Submission Number: UBR-DEIS-00289 -- Oral Comment at Public Meeting 

Received: 11/16/2020 12:00:00 PM
Commenter: Tyson Todd
Organization: 
State: 

Agency: STB
Initiative: Uinta Basin Railway EIS
Attachments: No Attachments
Submission Text
Does that work?

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Great, thank you.· Tyson Todd, T-Y-S-O-N T-O-D-D.· I'm with the SITLA, the School and Institutional Trust Land Administration. · · · · · · I just had some high-level comments here. Looking at the International Energy Agency, it looks like they project oil demands to grow to 2030, and then after 2030, it will start the -- the demand for oil will start decreasing at that point, not disappearing but decreasing after 2030, which I think was, just from a high-level demand for the product, primarily being shipped on the rail, both for the long-term economics of the rail. · · · · · · We all know that there are demand disruptions as evident by the COVID-19 pandemic, but generally looking forward, it looks like the level amount for oil is trending upward. · · · · · · I also have here a report from the Bingham Research Center in Vernal, Utah, out of Utah State University, talking about winter ozone production decreasing over time.· In part, it reads:· For a given set of metrological conditions, winter ozone concentrations are now lower than they would have been in the past.· The annual ozone reduction has been about four parts per billion per year, from 2011 to 2020, with a total drop of more than 30 parts per billion.· And the number of ozone exceedance stays per year has also decreased.· Evidence is that the decline in wintertime ozone is driven by changes in emission, not metrology.

I think that's an important environmental factor to consider as well.· At the same time, gas production has gone down over the last couple years in the Uinta Basin, but there are industry controls and new regulatory environments that are helping with the ozone pre-curser emissions that allows the oil and gas industry to be a cleaner industry in the Uinta Basin. · · · · · · And there are lots of people in the Uinta Basin working in the oil and gas industry.· I think it's a fair assessment to say that it is the backbone economic driver of the Uinta Basin, even though we are trying to diversify.· Those economic factors and environmental factors regarding oil and gas development in the Uinta Basin need to be strongly considered. · · · · · · And also from a trust land's perspective, you know, we issue oil and gas leases depending on the price of oil and gas.· It's a substantial amount of our revenue.

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-- oil and gas.· And the rail and the opportunities to find new markets for oil and gas developed on trust lands would help grow the trust, and in turn, fund public education across the state. · · · · · · Thank you.

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Thank you.· Just to clarify my comment, I was hoping to communicate that oil productions is not going to decrease in 2030.· Rather, that the International Energy Agency predicts that the rate at which demand grows will decrease in 2030.· That's all. Thank you.