Mr. Speaker, I rise today with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to talk about an issue that I believe is a game changer when it comes to America's future. As we deal with the issue of dependency on foreign energy supplies…
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to talk about an issue that I believe is a game changer when it comes to America's future.
As we deal with the issue of dependency on foreign energy supplies and we come up with--hopefully in this Congress--a national energy policy that once and for all will put us on a path that will lead to our independence from our dependency on foreign energy supplies across America, one issue I would like to talk about tonight in particular is the exploration and development of our natural gas supplies right here on our domestic lands.
As I come and hail from the great State of New York, we have located under our great State a formation known as the Marcellus shale natural gas formation. That natural gas formation has been identified by many experts across the field as to contain one of the world's largest supplies of natural gas. That supply of natural gas is located within our continent, within our borders, and will take off the table those risks to our future that are demonstrated by the upheavals that we see
in the Middle East that supply our energy supplies on a constant basis. So I am proud to be joined tonight with colleagues from the great State of Pennsylvania on both sides of the aisle to talk about the issue of Marcellus shale natural gas.
At this point in time, I would like to recognize my good friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) to offer some comments in regards to this issue.
Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his comments and I thank the gentleman for participating in this this evening.
When I first came to Congress back in November of last year, after we took office after our special election, one of the issues, and a priority issue to our office, is the Marcellus shale natural gas development. One of the things that I noted back in my district back at home is that there is a lot of misinformation, as the gentleman identified in his comments.
One thing that we sought to do is to establish the Marcellus Shale Caucus, a caucus of Members of Congress who represent districts that overlay the Marcellus shale formation, so that we could come together as a body, as a representative body, and bring the best scientists and bring the best data and bring the best information, not only to the floor of the House, but back to our districts.
I am pleased to be joined tonight as cochair in that caucus as we have established in this Congress, my good friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Critz), who I believe has some comments that he would like to share on this issue before we get into the presentation of the facts in the development of the Marcellus shale.
I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I reclaim my time.
As both of my colleagues have articulated, this is a game-changer, but at the same time it's a game-changer, I think everybody in this Chamber and everyone across the Nation realizes that the development of this precious resource needs to be done in a safe and responsible manner. Nobody I've talked with in my travels on this issue has ever expressed a desire to just drill at any cost. What we have to do is have responsible, safe drilling. That's what we're all about, and that's what this caucus is all about. It's about bringing together both sides of the aisle. In Washington here, we get chastised quite often about being partisan, about dividing, and about not coming together to solve our Nation's problems.
I see this as a game-changer for an additional reason in that we can come together on both sides of the aisle to promote this issue, to come up with a commonsense regulatory basis at the State level, to promote that at the State level, and to develop this precious resource domestically so that we can have energy that is projected to last over 90 years. There are 90 years of domestic supplies of energy coming from this natural gas formation that is located, not only in Marcellus shale, but across the Nation in various shale formations. What I'd like to do at this point in time is to just go through a little history of what we're talking about here when it comes to natural gas in America.
Many people think that oil and natural gas in America is something that's relatively new. I'll tell you that, in the western portion of my district, I'm proud to have located there the first natural gas well that has ever been drilled. That well was located, I think it was, in the late 1800s, just outside the district in Fredonia; and then there is an oil well in the Pennsylvania area that, I believe, is located in my great colleague's district right across the Pennsylvania State border. It was located sometime in the late 1800s or in the early 1900s. Andrew Carnegie was able to generate a great amount of wealth in developing those oil fields that are right here in America.
So natural gas and oil production in America is not something that's new. It has been around for many, many years. Actually, the first commercial frac job--or the job of developing a natural gas well with the technology and concept that we call ``hydraulic fracturing'' and which a lot of people have said in association with the Marcellus shale formation, which is a new technology and a new venture in natural gas development--has actually been around for quite some time. The first commercial frac job occurred in Velma, Oklahoma, on March 17, 1949. As my colleague from Pennsylvania had indicated, since that time, over 1 million wells have been fracked right here in America without an identified problem. That's over 60 years of success.
What has happened with the Marcellus shale and the new shale formation development potential is that they've taken that hydraulic fracturing, and they've created an update to it. They've kind of come up with a new technology of using those existing technologies and combining them in order to come up with new techniques that combine the concepts of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing into one combined technology that makes the development of our North American shale/natural gas formations economically viable. That includes the Marcellus shale formation here in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, New York, and across the Northeast area.
Now that we've heard about this issue, I see we are joined by another colleague from the great State of Pennsylvania. I yield to my colleague from Pennsylvania.
I reclaim my time.
I thank my colleague for his comments, and he's absolutely right. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments that the economic potential that we see not only with Marcellus shale but with all of the shale formations. When it comes to natural gas and oil development, it's huge. Those are real jobs.
I have had the opportunity to go to your great State and tour many of these rigs that we've seen in operation. You see the workers there. You see the people that are employed, that are being serviced by this industry that are putting food on their tables, putting money aside for their kids' college education. The prosperity.
I went back on multiple trips and stopped and toured some of your downtown areas in the locations where this development is going on. And I talked with residents and heard the success stories of how the restaurants are filled and how the hotels have ``no vacancy'' signs on their doors.
One thing that struck me was a family farmer who was talking about, until this came along, they were struggling with coming up with a plan to pass the family farm on to the next generation. And when I heard that story, I said, This is something, because it's continuing a way of life, a tradition of America when it comes to our farmers and, when it comes to people that we share in common in our districts, being able to pass that on because now they have the revenue from their lands that is going to allow them to preserve that way of life.
So I'm proud to be here today. Before we get into some details as to exactly what we're talking about, one of those issues as we have indicated is getting the information out to the American public so that the American public can have the correct information based on science and data. And when our elected officials at the State level deal with the regulatory oversight that goes into this process, that we have the true science and data before them to make sure that those regulations are appropriate and they're getting the job done.
Because we all agree on both sides of the aisle that we want this resource to be developed if it can be done so in a sound and environmentally safe fashion.
So I will yield at this point in time to my colleague, Mr. Thompson.
Will the gentleman yield?
I think that articulates a great potential that we see with the Marcellus shale formation in particular. Its location in the northeast area of our great Nation opens it up to development to that densely populated area around New York City, up and down the northeast coast, the manufacturing hub of yesteryear that is there.
The opportunity that this energy supply that has this infrastructure in existence and also the potential to invest in that infrastructure to deliver this energy supply to a vast number of people and to a vast number of small businesses is going to put people back to work. I think that further articulates the game-changing nature of this find in northeast America.
I yield back.
I was just going to move onto that, but I will yield to my colleague from Pennsylvania.
I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania. I do want to get into the process. I have a chart here today on the floor of the House to kind of go over exactly what we are talking about when it comes to this--I thank my colleague for joining us this evening--to talk about what we are dealing with here, this process of tapping into the shale formations, and in particular Marcellus shale formation. Really what we are talking about is kind of the combination of the existing technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. That's kind of the game-changing combination of existing technologies that have been joined together to in an innovative way come up with a way to tap these deep, large natural gas reserves in an environmentally safe way that will allow this gas to be recovered in an economically viable way.
So with that being said, I have got a chart here. And as many people know, there is the old traditional vertical well drilling which is represented, before we go into the horizontal role here, as straight down. The old vertical well is to punch a hole in the ground, as you said, 37 feet with a wooden bit, to one of the original finds in your district. That's what we're talking about.
But the horizontal drilling, the change in the horizontal drilling techniques that we're talking about is the ability to go down very deep into the Earth's crust. We are talking that this formation in Marcellus shale is about 6,000 to 8,000 feet below the surface. What happens is they drill from the surface down to that formation.
Then what they are able to do, and I have seen this with my own eyes, and I am sure my colleague from Pennsylvania has seen it also, they are able to turn that drilling bit, and turn the drill horizontally. So they go down vertically, and then as they get to the point where the formation is located and where the natural gas has been identified in the Marcellus shale formation, in the natural gas supply we are talking about tonight, and they turn that drill bit and they go out horizontally. And they go out thousands of feet. They go out and drill and open up that formation, that shale formation, to potential development for natural gas recovery.
After they turn that drill bit and they take that horizontal turn, they go out and then they engage in the process which is called hydraulic fracturing. Now, hydraulic fracturing has been around quite a long time. What essentially that means is that they are going in, they drill the well, and then they detonate some small explosives in order to crack the formation, in order to open up the formation, open up this shale rock that is not shale or slate that you are accustomed to on the surface of the Earth.
I held it the other day. A gentleman came into my office, had a piece of shale in the Midwest area, and it's as solid as granite. There are natural gas molecules that are trapped into that granite formation, that shale formation. What they have to do is they have to detonate small fissures and open up cracks in that formation so that the natural gas molecules have a path to go back up the bore, up the well site and be recovered at the surface.
I will. Please.
My colleague's exactly right. And if you can join me in this conversation, because by no means am I an expert in this technology. But what I have read and researched and what's been presented to me makes sense. Because you're absolutely right. What happens is then they take, after there is some fracturing of the formation of the shale--there is a hydraulic fracture, hence the hydraulic fracturing, the hydraulic portion of that technology name-- what they do is they pump volumes of water, primarily water and sand, down the well site and into that horizontally-drilled well site and bore, and pump in water at high pressures. We are talking high pressure when we are talking about this process and this technology that not only pump into those fissures, those microscopic fissures that we're talking about that are the result of this fracturing process.
As they pump that water and sand into those fissures, when they withdraw the fracked material, those proppants as they are called, as my colleague's identified, keep those fissures open so that natural gas has the ability to have a natural, by way of pressures, ability to migrate to the well, to the bore site, to the hole, if you would, and then flow back up to the surface and be recovered and developed, and put into our pipeline systems to supply the energy that we all have become dependent upon.
Does my colleague have anything to add to that process?
Will my colleague yield for a question?
That's one of the great myths. I've heard these myths throughout my travels throughout the district and down here in D.C. that the hydraulic fluid, that there is some secret, that they don't want to talk about it, they don't want to disclose it. My understanding is that that truly is a myth. And you have here today I see on this chart kind of identified the ingredients. Would you agree?
On the chart that we have here this evening, what we are talking about is that hydraulic fluid is pumped into the horizontal area. Primarily that water is hitting that area, and it is then coming back up the well bore to a certain extent.
If you could continue as to what happens to the water that remains down there.
My understanding of the processing, correct me if I am wrong, is we are essentially dealing with a two-step process, if you would, in developing the well site. You have the surface up here; you have got the initial, where there is a drilling operation that goes through the--I forget the actual technical name--but the upper end of the well that we are tapping into.
And that's the area in the first 1,000 feet, plus or minus, that's going through the aquifer. I think we have highlighted kind of a cross- section and kind of highlighted that area because it is a legitimate concern, in my opinion. I know the regulatory agencies have identified this as a legitimate concern, and this is a critical portion of the well development that I think we need to spend a little bit more time on.
As we punch through the aquifer, what we are talking about is there are casings, there are steel casings, it's my understanding, that are pushed down the well site after it's been drilled, that are pushed down the bore, the well bore, and then going through that aquifer. And then what is happening once you get to that point that has been identified as the break-off point, or I forget the term that's in the industry, but what happens is they pump it up with a cement, with a material, that provides a barrier between the casing, the aquifer and the other formations and essentially fills in the area, if you would, between the casings and the aquifer and the other area that's kind of primarily going through that first 1,000 feet of well development. Is my understanding correct?
But it's redundancies built into the process.
I think that's a point that needs to be stressed is the redundancy of how the initial 1,000 feet, plus or minus, whatever the regulatory agencies say we have to have for that break-off point and that multiple protection to make sure that that aquifer is protected.
Then my understanding is the second stage of the process is where they continue to drill down deeper to reach the actual formation, which again is 6,000 to 8,000 feet below, because it's not a fluid level location throughout the Northeast, as many of us know from geology from our high school days. There are elevation changes in that formation.
That's the amazing part of the technology in my understanding is that as
that formation goes up and down, and you go from the 5,000 foot, the 6,000 foot to the deep at the 9,000 foot, the technology can actually trace into that formation. I hit those marks where the engineers have identified that this gas is located.
Essentially what they do in that second phase is they continue to drill down to the formation. As they turn the drill bit to do that horizontal drilling technique, that actually goes through that shale rock--and it is rock, I literally held it the other day, as I indicated earlier. It really feels like granite, but that gas is trapped within that rock and drills through and then reaches out thousands of feet from the well site up on the surface.
I think that's a point I would also like to articulate right now and stress that one of the things that I saw as a benefit--because I have seen vertical wells, I have seen horizontal wells. Vertical wells is one hole essentially going to the formation, and they take a shot at getting to the sweet spot, so to speak.
Then if they miss--and the general rule I believe in the industry is one out of three of those are not successful in the Northeast--and we are dealing with the Trenton rock and the Black River formation, which is a higher level formation, is my understanding. They would then have to move the well site, and they would have to disturb the surface, the area that they would have to clear in order to put the rig and the development facilities on the surface.
Now, what they are doing with this whole horizontal drilling technique is that they have six different well sites from the one platform. Is that understanding correct?
That's exactly what I saw in your district, in your great district as I came down and toured one of those sites. You got a real sense of the difference of having the multiple vertical locations that would talk about clearing trees and clearing the area and building roads to get access to those areas.
You would then essentially take six of those vertical sites and put them in one location where they could horizontally tap into this reserve from one location rather than six locations. I think that's a great point to put that education and that information out to people, because I think that people think this is just a one-hole operation. It's a multi-hole operation.
That's also what makes it economically viable, because this is not cheap. I know these are millions of dollars of investment in order to tap into this resource, and that has to be recognized and respected.
I would echo my colleague's comments about the State agencies being the appropriate agencies to oversee this development. In New York State, right now we are under a moratorium at the local level that has stopped any development of the Marcellus shale until our local DEC, Department of Environmental Conservation, issues its environmental impact statement to come up with the regulations that can deal with this issue in a responsible and safe manner. And to be perfectly upfront with my colleague from Pennsylvania, we've learned a great deal from what happened in your district and my other colleague's district in the State of Pennsylvania as to how to deal with these issues and make sure they are done safely and responsibly. And I think the DEC has done a good job in New York State of taking the time out and studying the issue. It's going on 3 years. I'm ready to move forward, in my opinion, to come up with regulations to unleash this game-changing opportunity for our Nation and for our areas.
I do also agree with my colleague that leaving it up to Washington to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution, to me, is just not the appropriate policy. Let our State agencies, the ones that live and breathe in our communities, the people that work in those agencies, that know our State best, let me deal with these issues and come up with the regulations that are reasonable to protect our environment and yet at the same time recognize the potential and opportunity that is located in our Marcellus shale formation. And I think that is best served in order to allow the State agencies to do that.
One thing I did want to stress as we're going through this chart, I've heard some concerns of people that, well, the fluid that remains down in the well site in the formation--because these are millions of gallons, there are millions of gallons of water that are pumped down the hole to create the pressures and to access this natural gas formation. There has been concern raised to me, and I would be interested to know what my colleague's thoughts are as to that water or that hydraulic, that slick water, that brine, as you had indicated, as it sits into the well site and into the formation, the potential risk of going back up through essentially a mile of sedimentation, of limestone, of different formations. Have you heard the same concern?
I believe the chart identifies what we're talking about here. We're talking the aquifer up here within 1,000 feet of the surface. Mostly, in our area, I know the water table is at about 500 feet, maybe 200 feet, people are putting their wells into those aquifers. And we're talking 6,000 feet, 8,000 feet.
I think this chart demonstrates it fairly accurately that we've got a ton of material, literally material, that is protecting this formation and that area down there from our aquifer. And I think that that concern is a legitimate concern, but because of the oversight and the ability of our local agencies to do their job, in my opinion, I think they can handle it appropriately and that Mother Nature will protect that aquifer from the development of this.
I think the standards of how these wells go in need to be enforced, and that means that the type of cement, both the steel that's used and even, as importantly, the cement casing that's utilized to make sure that it's of a high quality and to make sure that it's put in a way and tested so that there are no air pockets, there are no quick pathways somehow for migration to occur through the casing, and that is all done in a very high quality way with a lot of quality controls. That's where the oversight is important.
In Pennsylvania, again, I come back and put a lot of trust in the Department of Environmental Protection. There's a lot of folks on the other side that would be opposed to this. And I don't like to really promote anything, especially this, but there was a film series called ``GASLAND.'' Let me just share with you some thoughts from John Hanger.
Who is John Hanger? John Hanger used to be the head of an environmental group, and he became the secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania. And Secretary Hanger did a great job. He was concerned about the environment. He had an environmental record that was tough. He said that ``GASLAND'' is ``fundamentally dishonest'' and ``deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect.'' He called the producer of that a propagandist because of the way the information was presented.
Again, it comes back to how we started this. This is an important thing to have a debate on. But make the debate on fact and science, not on myth and emotion.
And there were pictures of fire-spewing faucets that have been repeatedly found to be the result, frankly, of naturally occurring methane migration. People that drill their shallow wells for water, unfortunately, where they tend to drill, they sometimes drill them into methane pockets, naturally existing ones. I saw a picture yesterday of a gentleman farmer from Colorado, and it was a pretty cool picture because it showed a large flame in the middle of a river, but it was from a naturally occurring methane pocket. It had nothing to do with mining. It had nothing to do with drilling. But it was, again, naturally occurring. It had nothing to do with fracking.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission reviewed the specific location of the film numerous times and remarked ``dissolved methane in well water appears to be biogenic''--that is, naturally occurring in origin--"and there are no indications of oil and gas impacts to the well water.''
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has confirmed that there have been no confirmed cases of threatened animal health in Pennsylvania, because, obviously, a lot of this occurs on our farms.
I would tell you that the Marcellus gas has saved more dairy farms in my district than probably anything else in the past couple years when dairy farmers were losing an average of $100 per cow per month, based on the fact that the Federal Government prices milk, and it is such a flawed system that this really has been a blessing for our farmers. I have a few farmers running around on new John Deeres, or whatever their choice of tractors are, for the first time in their lives, actually. And so it's been a really good thing so that we don't lose our farms.
We are losing our agriculture acreage at an alarming rate even on a daily basis across this country, but in Pennsylvania, there has been a blessing that has helped to keep that land in production. There's a little bit of a disturbance, a small site for drilling, but once the rigs all go away and you have just that wellhead that you look at in the insert on the poster board there, you can farm around that.
I hope we can have this conversation many more times as we go forth and bring forth science and data on these issues. The operation, when it originally comes in and the development of the well site does require some industrial-type activity. I do recognize that, and I think my colleague would recognize that. But, again, I believe you said 90 days is the estimated period of time for that development to occur.
I hear the Speaker giving us the sign that our time is up. I do thank my colleagues for joining me tonight, and I thank the Speaker for the opportunity to be here tonight.