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President Barack Obama, turning his political sights on snowy New Hampshire, demanded that Congress eliminate oil and gas company subsidies that he called an outrageous government “giveaway.” Though politically a long shot, the White House believes the idea resonates at a time of high gasoline prices.

“Let’s put every single member of Congress on record: You can stand with oil companies or you can stand up for the American people,” Obama said in Nashua, N.H., reiterating an appeal he made last year as gas prices were rising.

The president also said GOP charges that his policies are driving up gas prices won’t pass “a political bull-detector” test and pointed to a chart that showed decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. His remarks came as retail gasoline prices rose Thursday to a national average of $3.74 per gallon.

Obama has repeatedly called for an end to about $4 billion in annual tax breaks and subsidies for oil and gas companies, government support that Obama has said is unwarranted at a time of burgeoning profits and rising domestic production.

“It’s outrageous. It’s inexcusable. I’m asking Congress: eliminate this oil industry giveaway right away,” he told a crowd at Nashua Community College after touring the school’s automotive lab.

It was Obama’s latest and most direct appeal to Congress to act on the tax breaks, a move that is certain to get stiff Republican opposition and that failed before even when Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress. But an administration official said the White House expects Congress to soon take up a measure ending some subsidies. The official requested anonymity to avoid speaking publicly without authorization.

Later Thursday, Obama shifted his political focus to raising money for his re-election campaign, blitzing through Manhattan for four high-dollar fundraisers.

During remarks at a $5,000-per-person reception, Obama defended his foreign policy record, from drawing down the war in Iraq to ordering the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Ahead of his weekend speech to a major pro-Israel group and a Monday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama defended his commitment to Israel’s security, particularly amid the turbulence in the Middle East and North Africa, where some long-time leaders having been pushed from power over the past year.

The sweeping changes, he said, make foreign policy in the region more complex. “It used to be easier to deal with one person who was an autocrat when it came to knowing who you could strike a deal with,” the president said.

With the region’s leadership structure changing, Obama said the U.S. would have to take into account the “politics and the attitudes of people in the region,” some of which he acknowledged were anti-Israel.

In choosing to launch his trip in New Hampshire, Obama picked a state he easily carried in 2008. He and his surrogates have paid particular attention to the state in recent months. It offers only four electoral votes in the November election, but Democrats have been eyeing New Hampshire warily following its sharp shift to the right in the 2010 midterm elections.

Criticized by Republicans for taking too much credit for increasing oil production at home, Obama made sure to credit both his administration and that of his predecessor, George W. Bush, without mentioning Bush by name. The move seemed intended on stripping away that line of criticism from his opposition.

Obama’s insistence on a congressional vote on the oil and gas subsidies came a day after he and House and Senate leaders held a luncheon meeting at the White House that House Speaker John Boehner described as encouraging and hopeful.

But on Thursday, Republican presidential contenders and GOP leaders in Congress denounced Obama’s appeal for ending subsidies and called on Obama to take further steps to expand oil production in the United States.

“If someone in the administration can show me that raising taxes on American energy production will lower gas prices and create jobs, then I will gladly discuss it. But since nobody can, and the president doesn’t, this is merely an attempt to deflect from his failed policies,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney shot back that oil companies are making big profits and “it doesn’t make sense for the taxpayer to cushion their already very robust bottom line.”

Obama went further than he has in the past in describing how the global standoff with Iran is driving up the cost of gasoline.

“The biggest thing that’s causing the price of oil to rise right now is instability in the Middle East — this time it’s Iran,” Obama said. “A lot of folks are nervous about what might happen there, so they are anticipating there might be a big disruption in terms of flow.”

Obama has previously identified tension with Iran as a main reason for rising oil prices, but this time he ad-libbed the remark about how the prospect of a reduction in the supply of oil is making the markets nervous.

The United States and its partners are trying to deter Iran from building a nuclear weapon, including with an unprecedented European embargo on Iranian oil that takes effect this summer. Iran has responded to tightening economic sanctions and the possibility of an Israeli attack with threats to block oil shipments from the Persian Gulf.

On the presidential campaign trail, GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also decried Obama’s energy policies.

“He’s going to talk about how he’s responsible for the increasing production of oil in this country, oil and gas in this country,” Romney said in Fargo, N.D. “Is he responsible for the increase? No, I didn’t think so.”

Gingrich, campaigning in Woodstock, Ga., called on Obama to fire Energy Secretary Steven Chu, approve a Canada-Texas pipeline and open more of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska to oil drilling.

“He ran in 2008 on the slogan, ‘Yes we can.’ He’s running this year on the slogan ‘Why we couldn’t,’” Gingrich said.

In choosing New Hampshire to deliver an energy message, Obama chose a state he easily carried in 2008. He and his surrogates have paid particular political attention to the state in recent months. It offers only four electoral votes in the November election, but Democrats have been eyeing New Hampshire warily following its sharp shift to the right in the 2010 midterm elections.

However, a poll conducted in New Hampshire in early February showed Obama beating Romney by 10 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup. Other GOP presidential candidates also trailed Obama in the WMUR Granite State poll. It gave Obama an 8-point advantage over Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who is a favorite in libertarian-leaning New Hampshire, and an advantage of more than 20 points over both Gingrich and Santorum.

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The Marine Spill Response Corp., a nonprofit set up to help major oil companies respond to offshore spills, announced that it has completed a major expansion in the Gulf of Mexico. As the massive federal trial over the April 2010 BP oil spill is about to begin, the company used by BP and other oil giants said it had finished its “Deep Blue” program to give Gulf operators more resources to quickly respond to any future spills.

The Marine Spill Response Corp. has been in existence since 1990, but its resources struggled to respond to the massive BP spill. Although the group’s spokeswoman, Judith Roos, said its member companies have committed more than $2 billion over the last two decades to develop surface spill response systems, she told The USA Today shortly after the BP spill that it had no budget for research.

The Gulf found itself woefully short on absorbant boom and enough ships capable of skimming oil off the surface when BP’s oil flowed out of control for 87 days in 2010. So overwhelmed were spill responders, in fact, that even celebrities like actor Kevin Costner came out of the woodwork to promote new cleanup systems. Several had to be developed and tested on the fly by private companies and the government in an effort to keep up. One such invention, a massive skimming tanker called A Whale, was promoted by a Taiwanese firm as an oil-gulping savior, but it arrived in the U.S. only to fail multiple government tests.

Marine Spill Response Corp. is touting its Deep Blue program as a major improvement. It adds more dedicated spill response and recovery platforms, contracts with vessel operators like Louisiana-based Edison Chouest Offshore and Hornbeck Offshore Services to have their ships at the ready, and enhancements like infrared scanners and other technology to help find spilled oil more quickly.

Also, the group announced that it has expanded its capabilities for deploying chemical dispersants to break up spilled oil and developed better oil-burning operations. Its Deep Blue Responder vessel has now been moved to Port Fourchon, La., to be able to get to a deepwater spill more quickly, too.

There are now seven dedicated response vessels positioned within 60 hours of any deepwater Gulf oil lease, and Marine Spill Response Corp. also purchased more than 21,000 feet of boom, the largest such inventory of a private response firm, the firm said.

Company president and CEO Steve Benz thanked the member companies, including BP, its partner in the ill-fated Macondo well Anadarko, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Shell, for their investment in the Deep Blue effort.

Those same operators and others are also part of a group called the Marine Well Containment Corp., which invested $1 billion in developing response systems for below the surface of the water. That project includes a capping stack for shutting in a blown-out deepwater well. MWCC completed an interim response system last February, based mostly on what eventually closed in BP’s Macondo well in 2010. It has promised to finish a final response system by some time this year.

A third consortium, Helix Well Containment, has developed another sub-sea response system for independent operators. The response groups ramped up efforts when federal regulators said a strong response system had to be in place for companies to resume oil and gas exploration in Gulf leases.

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The Obama administration will require energy companies to certify that they are not endangering local water supplies when using hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas and oil, the Interior Department says.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a congressional hearing Wednesday that his agency is working on additional regulations that will lower the risk of water supplies being tainted during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The drilling technique involves injecting millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand into subterranean rock formations to free energy resources.

The industry certificates will strengthen the oversight of the Bureau of Land Management, which is sending inspectors to drilling sites to ensure proper well design and waste-water management, David Hayes, Salazar’s deputy, told a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations panel in Washington, D.C.

“We are prioritizing inspections to deal with potential high-risk issues,” Hayes said. “That includes ensuring that the well construction is done with the appropriate integrity.” The proposed rule “will require an additional certification by the operators to ensure that they are using the appropriate cementing,” he said.

As natural gas production in states including Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming gets closer to homes and farms, residents are calling for more stringent regulation to protect their air and water.

“When people ask where they can live that they will be safe, you’ve got to find a place where there isn’t any shale underneath,” Susie Beiersdorfer, a geologist, said Monday during a protest against fracking in Steubenville, Ohio.

Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Hess Corp. of New York are seeking well permits in Ohio. Some homeowners and businesses in the state are demanding a ban until fracking is better researched and regulated.

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Today multiple environmental organizations called on the President’s chief environmental advisor asking for a full environmental analysis of plans to export liquefied natural gas (LNG). The letter to the Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency sounds the alarm that the agencies considering these export plans are not analyzing or disclosing the environmental impacts of the increased hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ that would be necessary to support major LNG exports.

“Exporting liquefied natural gas means more dangerous fracking, a secretive and toxic part of the production process that the Sierra Club has no confidence in,” said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “With the health of our communities and our environment at stake, it’s up to our leaders at EPA and other agencies to keep their commitment to protecting Americans from the toxic threats to our air and water that come with liquefied natural gas.”

“LNG facilities like the one proposed for Cove Point are intended to ship natural gas extracted in this country off to foreign lands, said Michael Helfrich of Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper. “The result is that gas drillers can ship American gas overseas in order to make more money, but this increases the price of natural gas for us, and our communities and environment get ravaged by the shale gas “gold rush”, including thousands of miles of new pipelines and new compressor stations through the Susquehanna Watershed. It may be a win for the gas drillers but it throws the idea of American energy independence out the window.”

“Gas drilling is devastating the communities where it is happening; the claim of environmentally friendly fracking and shale gas drilling is just another expensive messaging campaign” says Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper. “People are losing their drinking water, their clean air, their health, and the beautiful landscapes they call home. The assertion of cheap gas and energy independence is just another marketing campaign – drillers are investing heavily in building and expanding LNG facilities in order to ship American extracted gas overseas. Americans are suffering all of the pollution and harm from gas drilling while foreign countries get to use the gas and drillers get to reap the profits. It’s a lose lose for Americans.”

On February 7th, 2012, The Sierra Club filed the first formal objection with the Department of Energy against the export of domestic gas produced from fracking. This objection called the export proposal an unwise plan which would make a dirty fuel even more dangerous and would cost families money by raising gas and electricity prices. The Sierra Club also intervened in proposals for LNG export facility permits in Sabine Pass, LA and Coos Bay, OR.

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Recently Released Video and LSU Data Make Clear that Tort Lawyer Racket Is Hurting Louisiana’s Economy

A newly released LSU study quantifies the considerable toll that so-called “legacy” lawsuits are taking on Louisiana’s economy generally, and its conventional oil and gas industry in particular.

“In our ongoing effort to bring attention to Louisiana’s costly legacy lawsuit racket, we last week posted video of a plaintiffs’ ‘expert’ teaching Gulf Coast personal injury lawyers how to exploit the law and corrupt the civil justice system,” began American Tort Reform Association communications director Darren McKinney.

“Now, with the addition of this new study from LSU, the evidence against legacy lawsuits is incontrovertible,” McKinney continued. “Louisiana policymakers must act to protect their critically important energy industry and the jobs it supports.”

As noted in ATRA’s 2011/2012 Judicial Hellholes® report released last December, legacy lawsuits are usually filed in rural parish courthouses, seeking millions or even billions in damages for alleged environmental harm as a result of conventional, onshore oil and gas drilling activity.

“A case can remain unresolved for years, sometimes a decade, without any hard evidence of contamination being proffered or cleanup undertaken,” McKinney explained. “And rather than eventually risk a runaway jury verdict, the defendant or defendants often choose to be more safely extorted by settling out of court.”

Meanwhile, according to the LSU data, during the past eight years legacy lawsuits have reduced Louisiana’s economic output by more than $10 billion, and prevented the creation of 30,000 jobs that would have cumulatively paid $1.5 billion in wages.

“Though a 2006 reform law in Louisiana sought to obligate a significant portion of monies paid from these lawsuits to environmental remediation, ” observed McKinney, “cagey Bayou plaintiffs’ lawyers often manage, with the blessings of both parish and appellate judges, to use the law unfairly for their own gain.”

The “red-handed” video ATRA posted last week comprises roughly two, very telling minutes excerpted from what was approximately a half-hour-long presentation by W.D. Griffin, a consultant and past plaintiffs’ expert witness, to a gathering at the South Texas College of Law, Energy Law Institute for Attorneys and Landmen in 2006 when relevant Louisiana law changed.

“The get-rich-quick schemes of shameless trial lawyers are nothing new. But at a time when international tensions are driving oil prices higher and there’s a national, bipartisan consensus about the need to boost domestic energy production, it’s impossible to understand why Louisiana’s policymakers simply look the other way while a few parasitic trial lawyers are hobbling one of the state’s most important industries,” McKinney concluded.

ATRA-

The American Tort Reform Association, based in Washington, D.C., is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to tort and liability reform through public education and the enactment of legislation. Its members include nonprofit organizations and small and large companies, as well as trade, business and professional associations from the state and national level.

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EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson endured three-and-half hours of often tendentious questioning from Republicans on the House Energy Commerce Committee Tuesday. But her encounters with the two Louisianans on the committee — Reps. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge — were unusually cordial.

Scalise began questioning Jackson, who grew up in New Orleans, by thanking her for her support for the the effort to dedicate 80 percent of the Clean Water Act fines levied against BP for Gulf restoration efforts. Scalise recently won House support for an amendment to accomplish that, which was added to the energy section the surface transportation bill. Jackson, who President Barack Obama named to head the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, told the Louisiana lawmaker that, “it is extremely important that those resources return to the Gulf of Mexico, so thank you for your leadership.”

In his questioning, Scalise said he hoped that EPA wouldn’t seek to interfere with what he said has been effective state regulation of hydraulic fracturing, and prodded EPA to move quickly to approve the necessary permits for a Nucor Steel plant in Louisiana.

Cassidy opened his questioning by congratulating Jackson for being “unflappable” through a long day of testimony.

“I worry about the other shoe that is about to drop,” replied Jackson.

“There is no other shoe,” Cassidy assured her.

But Cassidy did, very politely, press Jackson on a few matters.

He said that the president had talked about using natural gas as a transportation fuel, which Cassidy said he thought was a great idea, but wondered what if there was anything the administration was doing to pursue that objective.

“I don’t believe there is a legislative initiative right now,” said Jackson.

Cassidy asked about the use of methanol from natural gas or wood sources as a fuel additive, and how it is his understanding that the regulatory process would take so many years that, despite its merits, it is not being seriously pursued. Jackson said she would be happy to set up a meeting for Cassidy with EPA’s experts.

Cassidy also asked whether community groups that receive EPA funds ever issue environmental claims that may or may not based on good science. Jackson said that EPA may do a fiscal audit of those groups, but it was unlikely they would audit their press releases. But, she said, “in general, I see your point.”

Cassidy said he had no particular case in mind, but Republicans repeatedly questioned her during the hearing about particular grants EPA has given to what sounded, on the surface, like unlikely recipients, including a kinesthetic dance troupe doing environmental justice work in Utah, a camp called Kumbaya, and a Baptist church.

“Why would you give a grant to a Baptist church?” asked Rep. Joe Barton, R-Tex.

“Why not?” replied Jackson.

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Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., is chiding both Republican colleagues in the Senate and the Obama administration for what she said are their exaggerated rhetoric on U.S. energy policy. At a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Interior Department budget Tuesday, Landrieu said Republicans are too singularly focused on drilling, but told Secretary Ken Salazar that the administration was providing the American people with a misleading impression of how aggressively they are pursuing drilling along the Outer Continental Shelf

“I would say to my Republican colleagues that we cannot drill our way out of this problem. We cannot drill our way back to $2 or $3 gasoline. I don’t want to engage in bumper sticker politics, but I do want to engage in good policy for this country,” said Landrieu. “And speaking from Louisiana’s perspective, we do need a more aggressive drilling policy. We can’t drill our way out, but we most certainly can create jobs. We most certainly can reduce our reliance on foreign oil. The facts are that drilling on public lands is down, and needs to be increased.”

In his testimony, Salazar said that “since 2008, oil production from the federal OCS has increased by 30 percent, from 450 million barrels to more than 589 million barrels in 2010,” and that a recently proposed five-year oil and gas leasing program “would make more than 75 percent of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas estimated on the OCS available for development.”

But Landrieu told Salazar that “when you speak, you get people thinking that we’re drilling everywhere, offshore and onshore, when the fact’s don’t justify that.”

“Oil and gas production in our country is lower than it has ever been on federal lands – both offshore and onshore,” said Landrieu, telling Salazar that the overall increase “comes from production on private lands. ”

“The Outer Continental Shelf is 200 miles wide and goes from Oregon to Maine and we’re drilling on less than two percent,” she said.

Salazar told Landrieu he disagreed with her assessment and that “we feel very comfortable that production is coming up.”

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Questions about possible water contamination, earthquakes and job creations are commonplace during natural gas discussions. The Environmental Protection Agency is working to complete a research study on the impact of hydraulic fracturing. The Yale Undergraduate Journal of Politics posed a unique question on the matter this week. The Politic pondered the idea that fracking is far more of a local or regional issue than a federal one.

Here are some facts about ongoing fracking legal issues and pending legislation:

* During a congressional hearing today Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Obama administration will require all energy companies to “certify” no endangerment of local water supplies is taking placed, Bloomberg reports. The new procedures will add to the power of the Bureau of Land Management.

* The Energy Policy Act of 2005 excluded fracking from regulation, according to The Politic. If the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act passes, the federal government will close the natural gas-related loophole. The bill was introduced by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. All states with significant levels of shale formations have an agency to oversee federal EPA regulations.

* Bloomberg Businessweek references an Ohio study released this week touting high job creation and revenue figures from natural gas drilling. The report claims the gas industry will generate nearly $4.9 billion by 2014 in economic investments and create more than 65,000 jobs.

* Aurora, Colo., stopped short of enacting an outright fracking ban but is drafting ordinances requiring far stricter oil and gas development regulation. Increased environmental concerns by citizens prompted town leaders to exercise their home rule option to raise standards, the Aurora Sentinel reports.

* Local governments have the ability to create local zoning laws in Pennsylvania. The state legislature is in the process of developing a standardized set of rules for all municipalities to follow. Pennsylvania fracking is regulated by the Bureau of Oil and Gas Management. Energy companies must submit a list of all chemicals used for approval and a plan detailing contamination contingencies and disposal of flowback and waste, The Politic reports.

* The nonprofit group State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations recommended North Carolina needs to draft regulations before making a decision on whether or not to permit fracking in the state, according to the Associated Press. Last year state officials passed a resolution to study hydraulic fracturing. North Carolina currently does not have any active gas or oil wells. Well which were in use during the 1990s were all plugged.

* The New Jersey legislature approved a statewide fracking moratorium, but the measure was vetoed by Republican Gov. Chris Christie. The bill was largely symbolic in nature because there are no known shale deposits beneath the soil in the Garden State, according to The Politic.

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