AAPG GEO-DC Blog

As of May 1, over 3,000 bills and resolutions have been introduced in the 113rd Congress, and nine measures have become law. This is about the same pace as in the 112th Congress. It is impossible to predict whether this Congress will eventually be more productive than the last.

There are 45 bills and joint/concurrent resolutions, including several energy bills, that are likely to be voted into law. These promising bills have had a significant vote in one chamber and are likely to get a vote in the other chamber according to the Govtrack.us website.

Due to real bi-partisan cooperation, energy legislation, covering topics from hydropower to helium, has a good …

Everyone seems to know about the across-the-board, federal spending cuts, known as sequester, that took effect March 1. In addition, the law passed last week to rescind the sequester-driven furloughs of air-traffic controllers was in virtually every newspaper in the country.

However, cuts in research and development (R&D) are having less-obvious impacts that get little news coverage. The major impacts deduced from discussions with government managers, and from the American Geoscience Institute (AGI) weekly sequester-impact survey are:

• Government agencies are taking a long time to determine how to implement the sequester cuts.
• Government agencies are choosing to cut funding for grants and contracts rather than furlough or lay …
  

There is now evidence to contradict the widely held belief that there is a shortage of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workers.

The Economic Policy Institute reported this week that only half of STEM graduates get STEM jobs. These statistics primarily apply to information technology (IT) and engineering graduates. Additional evidence for this finding is the fact that salaries in these areas have not increased since the late-1990s.

These statistics are not consistent with jobs information for the oil and natural gas industry where salaries are climbing rapidly. The April 2012 AAPG Explorer reported that salaries for petroleum geologists rose 15 percent over three years.

However, the STEM employment numbers may …

At the end of March, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed rule that requires gasoline to have only 10 parts per million (ppm) of sulfur by 2017. This is a 60 percent cut from the current requirement of 30 ppm. The reduction would bring all gasoline in the nation into conformity with California standards.

The EPA argument for the new standards is they will “slash emissions of a range of harmful pollutants that can cause premature death and respiratory illnesses, including reducing smog-forming volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides by 80 percent, establish a 70 percent tighter particulate matter standard, and reduce fuel vapor emissions to near zero. The …