j_b

Congress voted the exemption in 2005, just before the surge in the use of fracking, hmmm ... but it's not over: Energy Industry Fights Fracking Chemical Disclosure

because congress exempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act so regulating is left to the states ... with the usual result.

Yes, and peddled by the very same person who warned us about the coming "green bubble" (still waiting); yet, apparently there is no questioning when oil and gas interests literally multiply reserve numbers out of the blue.

"S.E.C. Shift Leads to Worries of Overestimation of Reserves By IAN URBINA Published: June 27, 2011 In 2008, the stocks of many natural gas companies were sinking because of the financial meltdown, recession fears and falling gas prices. But they began to rebound after a sweeping rule change by the Securities and Exchange Commission, intended to modernize how energy companies report their gas reserves. As part of that change, the commission acquiesced to industry pressure by giving these companies greater latitude in how they estimated reserves in areas that were not yet drilled. The new rules, which were several years in the making, were officially adopted only weeks before the S.E.C. chairman under President George W. Bush, Christopher Cox, stepped down. Previously, companies were allowed to count gas only from areas close to their active wells as part of their “proved” reserves, the amount of gas that a company estimates to investors it will tap. This was meant to prevent companies from claiming reserves of gas based largely on guesswork. After the rule change, companies were allowed to include gas located farther from producing wells in their reserves estimates, using modeling methods to predict how much gas could be produced from these yet-untapped areas. But the S.E.C. said that the companies, for reasons of trade secrecy, did not have to disclose precise details about the technology they used to estimate reserve sizes. Though the commission considered requiring third-party audits to verify the reserve estimates, the idea was dropped in the end. The rule change was especially helpful to shale gas companies because it approved the use of new technology and modeling techniques that these companies rely on more heavily than traditional oil and gas companies. Shale gas producers also especially benefited from the relaxed restrictions on how large an area companies could predict would be productive without drilling to test first. Shale formations tend to span much bigger areas than conventional oil and gas fields, and some shale gas producers say they can achieve relatively predictable results across these large areas. Among 19 of the largest shale companies reviewed by The New York Times, at least seven increased — some by more than 200 percent — the amount of undeveloped reserves they reported in their federal filings immediately after the rule took effect, according to their S.E.C. filings. Investors cheered the rule change as it was adopted, and in the following months they sharply bid up the stocks of five of the seven companies. The rule change also allowed these companies to reduce one of the costs that investors often rely on to compare the performance of energy companies: their finding and development costs. These costs now appeared drastically lower because they were being divided across a much larger reserve estimate. Five of the seven shale companies also reported huge decreases in their finding and development costs — by as much as 86 percent, according to a review by The Times of their federal filings. The average decrease in these costs for the oil and gas industry on the whole was about 48 percent for the year. However, in internal e-mails and documents, many industry executives and federal officials have questioned whether some companies are overstating, perhaps intentionally, the amount of gas they can economically produce in a given period. This practice, known as overbooking, is illegal because it misleads investors trying to assess a company’s strength and banks that use reserves as collateral for loans. “There is now plenty of production data available from the states to show that these wells are nowhere near what these guys are touting,” an official with a Texas oil and gas company who formerly worked at Enron wrote on Nov. 7, 2009, comparing the practices of shale companies to Enron’s. “I have discussed this numerous times with analysts that are friends of mine — they agree with me and then just shrug their shoulders.” [..] Worries of Overestimation of Reserves

There is widespread disagreement among experts about the amount of shale gas reserve: After USGS Analysis, EIA Cuts Estimates of Marcellus Shale Gas Reserves by 80% but since the Torygraph and the usual cheerleaders claim thtat everything is ok ...

fwiw, it's quite unlikely that weather/conditions On Rainier at that time of the year will cooperate with your choice of specific dates. Going when weather/conditions materialize is the better strategy for success.

Speed rock climbing on trade routes doesn't involve nearly as much rick as doing so in the mountains, especially on mixed climbs. I'll be forever in awe of people doing hard solo enchainments; however, climbing El Cap in 5 hours versus 2:38:15 (or whatever)? meh, it seems meaningless to me in terms of what is required to break new grounds, which doesn't mean that Florine or whoever aren't excellent and graceful climbers.

Taking huge unnecessary risk isn't part of my philosophy of climbing. On the contrary, minimizing risk according to the demands placed by the objective seems like an important part of what we do. It doesn't mean that I don't believe speed climbing isn't climbing (quit trying to put words in my mouth) or that fast alpine ascents don't push the frontiers of climbing. It's just that taking huge risk while running up a 70 year old route doesn't strike me as particularly good style.

i would think speed climbing would be good practice to further your climbing skills which in turn would further ones style, furthering ur abilities to climb higher ratings while covering new ground drowning in a yummy candy coating Pulling on plastic with mtn boots and a 40 lbs pack is also good practice for climbing yet we still have to read about someone putting out a press communique suggesting the boundaries of climbing have been pushed in the process or that it is a new game that climbers play. You can substitute my example with running up Mt Si if you wish. btw No sugar coating is needed but don't confuse speaking bluntly with writing disparaging comments that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Holy Cow! [video:youtube]v=S2oymHHyV1M

more garbage from douchebag

There is no evidence pointing to your conclusion and I note that you didn't include poverty in your example, which is unfortunate because rigid belief in the culturally absurd also happens to be inversely correlated with socio-economic status.

Strawman (and really lousy logic). Social spending won't prevent as many child abuse cases if the underlying socioeconomic causes of child abuse aren't present. If you look at the distribution of poverty by state, you'll instantly notice the correlation with child abuse rate.

More evidence of the "Texas miracle" ...

Alabama brings back slavery for Latinos Here's how: pass a draconian immigration law, lock up 'illegals' in private prisons, then get the new inmates to work in the fields Link

Doesn't he have a point as far as speed climbing not doing much to further climbing? New ground? Higher rating? Better style?

If you think you can run away from your record of extremist interventions in this forum (ranging from full blown attacks on popular social programs to Neanderthalian red-baiting), you are even more delusional than I thought. Flip-flopping opportunists who finally found a regulation they liked after arguing for years (literally) that any attempts at regulating markets amounts to socialism are just not very convincing.

Feel free to interject any facts that would contradict what I say. And no, your latest "I don't support all deregulation policies" combined with your usual talking down of all attempts at regulation is proof of nothing, except perhaps your being clueless.

I think your positions are very evident every single time that these topics come up, especially in light of your supporting pols responsible for these policies and who oppose any attempts at righting the ship.

It's not my fault that you are sufficiently deluded to believe that supporting wars of choice, 40 years of cutting taxes on the wealthy, outsourcing jobs to incur massive trade deficits, etc ... isn't "favoring deficits".

Of course, calling me names is easier than explaining why you supported (and still supported them as of just not too long ago) the wars, the tax cuts, "Free" Trade, etc ... yet "not favor deficits". Perhaps if you explained why you keep flip-flopping, it'd be easier to track what you stand for.

I can only assess the positions you defend and you have yet to support any attempt at re-regulating the markets (or anything else for that matter). Don't fool yourself, the way you fall in all of these discussions is obvious to everyone. Right, you don't favor deficits. You only supported the policies and keep supporting the politicians that caused the deficit.

Nobody claimed that what Obama proposed was sufficient but at least it's going in the right direction by opposition to Cain's proposal to lower taxation on the rich. There are many ways to go toward decreasing the deficit caused by tax cuts for the wealthy, military adventurism, payoffs to big pharma (and other boondoggles) , and the financial crisis caused by deregulation of the financial sector (all policies that you likely supported btw). Cracking down on tax havens alone would net over $100billions/year, and we won't discuss taxing capital gain as if it were income. How many years till you flip flop again to not worrying about deficits?

It's up to you to not support politicians who oppose investigations and prosecutions, who oppose re-regulation of the financial sector and who oppose fair taxation of those who profited from the financial collapse. Yet, you systematically support them as can be seen in this very thread.