Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R) will focus primarily on the Endangered Species Act as the 2016 Western Governors' Association Chairman's Initiative, he announced at the group's annual meeting on June 26.
The federal law has had a significant impact on western states for decades, which increasingly show leadership in managing species and preserving their habitats, Mead said. Finding ways to make the law better will be one of his goals, he said.
WGA's bipartisan nature puts Western governors in a good position to show leadership on ESA issues, Mead said. "This is not a Republican issue. It is not a Democratic issue. It is a western issue," he told the group during the meeting's final day at Incline Village near Lake Tahoe.
In her June 24 keynote address, US Sec. of the Interior Sally Jewell applauded the governors' work to improve the greater sage grouse's habitat across 11 western states.
The US Fish & Wildlife Service faces a September deadline for possibly listing the bird as an endangered or threatened species under a legal settlement it reached with several environmental groups. Jewell told the governors she remained optimistic that FWS "will have the necessary certainty to reach a 'not warranted' decision."
Governors discussed possible ways to meet challenges raised by a multiyear drought in several of their states, as well as ways to improve the region's transportation networks. They also approved five resolutions, one of which dealt with enhanced oil recovery.
It noted that the US oil and gas industry pioneered the injection of carbon dioxide into existing oil fields to recover more crude in 1972. "As of 2013, EOR using CO2 produced approximately 280,000 b/d, or 4% of US crude production," the resolution said.
EOR's potential
The US has an estimated 21.4 billion bbl of crude, requiring 8.9 billion tonnes of CO2, which could be economically recovered with today's EOR technologies, it said. "With advances in technology, 63.3 billion bbl of oil, requiring 16.2 billion tonnes of CO2, could be economically recovered, which is roughly double current US proven reserves," it said.
The resolution said availability of CO2 from high-volume sources required for EOR is limited, and natural sources won't be able to close a growing supply gap. Capture and pipeline transportation capacity also isn't sufficient, but capture equipment on a broad range of industrial processes potentially could supply significant volumes, it suggested.
The governors called on the Obama administration and Congress to enact federal incentives to increase the amount of CO2 available for EOR. Federal policies to limit CO2 emissions should promote, and not impede, development and deployment of CO2 capture and commoditization, they suggested.