Lawsuit says outdated EPA flaring rules have led to more pollution.
Ten environmental organizations, including Air Alliance Houston and Environment Texas, recently sued the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming that it failed to bolster flaring rules.
The suit claims that the EPA’s failure to update the standards for flaring, the practice of burning off excess gases to prevent more toxic pollution to escape, has increased emissions. The regulations target flaring at petrochemical facilities, gasoline terminals, natural gas processing plants, compressor stations and solid waste landfills.
The environmental groups say operators don’t always conduct the practice correctly, leading to the release of gases that endanger public health and contribute to climate change.
“Time and time again, EPA has admitted that flares operating under these outdated standards can release many times more toxic air pollutants into local communities than estimated,” Adam Kron, senior attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, the leading plaintiff in the suit, said in a statement. “This can cause serious harm to public health.”
Election could bring Iranian oil back
For fragile oil markets, the outcome of this Tuesday’s U.S. election poses yet another risk: the prospect that major producer Iran may regain its role in international trade.
Challenger Joe Biden, leading in most polls, has signaled he’ll
seek to bring Iran back into the 2015 nuclear accord the U.S. brokered when he was vice president under Barack Obama. That means the economic sanctions President Donald Trump imposed — and tightened further last week — could eventually be eased, opening the sluices for more than 2 million barrels a day of Iranian crude exports.
Downturn hasn’t sunk Exxon dividends
Exxon Mobil Corp. is maintaining the third-highest dividend in
the S&P 500 Index, underscoring its historic commitment to the payout despite this year’s virusdriven oil crash.
Investors will be paid 87 cents a share for the current quarter, matching the level of the last six periods, the Irving-based company said in a statement. The oil giant trails only Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Inc. among S&P 500 companies in payouts to shareholders over the past 12 months, according to Bloomberg data.
The plunge in crude prices and demand for petroleum products caused by the pandemic
sent shock waves through the world’s energy markets this year and came at a bad time for Exxon, which was in the middle of a costly upgrade of its oil and gas assets. Exxon is now consistently funding the payout with borrowed money for the first time in decades.
The company said Friday that it lost $680 million in the third quarter — a day after it announced it would cut 1,900 jobs.
Executives pledged a “great commitment” to the dividend in July and vowed to roll back growth plans and capital spending and to cut jobs to defend it. But investors aren’t yet convinced. The stock’s dividend yield has risen to more than 10 percent for most of the past five weeks.
Poll: Most voters back energy transition
A new poll shows 60 percent of registered voters support transitioning from fossil fuels such as oil, a policy supported by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The poll by Politico and Morning Consult showed that 55 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of independents and 83 percent of Democrats support such a move, which President Donald Trump has criticized as likely to wreck the U.S. economy.
The issue came to a head in last week’s presidential debate, when Trump asked Biden to explain his views on the the oil sector, then urging voters in oil and gas states such as Texas and Pennsylvania to “remember” Biden’s statement that he “would transition from the oil industry.”
At a time of increasingly large and frequent wildfires across the western United States, regular hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and increased flooding along rivers throughout the Midwest, scientists’ longtime warning of the consequences of climate change appear to be gaining ground among most Americans.
The poll found that 79 percent of Americans now support the expansion of renewable energy such as wind turbines and solar panels, with only 5 percent opposed.