E2 Morning Roundup: CEQ and oceans agency were bit players in White House drilling plan, Burr could emerge as GOP energy voice, and more

On tap Thursday: Interior Department drilling safety tour hits Alaska

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s traveling drilling safety road show stops in Anchorage for a public hearing. The Interior Department drilling regulators are gathering input about safety reforms, spill response and whether to alter the reach or length of the six-month ban on deepwater drilling that’s slated to end in late November.

What to look for: attack on Shell Oil’s plans

Environmentalists are fighting Shell’s plans to drill in Arctic federal waters off Alaska’s northern coast. The company says it is planning robust safeguards and “unprecedented” response plans for the shallow-water project. But Marilyn Heiman of the Pew Environment Group will testify about the “inadequacy of spill response planning and resources in the Arctic Outer Continental Shelf,” the group said.

On tap Thursday II: EPA’s environmental justice advisers to chat

EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council will hold a public conference call Thursday afternoon. On the agenda: EPA’s draft plan to better integrate environmental justice into agency programs. Environmental justice generally refers to the movement to address the fact that poor and minority communities often have disproportionately high exposure to pollution and other hazards.

NOAA, CEQ out of the loop on drilling?

Top officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the White House Council on Environmental Quality were not central players in Obama administration planning to allow wider offshore drilling.

That’s what emerged from Wednesday’s Washington, D.C., hearing of the White House-created commission probing the BP oil spill and safety reforms.

Back in March, before the oil spill, the Interior Department rolled out plans to expand offshore oil-and-gas drilling in coming years (2012-2017) by opening areas off mid-Atlantic and Southern Atlantic states and expanding leasing in Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico (that last part would need an assist from Congress).

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco — whose agency plays a key role in marine species protection — said NOAA provided comments when the plan was under construction but was not a decision-maker.

“I would say that concerns that we raised were listened to, and that many of them were incorporated into the final decision, but not all of them,” she said when testifying before the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

Key exchange between spill commission co-chair and Lubchenco:

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham (D) to Lubchenco: “You say now that you played a consultative role, but that you were not part of the group that advised the president on the ultimate decision to expand offshore oil and gas exploration.”

Lubchenco: “That's correct.”

CEQ Chairwoman Nancy Sutley at one point noted, “We had not been specifically asked for anything.”

The spill commission co-chairs are disturbed by the drilling plan’s genesis

“I would think that if you're developing a policy to expand offshore oil and gas exploration to the extent that the president announced, that consultation with the agency with the responsibility for oceans management regulation and your overall umbrella agency, the Council for Environmental Quality, would be two of the people on the consultation list,” Graham said at a news conference Wednesday.

And here’s William Reilly, the other co-chair, during the hearing: “I must say, as an alumnus of CEQ, I'm disappointed that a policy to expand so significantly the area of offshore oil and gas would not have involved direct consultation with the CEQ chair and with other agencies.” Reilly was at CEQ under President Nixon and was EPA Administrator under President George H.W. Bush.

The lack of a central NOAA role makes waves

Over at Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard isn't pleased NOAA was apparently a bit player, given the agency’s mission.

“Now, Sutley's job description at CEQ is mostly confined to making sure that federal agencies uphold the National Environmental Protection Act in their decisionmaking. Any involved on the part of CEQ would come down the line as decisions are made about lease sales or permitting. But Lubchenco's role as the head of NOAA is much more central here. This is the agency charged with protecting ocean and coastal resources and responsible for evaluating the extent to which drilling operations might impact endangered species, marine mammals, or fisheries,” she writes.

Former MMS Chief: More firewalls needed between regulators, industry

Liz Birnbaum, who resigned months ago as Interior’s top drilling regulator, offered the commission some ideas. “One helpful suggestion made by the Interior inspector general is that penalties be established for industry, in addition to those for federal employees, who receive inappropriate gifts. This would require legislation. Several other measures could reduce connections: requiring regular rotation of inspectors; setting firewalls between inspectors and facilities where their relatives work; monitoring the rate of violations found by various inspectors in district offices; imposing moratoria on inspectors visiting facilities operated by the companies that previously employed them, which I believe MMS has instituted,” she said. Here's our full story on her remarks.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) could be the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee

Burr could be the ranking GOP member of the influential panel — or chairman should Republicans reclaim the Senate — if Joe Miller’s lead in Alaska primary voting holds and he topples Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Check out our story on Burr’s potential reign.

Where Burr gathers his political cash

The folks at Oil Change International are tracking oil-and-coal-industry contributions. In the current Congress, Burr has raised $245,774 from the sectors, they report. Burr’s top source: SCANA Corp., a power company that serves North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, which has given Burr more than $49,000 in the 111th Congress. Utility powerhouse Duke Energy is next on Burr’s list.

Obama administration takes a side in global warming lawsuit — and not the one you might expect

From Greenwire, via The New York Times:

“The Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to toss out an appeals court decision that would allow lawsuits against major emitters for their contributions to global warming, stunning environmentalists who see the case as a powerful prod on climate change.

“In the case, AEP v. Connecticut, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a coalition of states, environmental groups and New York City. The decision, handed down last year, said they could proceed with a lawsuit that seeks to force several of the nation's largest coal-fired utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

“The defendants — American Electric Power Co. Inc., Duke Energy Corp., Southern Co. and Xcel Energy Inc. — filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court earlier this month, asking the court to reject the argument that greenhouse gas emissions can be addressed through ‘public nuisance’ lawsuits.

“In a brief filed yesterday on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal agreed with the defendants, saying that U.S. EPA's newly finalized regulations on greenhouse gases have displaced that type of common-law claim.”

BP cites changes to blowout preventer in Deepwater Horizon accident

From The Wall Street Journal:

“Undocumented changes to the blowout preventer that should have shut down BP PLC's runaway Gulf well slowed efforts to stop the flow of oil, a BP official testified Wednesday.”

“After spending days trying to use underwater robots to trigger the blowout preventer, a huge stack of valves on the seafloor designed to seal the well in an emergency, workers discovered that it had been modified, Harry Thierens, a BP vice president overseeing the effort, testified at hearings in Houston.”

“The controls that the robots were trying to use that were supposed to close the valves were actually connected to a testing device that couldn't shut off the well, he said.” The story notes that the blowout preventer was owned and maintained by Transocean, the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon rig that BP contracted to drill its Macondo well.

More James Cameron: Avatar director says BP spill highlights lack of energy policy

Cameron was last seen calling climate skeptics “swine,” while those skeptics say the director of the eco-tinged film wimped out on a planned debate.

The New York Daily News has a piece Thursday about Cameron’s take on the BP oil spill.

“Director James Cameron says audiences don't have to look to the stars to find resonance for his sci-fi blockbuster ‘Avatar,’ which returns to theaters Friday with nine more minutes of footage,” the paper reports.

“They can find a big, oozing parallel right in the Gulf of Mexico. ’The BP mess is a classic example of how our energy policies, or lack thereof, are going to hurt us,’ Cameron recently told the Daily News.”

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