According to a new report published by Common Cause, a nonprofit government watchdog group, Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, is one of the top 100 recipients of campaign funds from the natural gas industry.

As the study reports, natural gas interests have spent “more than $747 million during a 10-year campaign … to avoid government regulation of hydraulic ‘fracking,’ a fast-growing and environmentally risky process” that aims to tap underground gas reserves.

The toxic chemicals commonly used during fracking procedures can enter an area’s underground drinking water supply or later be dumped as wastewater into waterways around the country.

“A faction of the natural gas industry has directed more than $20 million to the campaigns of current members of Congress,” reads the report, “and put $726 million into lobbying aimed at shielding itself from oversight. ”

Mica, number 89 on the list of top contributors, received a total of $67,600 from natural gas interests. The vast majority of that ($57,500) came from PACs, while $10,100 came from individuals working for the industry.

According to the report, many of the natural gas industry’s political donations favor lawmakers, like Mica, who supported the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which exempted fracking from regulations under the Safe Drinking Act. A resolution that aims to repeal that exemption (and thus require the contents of fracking fluids to be publicly disclosed) was recently introduced in the House, by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Co. The resolution has 63 co-sponsors, Mica not among them.

“Players in this industry have pumped cash into Congress in the same way they pump toxic chemicals into underground rock formations to free trapped gas,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar in a press release. “And as fracking for gas releases toxic chemicals into groundwater and streams, the industry’s political fracking for support is toxic to efforts for a cleaner environment and relief from our dependence on fossil fuels.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is slated to publish new findings on the potential dangers of fracking in 2012. The forthcoming report, which could shape public opinion about the practice, is likely an incentive for the industry to pump more money into campaigns before the New Year.

The absence of baseline data was one of the most serious criticisms leveled at a group of Duke researchers last week when they published the first peer-reviewed study linking drilling to methane contamination in water supplies.

That study—which found that methane concentrations in drinking water increased dramatically with proximity to gas wells—contained “no baseline information whatsoever,” wrote Chris Tucker, a spokesman for the industry group Energy in Depth, in a statement debunking the study.

Now it turns out that some of that data does exist. It just wasn’t available to the Duke researchers, or to the public.

Ever since high-profile water contamination cases were linked to drilling in Dimock, Pa. in late 2008, drilling companies themselves have been diligently collecting water samples from private wells before they drill, according to several industry consultants who have been working with the data. While Pennsylvania regulations now suggest pre-testing water wells within 1,000 feet of a planned gas well, companies including Chesapeake Energy, Shell and Atlas have been compiling samples from a much larger radius – up to 4,000 feet from every well. The result is one of the largest collections of pre-drilling water samples in the country.

“The industry is sitting on hundreds of thousands of pre and post drilling data sets,” said Robert Jackson, one of the Duke scientists who authored the study, published May 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jackson relied on 68 samples for his study. “I asked them for the data and they wouldn’t share it.”

If the gas companies really wanted to understand whether hydrofracking does or does not contribute to contamination of drinking water supplies, they would turn that information over to independent scientists.

DeGette’s FRAC (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals) Act would compel the industry to disclose chemicals used in the process, which industry officials say must be kept under wraps for proprietary reasons. Known as “fracking,” the process frees up more gas by injecting water, sand and chemicals into natural gas wells deep underground – too deep to contaminate groundwater supplies, industry officials say.

DeGette points to anecdotal evidence of fracking causing groundwater contamination and to recent probes by her congressional committee revealing diesel fuel and up to 29 known cancer-causing human carcinogens are being used in hydraulic fracturing operations. She wants the chemicals disclosed and regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Pelosi chimed in that the industry should want the same thing, if for no other reason than to “protect” itself. That sentiment is echoed by environmental shareholder groups that forced votes at ExxonMobil – the nation’s largest natural gas producer with its acquisition last year of XTO Energy – and other natural gas companies showing some support for the full disclosure of fracking chemicals. The groups view the move as a means of avoiding future litigation.

Similar votes have occurred among shareholders of companies such as Williams, the largest natural gas producer on Colorado’s Western Slope.

Pelosi said the industry should not continue to oppose the release of more information on fracking by arguing there’s been no evidence thus far of fracking contaminating groundwater.

“It’s a catch 22 in that there’s no reporting and so they say there’s no evidence, so let’s find out,” Pelosi said. “And I think it’s a really important issue that deserves a bright spotlight on and it may be that they’re not in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act and that they’re going deeper [than groundwater] or whatever it happens to be. If there’s so much natural gas that they want to get at, the public has a right to know [the chemicals].”

Pelosi said fracking has sparked a highly emotional debate around the country that needs to be informed by more study, more information and greater industry transparency.

“Natural gas is a domestic supply that again is plentiful and is not so expensive and I hope not as dangerous to the environment as other fossil fuels. The evidence seems to point that it isn’t,” Pelosi said. “It’s a great transition to when all the renewables are ready and much more operating. And it may be that it’s clean enough to be an answer for a very long time to come. But this [fracking issue] has to be cleared up.”

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential that is far greater than that of carbon dioxide, particularly over the time horizon of the first few decades following emission. Methane contributes substantially to the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas on shorter time scales, dominating it on a 20-year time horizon. The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.

The Hill reports that the Obama administration is promoting natural gas as a clean and domestically available fuel.

The Energy Information Administration – which is the Energy Department’s statistical arm – estimates that shale gas will account for 45 percent of total U.S. gas supply in 2035, up from 14 percent in 2009.

Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a method of collecting methane (natural gas) from shale deposits by blasting the gas out of tiny pores using large volumes of water, sand and chemicals.

During the Bush-Cheney administration in 2005 Congress granted hydraulic fracturing an exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act. This exemption is named the “Halliburton Loophole” in recognition of the oil and gas service company previously headed up by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Reports of groundwater contamination and health problems in gas production areas around the country have spurred efforts to close this loophole.

In the House Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Maurice Hinchey, (D-N.Y.) have introduced the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC Act).

This bill would restore EPA power to require permits for the underground injection of chemicals used in fracking. It also requires fracking companies to disclose the chemicals that they inject.

An identical Senate bill was sponsored by Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“As we recognize the need for energy independence and alternative sources to power our nation, natural gas is an important economic driver and a critical bridge fuel,” DeGette said in a release as she announced the reintroduction of the bill.

“However, it is incumbent upon us to ensure the process for extracting natural gas from our land is done safely and responsibly. The FRAC Act takes necessary but reasonable steps to ensure our nation’s drinking water is protected, and that as fracking operations continue to expand, communities can be assured that the economic benefits of natural gas are not coming at the expense of the health of their families.”

But some fracking opponents say that restoring EPA’s authority to regulate fracking is inadequate protection for rural well users because EPA rules for handling the underground injection of chemicals are unclear about whether and how surrounding private wells must be taken into account.

According to EPA, the Safe Drinking Water Act requires the agency to provide safeguards so that injection wells do not endanger current and future underground sources of drinking water (USDWs). By regulation, a USDW is defined as an aquifer or portion of an aquifer that:

* Supplies any public water system or contains a quantity of ground
water sufficient to supply a public water system, and

* Currently supplies drinking water for human consumption, or

* Contains fewer than 10,000 mg/L total dissolved solids and is not an exempted aquifer.

In an article for un-natural gas.org, the website for the Chenango Delaware Otsego Gas Drilling Opposition Group in New York state, Anne Marie Garti writes that these rules are not clear about how the EPA decides whether an aquifer contains enough water to supply a public water system.

The FRAC Act would remove the hydrofracking exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), but the proposed bill will not protect most of the land area of the US because many aquifers, especially in the northeast, do not flow into a PUBLIC water supply of 25 + users, and whether they would be capable of supplying municipal water in the future is open to interpretation. The required flow rate is not defined anyplace, and needs to be so that there is a uniform standard across the US.

Specifically, the Underground Injection Control (UIC) section of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) needs to include a definition, or standard, of the following phrase: “sufficient quantity of ground water to supply a public water system”

“Sufficient” needs to be defined in the FRAC Act so that the flow rate of individual homeowner’s water well or spring is covered. It should be a federal standard, not open to different interpretations by Courts in every region of the EPA. The Atlanta or Georgia region of EPA uses a 1 gallon per minute flow rate.

EPA did not respond to a request for comment on Garti’s concerns but did say that the Safe Drinking Water Act does give the agency “imminent and substantial endangerment authority in certain circumstances, even when there are no specific other regulations which apply.”

According to EPA, approximately 15 percent of Americans rely on private drinking water wells.

In Michigan, where natural gas exploration companies bought exploration rights to 392,000 acres of public land last year, 1.12 million people are served by private wells, according to the state Dept. of Environmental Quality.

The San Bruno explosion followed a million gallon Enbridge oil pipeline spill in Michigan and focused attention on the nation’s aging pipeline system, the under-resourced federal regulators charged with oversight and the industry-friendly arrangements that allow the oil and gas industry to write its own regulations on matters such as welding, monitoring and testing pipeline pressure.

The hearing, which begins Tuesday, will look at both the San Bruno incident and safety issues with the nation’s pipeline system as a whole.

NTSB’s preliminary report on the San Bruno incident indicates that a 30-inch diameter steel natural gas pipeline segment installed in 1956 ruptured when an electrical problem increased the gas pressure in the pipe. Approximately 47.6 million standard cubic feet (MMSCF) of natural gas was released and caused an explosion that left a crater 72 feet long and 26 feet wide. The fire destroyed 37 homes and damaged 18 more. Eight people were killed and many more were injured and evacuated.

Investigators say it took PG&E about an hour and a half to access and manually close the mainline valves near the ruptured segments and about four more hours to stop the gas flow to residences at damaged houses.

Though PG&E records stated that the pipeline in the area of the rupture was constructed of seamless pipe, investigators found that the section that had ruptured was seam-welded pipe: some of the seams were welded from both the inside and the outside of the pipe, but others were only welded from the outside.

In January, NTSB issued several “urgent” safety recommendations to PG&E, and state and federal regulators directing them, to verify the makeup of pipelines and the way in which their maximum pressure was determined.

“If companies are basing operating pressures on inadequate or erroneous information contained in their records, safety may be compromised,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said. “We believe this safety-critical issue needs to be examined carefully to ensure that operators are accurately gauging their risk and that pipelines are being operated at pressures no higher than that for which they were built to withstand.”

At this week’s hearing, NTSB officials are expected to release 4,700 pages of documents from their investigation of the San Bruno incident and PG&E officials are expected to face questions on whether their other pipelines can withstand pressure increases and why they failed to spot welding defects before burying the pipeline.

Bills to increase the number of inspectors at the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), require companies to install automatic shut-off valves on pipelines and set new standards for safety testing of pipelines have been introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate but face a dim future in a Congress where environmental safety rules are under attack.

Some states have decided not to wait on federal action.

Earlier this month, California State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill (PDF) to require gas utilities to install remote controlled shut-off valves throughout the state’s pipeline system and concentrate them in areas of seismic activity or high population.
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In Pennsylvania the legislature is expected to take action this week on a bill that would put the state in charge of natural gas pipeline safety inspections.

A gas pipeline explosion in Allentown earlier this month killed five people just weeks after a deadly pipeline explosion in Philadelphia. The state, which is experiencing a boom in natural gas development, is also experiencing rapid expansion of pipelines.

“Last year alone 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas was harnessed out of three counties alone in the northern tier of Pennsylvania,” said Rep. Matt Baker (R-Bradford/Tioga). “As you can imagine these gas pipelines are growing exponentially, they are ubiquitous. It’s happening so fast and so frequently that we need to do something immediately to ensure proper pipeline gas safety.”
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Carl Weimer, executive director of the non-profit advocacy group Pipeline Safety Trust, said there is a serious need for citizen involvement in Pennsylvania. In an editorial to the Allentown Morning Call, he wrote:

Old pipelines like the one that failed in Allentown are certainly a huge issue, but Pennsylvania also sits dead center in the middle of one of the largest natural gas booms in the world. All that drilling will spawn hundreds of miles of new and higher-pressure pipelines. With so much money to be made from these activities, who but the public can also speak up for safety?
There is probably no place in the nation that needs a strong coalition of voices focused on pipeline safety as much as Pennsylvania does.

In Michigan, a package of bills aimed at strengthening pipeline safety rules, including a measure to assess pipeline impact fees to fund emergency preparedness, failed to clear committee last year and have not been reintroduced.

Regan Lachapelle, Reid’s spokeswoman, said canceling the cloture vote on the bill, set for tomorrow, in favor of continuing discussion with Republicans will give the legislation a better chance of passing before the end of the year.

Lachapelle’s full email statement:

There have been some positive discussions with Republicans about moving forward on the natural gas and electric vehicles legislation. Senator Reid has talked to Senator [Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)] and others and thinks that vitiating the cloture vote at this point would increase the chances that we’ll be able to get a bipartisan agreement to pass this important legislation  before the end of the year.

The bill is considered one of the only energy-related measures that could move during the lame-duck session. The delay raises questions about whether the bill can gain the necessary support for passage. It’s also worth noting that it’s not just Republicans who are raising questions about the bill. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has said he will oppose the bill unless provisions that encourage ethanol development are added.

Harkin’s comments are certain to rankle environmentalists and many in the oil industry, who have criticized a recent decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to allow higher blends of ethanol in newer vehicles, citing greenhouse gas concerns and ethanol’s impact on engines.

“What’s missing from this bill is any mention of biofuels and what biofuels can contribute to our energy independence in this country,” Harkin, one of the most outspoken proponents of biofuels, said on the Senate floor today.

He continued:

So, while I most certainly will vote for a motion to proceed because I think we should proceed to it, I’ll say at the outset that major changes will need to be made to this bill before it can earn my support on final passage.

Harkin also argued that expanding ethanol use would be cheaper than encouraging natural gas vehicles because it would require fewer infrastructure investments.

But natural gas, every station would have to put in a big compressed tank under a lot of pressure. That would then have to be transferred to a compressed tank, a very strong tank in your car. There would have to be some sort of nozzle to do that. It wouldn’t just be having to put gasoline in an engine. So a whole new infrastructure would have to be built to accomplish this. No new infrastructure would have to be built to put biofuels in your car.

Harkin specifically called for provisions in the bill that would increase the number of flex-fuel vehicles and expand the number of biofuels fueling stations and pipelines.

Here’s the full audio of his remarks.

The lame-duck session could be the last chance for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass a number of bills. (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

The midterm hangover having finally worn off, the 111th Congress returns today to kick off the lame-duck session, its last hurrah before its successor takes over. And the 112th Congress will look radically different, with Republicans in control of the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate significantly reduced. These next few weeks, then, could be the last chance for major Democratic initiatives. But the hurdles are high, and Republicans see no reason to grant Democrats any victories after the populace voiced its discontent with the policies of the past two years.

[Congress1] The battle lines are drawn; here are the fields on which they’ll be fought:

Bush tax cuts:

The biggest question before the Senate — and the one that will likely receive the most attention — is the expiration of the 2001 tax cuts signed into law by President Bush. Facing Democratic resistance in the Senate at the time, Republicans set up the cuts to sunset after ten years. Now that they’re set to expire, however, GOP lawmakers have lined up shoulder to shoulder to make them permanent.

President Obama, on the other hand, ran for office on a pledge to extend the existing tax rates for families making less than $250,000 a year, while letting the tax cuts for those making over that number expire. But as the economy continued to falter and Democratic re-election prospects began looking bleak, Democrats in Congress put off addressing issues related to the tax code until after the midterm elections. Now that Republicans have made big gains in both chambers of Congress, Democrats find their confidence further weakened.

Following the midterms, the White House has signalled that Democrats might be willing to compromise on the idea of a permanent extension of tax cuts for middle-class families and a temporary extension of cuts for the two percent of Americans families making more than $250,000, but it won’t stomach the approximately $700 billion in additional debt that would be required to extend those cuts permanently. Republicans, on the other hand, haven’t deviated from their position that the tax cuts for all Americans be kept together as a package deal.

If neither side blinks, taxes are set to rise for all Americans effective January 1. Neither party wants to be seen as responsible for a tax hike during difficult economic times, but Democrats have appeared far more worried at the prospect of getting blamed should negotiations break down. Polls favor the Democrats’ position that the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be allowed to expire, but without the votes of at least two Republicans in the Senate, the proposal is likely to fail. Barring momentum in Congress for the creation of a new tax bracket — for people making half a million dollars or a million dollars per year — in order to better rhetorically define the class of folks for whom Republicans are advocating tax relief, the easiest and most likely outcome will be a bill that temporarily extends all the tax cuts, simply kicking the decision of what to do to some point farther down the road.

Unemployment insurance benefits

As Congress frets over whether the marginal tax rate for incomes over $200,000 should be raised three percentage points, the Senate is also on the verge of allowing federal unemployment benefits to lapse — again. Extending the benefits before they expire on November 30 might seem like a no-brainer: It would prevent somewhere between 1.2 and 2 million unemployed Americans from having their subsistence checks cut off just in time for Christmas and would reduce the risk of a drop in consumer spending and economic growth as high as 0.4 percentage points from December to February.

Republicans might have trouble arguing that deficit reduction trumps other priorities, including unemployment benefits, when the only major initiative the GOP is pushing — extending the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2 percent of wage earners — would increase the deficit by $700 billion over ten years. That said, Republicans in the Senate, along with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), are likely to vote against any extension of unemployment insurance benefits unless Democrats can come up with ways to offset their cost.

The last time unemployment benefits were set to lapse, back in early June, the Senate was unable to muster enough votes to renew an extension for 51 days. With Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine joining Democrats to vote for cloture, and Nelson joining with Republicans to vote against debate, Democrats had no choice but to wait for Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va.) to be sworn in as a replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D- W.Va.) in order to garner a 60th vote.

This time, assuming all the senators maintain their positions in the debate, the hurdle will be that much higher for Democrats after Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) takes the seat of Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) on Nov. 29. With one fewer assured vote, Democrats would either have to come up with a package of equivalent spending cuts that satisfies Republicans’ demands or persuade one more Republican to join their cause. Neither scenario appears particularly likely, however, which is why many unemployed Americans are bracing for the worst come Nov. 30.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

A long-awaited Pentagon study on ending the practice of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 17-year-old law that requires military service members to keep their sexual orientation secret, isn’t due to President Obama until December 1, but early media reports indicate that it will buttress gay rights advocates’ arguments to repeal the law. More than 70 percent of the respondents in the Pentagon survey indicated that repeal would have either positive, mixed or nonexistent effects, leading the authors to conclude that the military can lift its ban on gay and lesbian Americans serving openly in uniform while incurring minimal risk in its current war efforts.

If the study brings good news to those hoping to repeal the law, however, the current situation in the Senate should not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attempted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the midterm elections, tacking the provision onto a defense reauthorization bill that failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate. The bill was weighed down by many add-ons — including the DREAM Act, which seeks to extend a path to citizenship to some undocumented immigrants who attend college or serve in the military — giving too many senators excuses to vote against it, but advocates remained hopeful that repeal could pass along with the defense bill when Congress resumed for its lame-duck session.

Now Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, is said to be negotiating with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, to remove the DADT repeal provision from the defense bill. McCain had previously voiced openness to authorizing a repeal of the law following the Pentagon’s review, but since that time his views have hardened. During his re-election battle earlier this year, McCain faced a primary challenger from the right and promised during his campaign to preserve the law.

In the absence of support from McCain, advocacy groups have identified 10 senators who have indicated in the past that they’d like to see the Pentagon’s study before deciding on whether to lift the military’s policy. The list includes Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Oympia Snowe (R-Maine), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jim Webb (D-Va.). Once the results of the study are known, gay rights groups hope these senators will take them to heart and vote for repeal. If they follow McCain’s lead and renege on their previous openness to getting rid of the law, however, it may be a long time before Congress can muster sufficient votes to repeal the policy.

Campaign finance reform

Following an election season that saw record amounts of cash — including a fair chunk from undisclosed sources — spent on political advertising by outside groups, campaign finance reform advocates are still hoping that Democrats in Congress might take advantage of their remaining time in charge of both chambers to pass legislation to shore up the loophole-ridden landscape of campaign finance law. The most popular effort, by far, during the last year has been a bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which would require all groups spending money on electioneering activities in future elections to disclose their major donors.

While premised on a fairly bipartisan concept of full disclosure, the bill soon ran into trouble in the Senate over additional components that had been added on to it. Measures to prohibit campaign spending by companies holding government contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership were read by Senate Republicans as an attempt to privilege union speech over that of corporations. Traditional campaign finance reform advocates like Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) held onto such objections and voted against cloture for the bill when Democrats declined to take them out.

Now Democrats in the Senate are contemplating one last attempt to pass a stripped-down version of the DISCLOSE Act — one that sticks strictly to the principle of transparency that Republicans once advocated as their gold standard for effective campaign finance legislation. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a staunch opponent of nearly all campaign finance legislation, might prove an even bigger obstacle to the bill’s passage than any single aspect of the legislation. While Snowe or Collins, or even Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) or Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), might prove receptive to the measure in principle, it appears highly unlikely that any of them are willing to buck their party leadership for the cause.

Energy/environment

Even if the lame-duck session likely represents the best opportunity for Democrats to pass key pieces of energy legislation before a more Republican Congress comes to town, it seems unlikely that anything significant will move.

The House, for its part, has already passed a cap-and-trade bill and an oil spill response bill, and all eyes are now on the Senate. But it looks like major energy action in the chamber will have to wait until next year, if it happens at all.

One clean energy advocate with close ties to Congress downplayed the likelihood that energy legislation will pass during the lame duck. “Little will happen, probably,” he said.

The only energy-related bill that is likely to see the light of day during the lame-duck session is a proposal to encourage the production of electric and natural gas vehicles. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a cloture vote for Wednesday on the bill, the Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010. The bill has bipartisan support.

Asked about the prospects for energy legislation during the lame duck in the Senate, Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said, “We filed cloture on a motion to proceed to a natural gas bill before we left. Other than that, we have many items that are possible for consideration during the lame duck.” Lachapelle did not elaborate on the pieces of legislation to which she was referring.

Backers of a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, are keeping their fingers crossed that such a proposal can move in the lame-duck session. “We’re optimistic about the lame duck,” said one RES proponent who was not authorized to talk on the record.

Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) spoke on the phone Tuesday about the possibility of moving an RES during the lame duck. Bingaman’s spokesman, Bill Wicker, would not discuss the call. “This was a private conversation between two Members, so I have to respect that,” he said in an email. “But we all should know more about the lame duck before much longer.”

But a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation downplayed the possibility that an RES would be brought up for a vote during the lame-duck session. “They had a good conversation and agreed it will be challenging to get 60 votes for expedited consideration of an RES during the limited time left in the session,” the aide said of discussion between Reid and Bingaman. Indeed, RES supporters would need to secure the support of two to four Republicans in addition to the four who already support the bill in order to get 60 votes.

An oil spill response bill and various pieces of legislation to promote energy efficiency and home weatherization are all pending in the Senate. But it looks like consideration of those bills will have to wait until next year.

DREAM Act

Reid and Pelosi have vowed to push for a lame-duck vote on the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow some undocumented young people who came to the United States as children to gain legal status for attending college or serving in the military.

In the House, the vote could come as early as this week, Democrat sources told Politico. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) were reportedly tasked by Pelosi with determining whether the caucus would be able to pass the bill.

If the act does not pass in the lame-duck session, it has very little chance of passage before 2013. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to head the House subcommittee on immigration, refers to the DREAM Act as “amnesty” and promised he would use his authority in the GOP-led House to block the act. GOP gains in the Senate also lessen the likelihood of passing the bill next session.

Reid recently said he would need support from “a handful of Republicans” to pass the bill during the lame duck, echoing estimates by bill sponsor Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that at least five Republicans would need to support the bill for it to pass. A spokesman for Reid confirmed last week that he plans to bring up the DREAM Act for a vote during the lame-duck session, although it is still unclear whether it would be as a standalone measure or as an attachment to another bill.

The problem is that Reid doesn’t have much time — or sure support for the DREAM Act from his caucus. The act last came up for a vote in 2007, and seven of the eight Democrats who voted against it then are still in the Senate. While a few might support the bill this time around, five told The Hill in September they are still undecided on the DREAM Act.

Complicating matters, Mark Kirk’s assumption of Roland Burris’ seat in the Senate turns a sure “yes” vote into a likely “no.” Kirk has been lobbied heavily by DREAM Act supporters, but said before the election that he would vote against the act unless border security measures were pushed first. “It’s not time for the DREAM Act right now,” he told reporters in October. “If the DREAM Act came up for a vote right now, I would vote ‘no.’”

All current Republican senators voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill after Reid announced plans to attach the DREAM Act. But given the additional controversy over that bill — it included a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and would have allowed for only limited changes from Republicans — it’s tough to extrapolate much from it about how senators would vote on the DREAM Act as a standalone bill.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said he would support the bill if it were brought to the floor on its own, even though he opposed it as part of the defense authorization bill. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who co-sponsored the bill, would also almost certainly vote for it if it comes up in the lame-duck session.

Several other Republicans voted for the DREAM Act in 2007, but their support this year remains uncertain because of rightward shifts on immigration policy and the possibility of the bill again being attached to other legislation. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was an original sponsor of the bill when it was first introduced in 2001 and voted for it in 2007. This year, he said the government should secure the borders before it focuses on the DREAM Act.

Written by Jesse Zwick, Andrew Restuccia and Elise Foley.

Environmentalists are concerned that a common method of natural gas drilling can release dangerous chemicals into groundwater. (Bryan Smith/ZUMApress.com)

Less than two hours after President Obama suggested in a post-midterm press conference that Republicans and Democrats could find common ground on proposals to develop the country’s natural gas resources, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune underscored environmentalists’ love-hate relationship with the fossil fuel.

“To be clear, natural gas is not clean, but it’s cleaner than some dirty energy,” he told reporters at a separate Nov. 3 press conference on the prospects for energy and climate legislation in the new Congress.

[Environment1] Natural gas is shaping up to be one of a small handful of energy issues that could get significant attention in the next Congress. As a result, environmentalists are being forced to grapple with the complexities surrounding the expanded use of natural gas. On the one hand, burning natural gas produces about 40 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than coal; on the other hand, natural gas drilling presents its own set of concerns that make environmentalists cringe.

“We want to make sure natural gas is not viewed as some kind of magic bullet,” said Franz Matzner, climate legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But we need to look at ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprint now and it’s appealing that it has a smaller footprint. It’s not a replacement for getting renewables online.”

Meanwhile, hoping to ride the momentum from Obama’s high-profile remarks last week, the natural gas industry is preparing to push next year for a number of provisions that favor natural gas. One natural gas industry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said natural gas will be a key issue in any bipartisan energy bill next year. “There is some potential to gather bipartisan support for an energy proposal that involves promotion of natural gas,” the official said. “There can be some kind of adjustment policy that allows for the benefits that natural gas provides: stable pricing, domestic production and plentiful resources.”

The natural gas industry plans to lobby for the inclusion of natural gas as an option for meeting a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar.

In a Nov. 5 letter to President Obama obtained by The Washington Independent, the heads of the country’s four major natural gas industry groups laid out their policy priorities. “Should Congress move forward on a renewable or clean electricity standard, natural gas generation should be included as a compliance option,” the letter said.

Environmentalists and clean energy advocates say they will oppose such an effort. “Natural gas is not a renewable energy source,” said Dan Weiss, senior fellow and the director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. “Therefore it does not belong in an RES.”

David Hamilton, director of global warming and energy programs at the Sierra Club, echoed Weiss’ sentiments. “We really would need to look at the details,” Hamilton said. “But we’ve traditionally been protective of what gets called clean.”

A third clean energy advocate with close ties to Congress dismissed the prospect that environmentalists would be willing to compromise on including natural gas in an RES. “We would rather have nothing than that,” the clean energy advocate said.

But Weiss suggested there is room for negotiation on the issue. He said a proposal to pass a separate low-carbon electricity standard requiring that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from natural gas, coal with carbon capture technology and nuclear power “is something that we’d look at seriously.”

Any proposal that would allow natural gas to compete on the same footing as wind and solar, however, would face major opposition, Weiss said. “A low-carbon standard would incent low-carbon kinds of energy, but it would not compete directly with renewables,” he explained. For example, Congress may choose to pass a 15 percent RES and then an additional low-carbon standard of 10 percent, Weiss said.

The first natural gas-related piece of legislation is slated to come up for a procedural vote next week in the lame-duck session. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a cloture vote for Nov. 17 on the Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010, which would provide incentives for electric and natural gas vehicles. The proposal has bipartisan support and is likely to be the only energy-related bill to see floor action in the lame duck.

While environmentalists support the vehicles proposal, they also say that any effort to encourage natural gas production should be coupled with natural gas drilling reforms. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” involves injecting chemicals, sand and huge quantities of water into the earth to loosen large underground deposits of natural gas. It is currently the cheapest and most widespread method for extracting natural gas from the ground. But environmentalists say the chemicals used during fracking can contaminate groundwater and cause significant damage to the land.

Hamilton, of the Sierra Club, suggested that environmentalists and liberal Democrats would be more likely to support efforts to expand natural gas development if Congress also considers drilling reforms. “We are very much of the mind that the regulatory structure for fracking should be in place before there’s more drilling,” Hamilton said. “The quicker that regulatory structure gets in place, the less resistance they’re going to get.”

Matzner, of the NRDC, called on lawmakers to pass natural gas drilling reforms that, among other things, require companies to disclose the amount and types of chemicals that are used in fracking and tighten regulation of the practice.

“There’s space here to put policies in place to make sure that natural gas is done in a more responsible way,” Matzner said.

There are proposals on the table in the House and the Senate that would address many of these issues. The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act would give the Environmental Protection Agency regulatory authority over fracking. But the EPA is currently conducting a study on fracking that won’t be completed until 2012. Some have suggested it’s best to wait to address the issue in Congress until the study is finished.

Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at NRDC, has been working on fracking issues for years. Based in Colorado, she has seen the environmental impacts of the practice firsthand. Yet she recognizes that natural gas is a necessary part of the country’s energy mix, underscoring the complicated relationships environmentalists have with the fossil fuel. She, like many environmentalists see natural gas as a “bridge fuel,” or an interim step on the way to broader reliance on renewables.

“Our country needs a lot of energy,” she said. “Our first priority should be efficiency, then conservation. In the short term, we can’t meet all of our energy needs. We support natural gas as a bridge fuel, but we don’t think it’s a silver bullet solution.”