Marcellus Shale Natural Gas
Floor Speech
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank my friend and colleague from the great State of New York, where our congressional districts adjoin at that New York-Pennsylvania border. I am really proud to be with you on the floor today to talk about this game changer, as you referred to.
Mr. Speaker, we are facing critical times--record debt, $14 trillion; skyrocketing gas prices, in some places over $4 a gallon and climbing; energy dependence and addiction to Middle Eastern oil; and a volatile Middle East. All those things tie together. And, frankly, we're here to talk about something that is a part of the solution on how to get out from underneath each one of those critical issues that is just piling on this Nation, the United States of America, and that is the Marcellus shale natural gas. We are proud to also have Marcellus shale underneath much of Pennsylvania. We have New York and Pennsylvania, West Virginia, parts of Ohio, parts of Virginia.
The Marcellus is just a tremendous natural gas play. It's something that we have known has been there for a very, very long time, but the technology to access it is more of a recent advent, and it is just so exciting. I'm glad we are here to talk about all aspects of this tonight.
Over the last month, the development of the Marcellus shale natural gas play has been given national attention, in particular, a technical industry term known as ``hydraulic fracturing,'' or ``fracking,'' a process utilized in oil and gas production for almost a century and regulated now for decades. Oil and gas workers have completed nearly 1 million fracking jobs nationally, safely and without adverse environmental impact. Over the years, these technologies have been refined and improved for more efficient and environmentally safe use. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I find that the rapid increase of technology as it comes from the natural gas industry right now is just incredible. This is an industry that is literally very solid but is always looking for that new opportunity on how to do things even better.
Recently, the New York Times attempted to discredit the wealth and experience employed by the industry over the years and the successful work of government officials to properly regulate natural gas development. Through half-truths and, frankly, calculated quote shopping, the New York Times made unsubstantiated claims regarding fracking and its impact on water quality and the environment. They repackaged old stories with sensational new headlines, and they rehashed allegations against development of natural resources vital for our country's energy future.
Now immediately following these stories, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection--which has, frankly, jurisdiction over the drilling of natural gas in the Keystone State--responded, releasing tests that show that water supplies downstream of Marcellus shale gas drilling are safe. This testing has addressed misinformation related to water quality in the Commonwealth and validated with scientific data that municipal drinking water is safe.
Mr. Speaker, each day in my district there is news regarding the Marcellus shale worthy of a national headline. Through this resource and these technologies, 70 million homes and thousands of small businesses are paying the lowest gas prices in years to heat their homes. The lowest. Let me repeat that. When you have gas prices, petroleum gas prices that are at record highs, volatile highs for our vehicles, natural gas prices at the same time are at a record low. That's where they have a national headline. That is all because of one thing. Natural gas in this country is largely domestically produced. It is produced by American workers, and it doesn't have that volatility that you see when you become reliant on countries such as in the Middle East.
Thousands of jobs are being created. I have two counties in particular at the epicenter. Actually, one of them adjoins your congressional district. The lowest unemployment numbers probably in history, much lower than national and State averages. There's nothing better that you can do for a person than create an environment that provides them a good-paying job, and that is happening as a result of the natural gas industry.
Each day, the local economy in my district gets a little better, and every moment the notion of an energy secure America is easier to grasp. For me, I define ``energy security'' as shutting off the pipeline from the Middle East.
I recognize that the largest amount of our oil that we import is from Canada, and Canada is a good ally. I don't see any threats from Canadians other than maybe when we get around to hockey season between the teams. But when it comes to the Middle East, I think when we look at the volatility in the Middle East today, in Egypt and obviously Libya and Yemen, I mean, we should end that addiction immediately to Middle Eastern oil, and that achieves energy security.
Now, when it comes to safety, there can be no shortcuts, no loopholes, and no exceptions, but sensationalism fails to serve any good for anyone. Scare tactics are dangerous when dealing with such complicated and technical matters as this. And that is what we see with many of the headlines that we have been reading, articles written with half-truths.
I am so very pleased that you are hosting this hour today because we can talk about facts and put the facts out there. The same goes for dealing with our Nation's energy security. We need to talk about facts. So I am pleased to be with you, and I yield back at this time.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I want to thank my good friend from New York. It's an honor to be joined by Congressman Altmire from Pennsylvania as well.
Because this Marcellus natural gas is certainly a game changer for Pennsylvania. I think it's a game changer for the United States of America. And it is important that we educate. We're here to do that. And I know that's a--I think that's a vision of this caucus to make sure that we put out--get the science and the data out to people. Because there's a debate. And on most important things, most game changers you should have a debate, but it should be a debate that's based on facts and science and not on emotion and myth.
Let me share some more economic information, a
couple facts relayed today.
You've heard some of this before. Certainly Marcellus contains upwards of 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That is an amazing amount of natural gas. My colleague from Pennsylvania described it as it's more energy than the oil in Saudi Arabia. And it's clean energy. There's enough gas to meet this Nation's current gas demands for at least 100 years because we have the Marcellus formation, and then under that is, frankly, the Utica formation. And so there are tremendous vast resources.
According to Penn State University, a university I'm proud to not only be a graduate of but to represent within my congressional district, in 2008 natural gas production had a 2.3--I'm just saying in 2008--1 year--a $2.3 billion direct impact on the Pennsylvania economy, adding more than 29,000 new jobs and $240 million in State and local tax revenue. Frankly, the budget in Pennsylvania is hurting right now, the State budget. It's like here in Washington.
But in Pennsylvania, there's a blessing there with this revenue that's coming in by all of the companies and the individuals that are doing business in this natural gas industry of what they pay in taxes. Again, in just 2008, they paid $240 million in taxes to the State and local government.
Another report also suggested in 2009: In slightly more than 10 years, the Marcellus industry could be generating nearly 175,000 jobs annually and more than $13 billion in value added. And more recently in 2011, more recent data, facts, planned spending by Marcellus producers could generate more than $10 billion in value added, nearly $1 billion in State and local revenues. Now, this is just Pennsylvania.
I know that New York could use that type of tax revenue as well as West Virginia and Virginia and Ohio. The figures I'm sharing with you are really just about Pennsylvania. And more than 100,000 jobs.
This is not a short-term development. This is not a fly-by-night. This is not going to come in and leave in a matter of years, frankly. This resource means development for at least 50 years and beyond. When you start to take into account the Utica shale, it really multiplies out. The economic benefit is tremendous.
According to Penn State, the Marcellus could make Pennsylvania the second largest producer of natural gas in the United States by 2020. You know, there were pipelines that were installed decades ago and from the ports of the northeast coast because we were preparing to import natural gas from Russia, from overseas. Today, there's work to convert those pipelines so that we can export natural gas and that we, Pennsylvania in particular, can be an exporter. That's good news.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Thank you. I thank my friend for yielding back.
You had mentioned the history of drilling. I very proudly represent Titusville, Pennsylvania. It's where one of my district offices is. It's the Drake well. It was 151 years ago that Colonel Drake used a wooden drill bit, drilled down 37 feet and hit oil. So drilling is not new to Pennsylvania. As you said, the first natural gas is just within or just outside of your congressional district, natural gas well.
And in terms of Marcellus wells, I think it's important we talk about that. I think you have a great chart there that demonstrates exactly what we're talking about when we're talking about the Marcellus geological formation, which is not a shallow formation.
This is a deep well. This is 8,000 to 9,000 feet, well below when you think the water table in our area is normally maybe 1,000 feet. This is 8,000 to 9,000 feet below that. And the horizontal drilling that was developed, directional drilling, there has been 1,900 of those wells already on the ground put in. So I think it may be good to take the opportunity to talk at some point about exactly how these wells work.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Those fractures, folks will sometimes be scared by that. They envision these huge caverns that are opened up under the ground. And in fact, these fractures, or fissures I think they are best described, and you have probably seen them portrayed as spider webs. In fact, they are so small that they are held open by a grain of sand. That's the proppant that is put down into with water, and put in there to hold those fractures open. Just a grain of sand. So I think that, as we are talking about facts, so the people have a vision of what exactly we're talking
about when this takes place.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Yes. If the gentleman would yield, absolutely. It's 99.5 percent is water and sand. The other half a percent is made up of basically ingredients that you would find in many household items as referenced from the chart. You know, there are some things there such as sodium, there is things that are used to reduce friction going down into the pipeline. It's the same things that you can find in water treatment or candy.
There is a gelling agent, also used in toothpaste, and other types of things, things that we use. The most important thing, though, this is all public record.
In Pennsylvania, the Department of Environmental Protection, which is the agency that oversees this drilling activity, requires that this list of ingredients is made available publicly; on the drilling sites they are available, standard, like any industry that uses materials. I would trust in our congressional offices somewhere we have a manual, an MSDS manual, material safety data sheets.
Because whether it's whiteout or it's some other cleaning fluid or Windex, you have to list all those things. You have to have an MSDS for them in any type of business or industry.
And so through MSDS, frankly, and requirements through agencies, oversight agencies as the Department of Environmental Protection, the ingredients that are required are available publicly. That is a great myth that has this is such a secret and people don't know what's going down into the wells.
Not all of this water comes out; that's important to recognize. Just a percentage of the waters that do come out, a lot of it actually is left 8,000-9,000 feet down. And the water that does come back, in my experience, being, observing these operations, much of it is recycled.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. It just stays with the geology down there, and this is like it's a mile below the aquifer. It's actually encased in layers of limestone, especially in Pennsylvania and in New York. That's our geology. We have this Marcellus shale, but it's really encased with what could be hundreds of yards of thick limestone on top, and certainly limestone in the bottom. And so the water stays down. The most important thing, though, is what happens to the water that comes up and especially when it passes through that area, 5, 6, 700 feet where the aquifer is, frankly, our water, fresh water comes from.
The casing that is on your poster is incredibly
important to where it's encased through that area. The wells are encased multiple times with both steel and with concrete, multiple layers. The safeguards are just tremendous so that you absolutely cannot get any cross-contamination with our aquifer.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I think as we are talking, the environmental record is certainly an area of concern that folks have raised.
As you have noted, or as my other colleague across the aisle from Pennsylvania noted, hydraulic fracturing was first used 60 years ago, actually in Oklahoma. Fracking has been common practice and successfully used in over a million wells across the United States.
When performed correctly, the process of hydrofracturing has not once contaminated any aquifer or drinking-water supply. In Pennsylvania, there are 11 State laws that govern oil and gas development. In Pennsylvania, drilling companies have to disclose the names of all the chemicals to be stored and used at a drilling site in the Pollution Prevention and Contingency Plan that must be submitted to the State Department of Environmental Protection as a part of the permit application process.
In addition to regulations used in Pennsylvania and at the State level, oil and gas production is subject to eight Federal laws. More specifically, there are five Federal laws that regulate hydrofracturing, hydraulic fracturing. This includes the Clean Water Act in various stages of the process; the Safe Drinking Water Act when discharging frac fluids; the EPCRA, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which mandates that operators maintain material safety data sheets at every well site in America where a minimum amount of chemicals were present, which, in part, is maintained by the State.
Now, these plans contain original copies of the material safety data sheets for all chemicals, and DEP recommends to operators that a copy be kept on each well site. So that comes back to the question of: What are the ingredients? What's going into this frac fluid?
Frankly, most companies exceed the State requirements in the Pennsylvania operations, not to say that, like any other industry, there aren't some outliers, some folks who don't follow the standards. I'm proud to say that in Pennsylvania, the Department of Environmental Protection, when they find those folks, they not only have to correct their problems, but if they're chronically doing this, they are put out of business. This is something that we have the technology. We are blessed with not just this resource from God, but we are blessed with the technology to do it right, and that should be a standard that we subscribe to.
There are some here in Washington that want the Federal Government to come in to Pennsylvania to regulate this. I don't have confidence in Washington. I have confidence in Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection. They've been doing a great job, and they continue to look at their standards, their regulations, and I think they do a great job of making sure that we are protecting our environment and producing a great resource which is adding jobs, growing the economy and, frankly, providing us a very affordable energy resource.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I have heard those same concerns. But when you look at the geology in where this drilling is done and you have the layers of Marcellus, and I think you only fracture maybe 18 inches, perhaps, from that horizontal pipeline, so you haven't permeated the entire Marcellus shale, and that is encased with a layer of perhaps hundreds of yards thick, hundreds of feet thick, at a minimum, of limestone. The geology is very, very--it's almost--you never say ``never,'' but it's impossible in order to get that what would be called migration for that fluid to move outside.
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