crack rock and force natural gas to the surface.
“I’ll be there as your governor to stand up for the energy industry because it is a very important industry to our state,” she said.
Hamm said in the last two-to-three years, some have said chemicals in the technique, which he said is essential to production, could contaminate groundwater for drinking — an issue the EPA is now studying.
Nichols was defensive of accusations by critics. He’s even testified to Congress that no harm to groundwater has ever been because of the technique.
Hamm echoed Nichols, saying the technique is not dangerous and should not be feared, adding that its run-record is older than his in the industry.
“It’s a waste of your breath, if somebody is so against fossil fuels that they want us to immediately go to alternatives. ... They really don’t know the industry at all,” he said.
In the last quarter, Hamm said more than 50 percent of the United States’ oil supply was found within the country. He also said U.S. production of crude oil and natural gas liquids has risen 19 percent.
“We’ve been told that we’re running out of oil and gas for decades, and look at what is happening. You can go after and find study after study, generation after generation that says we’ve exhausted everything we have, and they’re proven wrong every time,” Nichols said, adding that there’s likely a number of barrels in Oklahoma fields many presume to be exhausted.
He said discovery of the resource in previously uncharted areas like North Dakota and Pennsylvania — a state whose senators were reputabely “lock-step” with the coal industry — has shifted some politicians’ views to the benefits of the industry.
“It sounds negative because of the battles we fight in Washington, but we don’t need to worry about anything, other than stopping the EPA,” Nichols said.
He said natural gas is the cleanest-burning fuel, producing half the carbon dioxide other fuels produce.
Nichols advised halting the burning of coal and transforming its plants to produce natural gas, which he said would make the biggest impact to the production of carbon dixoide at zero consumer cost.
“It seems slow. It’s frustrating, but I think we’re making progress,” said OU President David Boren, moderator of the panel and leader of the university that declared it would be 100 percent wind-powered by 2013. “If we want to impact the environment and we want to do it with reliable sources of fuel, why in the world are we not taking this dramatic step in power generation through natural gas? Sometimes you just want to get on top of your chair and sceam.”
Both Nichols and Hamm advocated competition between the fuel industries and a swift exit of the government’s hand.
“Our industry was supposed to be over when I started in the ’60s. But you have to have faith in the future,” Hamm said. “We’re doing the unconventional now ... but there’s a lot of conventional stuff we’ve stepped over ... that’s still out there.”
Nanette Light 366-3541 nlight@normantranscript.com
