By Lisa Lambert
Two major U.S. rules (click here) aimed at curbing corruption and pollution in the energy sector may be entirely wiped from the books by next week, after the Republican-led House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to repeal them.
The Senate is expected to take up repealing the rules, both of which were years in the making, as soon as Thursday.
Under the virtually untested Congressional Review Act (click here), the Republican-led Congress can vote to permanently undo newly minted regulations. Agencies cannot revisit overturned regulations and timing in the law means any regulation enacted in the Obama administration's final months are eligible for axing.
Required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, the Securities and Exchange Commission's "extraction rule" was approved this summer to require companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp to publicly state the taxes and other fees they pay to governments.
Exxon, and other major energy corporations, fought for years to keep the rule from seeing the light of day. After a series of legal battles the SEC in June 2016 finally completed the rule, which supporters say can help expose questionable financial ties U.S. companies may have with foreign governments.
During Wednesday's debate, Representative Maxine Waters, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, raised concerns that Exxon's CEO during those fights was Rex Tillerson, just confirmed in the top diplomatic post of Secretary of State. During Tillerson's confirmation hearings, he raised Democrats' hackles by saying he did not know Exxon lobbied against U.S. sanctions on Russia, where he did business for years.
Republicans say the rule is burdensome and costly for energy companies, and also duplicates other long-standing regulations.
On the House floor Republican Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, called the rule part of "a radical leftist elitist agenda against carbon-based jobs."...
Carbon based jobs are normally affiliated with steel production, not antiquated forms of energy. There is nearly nothing worthy of the USA economy to protect. The coal jobs in the USA number about 35,000.
Industries come and go. It is time for petroleum jobs to go!
By Tom DiChristopher
...Recruiters (click here) have long warned that layoffs could come back to haunt an industry still dealing with a shortage of mid-career workers following the 1980s oil bust. As the United States reaches full employment, oilfield services companies and drillers could face a shortage of workers and may have to pay dearly for them.
Since the start of the oil price downturn in 2014, more than 291,500 energy jobs have been lost worldwide, estimates recruitment agency Airswift....
The petroleum industry is working as hard as it can for a resurgence, ie: Tillerson. But, the price is less than half at the time of high paying jobs working in oil fields. The modern jobs in alternative energies are clean and carry virtually no threat of serious injury or DEATH!
The stream buffer rule is intended to lessen the amount of waste from mountain-top removal coal mining deposited in local waterways.
Republican lawmakers, though, say it is hurting coal jobs by placing unworkable limits on the industry. Democrats, on the other hand, say it cuts down on water pollution....
