Monthly Archives: August 2017

Donald Trump said allowing some refugees currently held on Manus island and Nauru would kill him politically. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Donald Trump told the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, that a deal to admit to the US refugees currently held on Manus island and Nauru was stupid and would kill him politically, given his status as the worlds greatest person that does not want to let people into the country.

A White House transcript of the contentious 28 January phone call was published by the Washington Post on Thursday. The Post also published a transcript of a 27 January conversation with the Mexican president, Enrique Pea Nieto, in which Trump seems to dismiss his much-vaunted border wall as a political ploy and asks Pea Nieto not to state publicly that he will not pay for it.

The published transcript showed that in the Turnbull call, which was previously reported to have become angry in tone, Trump complained about the domestic political consequences of the Obama-era Nauru agreement.

Referring to the first iteration of his controversial travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, Trump said: I just called for a total ban on Syria and from many different countries from where there is terror, and extreme vetting for everyone else and somebody told me yesterday that close to 2,000 people are coming [from Manus island and Nauru] who are really probably troublesome.

And I am saying, Boy, that will make us look awfully bad. Here I am calling for a ban where I am not letting anybody in and we take 2,000 people. Really, it looks like 2,000 people that Australia does not want, and I do not blame you, by the way, but the United States has become like a dumping ground.

Turnbull explained, repeatedly, that the US was only obligated to look at taking 1,250-2,000 basically economic refugees from Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and that Australia had committed to actions in return.

I think we should respect deals, he said.

Why havent you let them out? Trump asked. Why have you not let them into your society?

OK, said Turnbull, I will explain why. It is not because they are bad people. It is because in order to stop people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product. So we said if you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Noble [sic] Prize-winning genius, we will not let you in. Because the problem with the people

Trump interjected, to say: That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am.

OK, this shows me to be a dope. I am not like this but if I have to do it I will do it but I do not like this at all

The US president continued however to complain and to misstate the terms of the deal as stated by Turnbull, saying: This is going to kill me. I am the worlds greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people and I agree I can vet them, but that puts me in a bad position. It makes me look so bad and I have only been here a week.

The president even linked the agreement to his election win, saying: Look, I do not know how you got them to sign a deal like this, but that is how they lost the election. They said I had no way to 270 [electoral college votes] and I got 306.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.5m ballots.

That is why [the Democrats] lost the election, Trump repeated, because of stupid deals like this. You have brokered many a stupid deal in business and I respect you, but I guarantee that you broke many a stupid deal. This is a stupid deal. This deal will make me look terrible.

Turnbull insisted on the importance of the US honoring its commitments and said the deal was consistent with the principles set out in the Trump travel ban.

The president yielded, if grudgingly. OK, he said, this shows me to be a dope. I am not like this but if I have to do it I will do it but I do not like this at all.

Trump then complained again and asked Turnbull for a guarantee that anyone admitted would not become the Boston bomber in five years.

Before ending the call, he said: I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. [Russian president Vladimir] Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.

The conversation had begun pleasantly enough, with small talk about the Australian golfer Greg Norman, a mutual friend who had given Trumps number to Turnbull.

In subsequent days, Trump returned to the subject. On 2 February, for example, he tweeted: Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!

The US commitment to take the refugees remains unclear.

At the end of the call, Turnbull asked Trump: Do you want to talk about Syria and [North Korea]?

Trump answered with a remark transcribed as inaudible and said: This is crazy.

Thank you for your commitment, said Turnbull. It is very important to us.

It is important to you and it is embarrassing to me, Trump said. It is an embarrassment to me, but at least I got you off the hook. So you put me back on the hook.

You can count on me, said Turnbull. I will be there again and again.

In February Trump tweeted that reports that the conversation had been anything but civil were fake news.

He repeated the claim when Turnbull went to New York in May. In a joint media appearance, Turnbull agreed after Trump said: We had a good call. You guys exaggerated that call, that was a big exaggeration. We had a great call. I mean, were not babies, but we had a great call. That was a bit of fake news.

See the original post here:

'You are worse than I am': Trump told Turnbull he admired offshore detention - The Guardian

Are there over $4 trillion of untaxed corporate earnings offshore, as Donald Trump said?

President Donald Trump said U.S. companies have anywhere from $4 trillion to $5 trillion in offshore accounts a substantial increase from just last year.

Trump blamed the large sum of money on what he (inaccurately) considers the highest tax rate in the world in a July 25 Wall Street Journal interview obtained by Politico.

"Were the highest-taxed nation in the world, essentially, you know, of the size," Trump said. "But were the highest-taxed nation in the world. We have nobody knows what the number is. I mean, it used to be, when we talked during the debate, $2.5 trillion I guess its $5 trillion now. Whatever it is, its a lot more. So we have anywhere from 4 (trillion) to 5 or even more trillions of dollars sitting offshore."

Weve already rated Trumps previous claims that were the highest-taxed nation in the world False.

This time we took a look at the amount of U.S. money sitting in offshore accounts. How much untaxed foreign revenue is out there, and could the figure have doubled since Trump cited the $2.5 trillion figure during the 2016 campaign?

The White House did not provide information for this fact-check.

Well start off by saying there is no public estimate on untaxed earnings overseas, as there is no law requiring they be reported.

Researchers can instead look at the indefinitely reinvested earnings on financial statements of publicly traded companies.

Indefinitely invested earnings arent making their way back to the United States anytime soon, which lets them off the hook for taxes and thus fatten after-tax profits. They might go to overseas factories, prospective acquisitions or other investments. Other companies may instead take on a deferred liability, which entails a future tax bill -- but while currently untaxed, most go undisclosed, so they arent counted in the researchers figures.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation can provide a fuller picture, because the committee has access to total untaxed foreign earnings. However, that information is only turned over to members of Congress.

The last time the committee made its findings public was in an August 2016 memo to two congressmen. In 2012, the committee said, $2.3 trillion of foreign earnings went untaxed.

Using predictive models, they estimated the number at $2.6 trillion for 2015.

The committee cited Audit Analytics, a third-party research service, to corroborate these findings. Audit Analytics found $2.4 trillion in indefinitely reinvested earnings. There was a $200 billion difference between the JCTs estimate of untaxed foreign earnings and Audit Analytics calculation of indefinitely reinvested ones, which is what experts estimate the current discrepancy to be.

Audit Analytics ran its latest numbers for us. The company found $2.8 trillion of indefinitely reinvested earnings are sitting overseas, as of July 2017 far short of what Trump described.

"It is possible that analysts are still working on entering information from small companies, but it would not change the number from the rounded-off figure of 2.8 trillion," Audit Analytics research director Don Whalen said.

We also turned to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which found that Fortune 500 companies a slightly smaller pool report $2.6 trillion offshore.

ITEP included total untaxed earnings, not just indefinitely reinvested ones, in their studies of Apple and Pfizer, as these companies provide a disclosure allowing for a fuller estimate of their untaxed offshore income and generate a significant amount of earnings through this mechanism.

"There is no reason to believe that this figure is substantially higher than what companies report and certainly not double the reported amount as President Donald Trump has contended without citing any source," said Taxation and Economic Policy senior policy analyst Richard Phillips.

So what else could cause the discrepancy?

Edward Kleinbard, the Robert C. Packard Trustee Chair in Law at the USC's Gould School of Law, said that firms double down their offshore tax planning when they expect a tax holiday, which is when they get to bring back offshore earnings while paying little to no taxes on them.

"Its plausible that people have accelerated their gamesmanship in the anticipation that in tax reform there will be another tax holiday," Kleinbard said. "But its not plausible to think the number could be as high as the 2 trillion-dollar difference between the data and what the president said."

Another possibility is for Trump to have counted tax inversions, which is when a small foreign company in a lower taxed country acquires a larger U.S. company and thus reduces their taxes. But that would entail a change in the definition of untaxed revenue. And even if we were to make that calculation, Kleinbard said the number wouldnt expand by so much in such a short time span.

Our ruling

Trump described untaxed corporate earnings in overseas accounts as growing monumentally, from around $2.5 trillion to "anywhere from 4 (trillion) to 5 or even more trillions of dollars sitting offshore."

The highest reported number of offshore earnings is $2.8 trillion. That could be off by a couple hundred billion dollars due to undisclosed untaxed earnings. But experts agreed the discrepancy could not add up to Trumps $4 trillion or $5 trillion estimate.

Business optimism and altered definitions of untaxed revenue couldnt bridge that gap either.

We rate this statement False.

Share the Facts

2017-08-03 21:47:53 UTC

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False

Untaxed corporate earnings used to be "$2.5 trillion I guess its $5 trillion now. Whatever it is, its a lot more. So we have anywhere from 4 (trillion) to 5 or even more trillions of dollars sitting offshore."

Donald Trump

President of the United States

in an interview

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

2017-07-25

Originally posted here:

Are there over $4 trillion of untaxed corporate earnings offshore, as Donald Trump said? - PolitiFact

By David Wethe on 8/3/2017

HOUSTON (Bloomberg) -- The magic of $50 oil is now in the sights of deep-sea drillers as they try to lure customer spending from shale wells on land.

And after more than three years of pain, that prospect has some investors excited. Transocean Ltd. rose the most in more than eight months after the worlds biggest provider of offshore rigs predicted explorers could soon shift their spending from land to sea as crude futures inch closer to the key level. Shares of other deepwater service providers like Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. and Noble Corp Plc also surged on the heels of Transoceans rally.

"Break-even costs in multiple deep-water basins around the world are consistently coming in below $50 and are now often around, if not below, $40," CEO Jeremy Thigpen told analysts and investors Thursday on a conference call. "Deepwater break-evens are starting to compare favorably with onshore, which by the way is now experiencing some fairly significant price inflation across most products and services."

The global oil downturn hit offshore drillers with the double whammy of a drop in customer demand for their services and a glut of new rigs rolling out of shipyards. More than three quarters of Transoceans sales have been carved away since hitting a peak of $3.3 billion at the end of 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A little more than half of the oil industrys 817 offshore rigs were working in the second quarter, down from the 92% utilization rate for global rigs in 2008, Jud Bailey, an analyst at Wells Fargo, wrote last month in a note to investors.

New contracts

The Vernier, Switzerland-based owner of deepwater rigs said its signed a dozen new drilling contracts or extensions to pacts so far this year, adding $221 million in future work. The entire offshore industry has announced almost as much new work this year as it had in the past two years combined, Terry Bonno, the companys senior vice president of industry and community relations, said on the call.

"It is beginning to feel a lot like we are moving off bottom," she said. Explorers are expected to sanction more deepwater projects next year if oil holds above "the magic $50-level," Bonno said. But if oil falls below that mark, those projects could be re-evaluated and delayed.

Transocean rose 7.7% to $9.30 at 1:38 p.m. in New York, after earlier climbing as much as 11% for the biggest intraday rise since Nov. 30. Transoceans comments were enough to boost shares for its six closest offshore peers, which all climbed at least 5% on Thursday.

While the development costs for deepwater projects have fallen below $50 in many cases, the time to bring offshore projects to production is still several years, compared to a matter of months for shale work, J. David Anderson, an analyst at Barclays, said Thursday in a phone interview.

"Shale wins in every race," Anderson said. "As oil starts to move up above $50, shale will come on much faster."

Longer-term

But shale wells can fade in a matter of months, too, while offshore wells can gush oil for decades after theyve been developed. Average hydraulic fracturing prices for onshore work are up 50% to 100% from the lowest point in the downturn, Brad Handler, an analyst at Jefferies, wrote last month in a note to investors.

About an hour after Transoceans comments on the $50 oil outlook for offshore, land-rigs provider Nabors Industries Ltd. said prices in the high-$40s mark works for many explorers in the U.S. The worlds biggest land driller forecast that the industry would add another 30 to 40 rigs by now and the end of the year in the lower-48 U.S. states.

To be sure, Thigpen conceded hes not ready to declare victory yet.

"Were not saying this is a start of a great upturn thats going to last three to four years," he said. "What were saying is today looks better than yesterday."

Read this article:

$50 oil "magic" boosts offshore drillers' hopes of competing with shale - WorldOil (subscription)

The OPTS is based on a lifting platform rather than a motion compensated gangway and uses a platform basket that is fully compensated

Despite the downturn in the oil and gas sector, the market for offshore access systems or walk-to-work motion compensated gangways shows no signs of slowing down, with new technology and new concepts being brought to market

Rarely a month has gone by in the last couple of years without a manufacturer unveiling a new offshore access system or bringing an enhanced version of existing equipment to the offshore oil and gas and offshore wind markets.

That trend continued into Q3 2017, when a newly formed Dutch company, Lift2Work, confirmed that is building the first six examples of a new type of unit, the offshore personnel transfer system or OPTS, and Barge Master and Bosch Rexroth installed another new walk-to-work system on Vroon Offshores vessel VOS Start. Another well known manufacturer, Uptime in Norway, unveiled a new, larger motion compensated gangway not long after Ampelmann mobilised its first N-type Icemann access system.

Rotterdam-based Lift2Work will build, service, sell and rent the OPTS, which it describes as an innovative way to transfer people and/or tools and equipment offshore.

Unlike the other walk-to-work systems highlighted above, the OPTS is not a gangway but is fully motion compensated. It was designed to provide access to offshore oil and gas platforms, offshore wind structures and other vessels and structures. It has the ability to move freely through 360 degrees and has a reach of 24 m horizontally and more than 20 m vertically above deck level. It can also drop to 6 m below the level of the deck, for example, for rescue purposes.

Originally developed by Offshore Cooperation (OFFCO) in the Netherlands, it is based on a lifting platform rather than a conventional walk-to-work motion compensated gangway. It uses a platform basket that is fully compensated and controlled by an operator.

With an arm length of 10 m and a basic footprint of 2,440 mm x 2,440 mm, it was also designed to be easy to integrate onto a deck. Installation is very easy, said the company. The OPTS weighs approximately 15 tonnes and is easy to transport in an ISO container. It is easy to operate after introductory training and provides accurate and stable lifting of loads. The company says it can transfer up to six people at an outreach of 18 m or four people at a 24 m outreach.

As highlighted above, another new motion compensated gangway has been developed by Barge Master and Bosch Rexroth. It has been installed on Vroons offshore support vesselVOS Startand will be used to transport personnel and cargo to offshore windfarms but is equally suited to applications in the offshore oil and gas sector.

The Netherlands-based companies worked closely to create the motion compensated gangway. Launching the gangway on 21 June at Boxtel, the Netherlands, Barge Master chief executive Martijn Koppert explained that the gangway will be mounted on a pedestal that holds an integrated elevator, used to transport both people and pallet trolleys from ship deck and levels below to the level of the gangway. It can be literally any height, he said.

Bosch Rexroth sales manager offshore projects Boy Biermans described the gangways telescopic sections, which allow its length to be adjusted to the situation offshore by an electric winch system. This next-generation gangway is equipped with extremely fast sensors and control technology, he said. Because of this, the system is able to compensate for wave heights of up to 3 m, resulting in an operating window that can be up to four times higher than other available systems in the market, making it truly unique.

Uptimes new, larger offshore access system, the Uptime 30 m active motion compensated gangway, has what the company says is a totally new design that the company believes will be a game changer in the offshore oil and gasandoffshore wind industries.

The walk-to-work system is being offered with several different setups: on a fixed pedestal, on an adjustable pedestal, with elevator tower amidships or in the centre of the vessel, as an add-on system on existing elevator towers and on a skid. This gives optimal, customised workability for different projects,said Uptime.The gangway will be operated from the wheelhouse wing or from the gangway itself. Our Uptime 23.4 m will still be offered and may of course still be the best option for some projects and setups,the company concluded.

Ampelmann and Uptime International have both recently won contracts for their walk-to-work solutions in the offshore oil and gas and renewables markets. Ampelmann secured a contract in Venezuela that will spread the use of its gangway technology into the Caribbean. The Cardon IV group ordered an A-type system for its operations on the Perla fieldoff Venezuela. The walk-to-work system was deployed on Bumi Armadas 2010-built offshore support vesselArmada Tuah 85to provide access for the workforce to the Perla platform.

The A-type system is a full active motion compensated access gangway, designed to transfer personnel safely and efficiently to offshore structures. Cardon IV has chosen Ampelmann as its partner in this long-term project for the next two years, said Ampelmann business development manager for Latin America Andres Garcia.

Uptime International has won a contract from Cemre Marin to deliver one of its walk-to-work systems to a service operation vessel that is being built at the Cemre Shipyard in Turkey. The vessel is being built for French vessel owner Louis Dreyfus Armateurs for delivery in 2018. The vessel will provide service support for four offshore windfarms off the German coast. These are the Borkum Riffgrund 1 and 2 and Gode Wind 1 and 2 windfarms operated by Dong Energy.

The Uptime system will be an active motion compensated gangway and an adjustable pedestal integrated with an elevator tower. The vessel was designed by Salt Ship Design for personnel and cargo transfer to these offshore windfarms

Van Oords installation vesselAeolushas been fitted with a telescopic access bridge (TAB) by the Netherlands-based SMST. The TAB-M includes a flat rack and pedestal elevator system and will be used for work at the Walney Extension offshore windfarm in the UK.

After training by SMST,the Aeoluscrew completed the first connection on 24 June in significant wave heights of 1 m and wind speeds of 20 m/s. The Walney Extension project requires the transition pieces to be installed in DP2 mode so needs a compensated gangway. The telescopic pedestal will assist with the high tide differences, enabling height compensation of up to 6 m.

Walk-to-work offering owners better rates than subsea market

The subsea vessel market is showing signs of recovery, but a number of owners have long been securing work for subsea vessels above water, rather than below, by fitting them with walk-to-work systems.

Broker Fearnley Offshore Supply AS (FOSAS) said there has been significant subsea vessel activity above the surface and noted that active heave compensated gangways have had an important impact on the subsea vessel market as a whole.

In a July 2017 report, FOSAS said high-end subsea vessels such as Boa Sub C, Polar Queen, Normand Jarl, Normand Jarstein, Acergy Viking, Edda Fauna and Stril Server have been supporting topside work, either in the offshore wind market or in the offshore oil and gas segment.

The trend is almost, if quite without exception, that most operators are securing modern vessels, in part due to Special Purpose Ship regulations and requirements but also because vessel owners are attracted to walk-to-work campaigns because they typically offer longer charter periods and slightly better margins than the current subsea market, said FOSAS.

This trend has a positive impact on the supply overhang for this segment albeit a moderate one that, at best, is only part of a solution. For short-term and spot subsea scopes, however, the competition is fiercer and the income potential is lower while the vessel options are numerous. Rates reflect this.

Read more:

Lifting platform joins growing ranks of offshore access offerings - OSJ Magazine

ByWilliam H. Funk

Bay Journal

Scientists are worried that anexecutive orderissued by President Trump earlier this year that seeks to open large portions of the mid-Atlantic and other coastal areas to oil and gas exploration would harm the endangered North Atlantic right whale and other species that occasionally visit the Chesapeake Bay.

Trumps order, issued April 28, reverses a 2016 policy from theObama administrationthat closed federal waters off portions of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico to drilling as part of the administrations effort to boost domestic energy production. The order also instructed federal agencies to streamline the permitting process to speed approval of seismic testing to locate oil and gas reserves in those areas.

But the action is increasingly unpopular with many elected officials along the East Coast.

Hogan, Frosh opposed

In July, MarylandGov. Larry Hoganpublically stated his opposition to any further offshore exploration. And the attorneys general from nine East Coast jurisdictions including those from Maryland, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia and Delaware submitted comments opposing additional surveys.

The proposed seismic tests are themselves disruptive and harmful, MarylandAttorney General Brian Froshsaid in a statement. Worse, they are the precursors to offshore drilling that would put the Chesapeake Bay at risk to drilling-related contamination. That contamination would have catastrophic impacts on fragile ecosystems and important economies. This is a foolish gamble with our precious natural resources.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginiais the lone Southeastern governor supporting marine oil exploration, saying he never had a problem with seismic testing. While 127 municipalities have passed resolutions against the tests, only five are in Virginia.

But coastal Virginians unease with seismic tests appears to be growing. In July, thecity council of Norfolkpassed a unanimous resolution opposing both offshore drilling and seismic testing, citing threats to marine life, local fisheries and wetlands that offer vital protection from rising seas. The previous month, the city council of Virginia Beach also voted to oppose offshore drilling.

24/7 airguns

The seismic testing has raised particular concern because of its potential impact on marine life. The tests are conducted by firing seismic airguns from ships every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, at a noise level that would rupture a human eardrum, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group which was among10 organizationsthat filed suit May 3 over the executive order. Among the plaintiffs contentions is that seismic blasts could deafen and even kill whales, dolphins and other animals.

Cetaceans whales and their relatives use specialized echolocation for almost all of their activities, including hunting, migration, courtship and communication, but they are extremely sensitive to underwater sound vibrations, scientists say. Right whales, whose population is thought to number only around 500, could be at particular risk, they say.

As far as the impact goes, the chances of an animal being outright killed by seismic air gun arrays are slim, said Doug Nowacek, with the Duke Marine Lab, according to Coastal Review Online. The effects that we worry about mostly are producing sound in their environment, and thats the sensory mode they use.

To locate new sources of undersea oil, companies employ airguns to blast powerful acoustic waves formed of compressed air down and through the seafloor. Each seismic test can affect an area of more than 2,500 square nautical miles, raising background noise levels to 260 decibels, approximately equaling the epicenter of a grenade blast.

This can go on continuously for weeks or even months, according to a2013 reportreleased by theinternational bodycarrying out the United Nations-sponsored Convention on Biodiversity.

Not just whales affected, plankton too

Scientists say potential harm is not limited to large marine mammals. Zooplankton, tiny microscopic invertebrates that constitute the core of the marine food chain for everything from shrimp to baleen whales, could also be impacted.

In aJune 2017 studypublished in the journal Nature, a team of marine ecologists found that, experimental airgun signal exposure decreased zooplankton abundance when compared with controls, as measured by sonar and net tows, and caused a twoto threefold increase in dead adult and larval zooplankton.

The studys conclusion says that, There is a significant and unacknowledged potential for ocean ecosystem function and productivity to be negatively impacted by present seismic technology.

In May, 133 environmental and civic organizations sent a joint letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke asking him not to proceed with the Trump administrations plan to expand offshore oil drilling and related seismic testing, stating that offshore drilling brings unacceptable risks to our oceans, coastal residents, communities, existing economies, and our climate.

But Zinke followed up on the presidents executive order with an order of his own on May 11, setting the seismic testing in motion. Seismic surveying helps a variety of federal and state partners better understand our nations offshore areas, including locating offshore hazards, siting of wind turbines, as well as offshore energy development, Zinke said in a statement. Allowing this scientific pursuit enables us to safely identify and evaluate resources that belong to the American people.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has also proposed authorizing more than 90,000 miles of active seismic blasting which, based on the results of the Nature report, would constitute approximately 135,000 square miles, according to the Natural Resource Defense Council.

How it works

Reflection seismology, as the geophysical exploratory process is called, uses concussive compressed air to send a sudden shock of sound beneath the ocean surface. Oil deposits can be detected by a geological interpretation of what the bounced sounds, called reflections, reveal what lies beneath.

Reflections are gathered and collated by floating hydrophones, also called towed arrays or streamers, which emit 10 to 15-hertz echoes that bounce off the seafloor. Where geologically suitable, up to 20 or 30 kilometers of the oceans floor can be penetrated through this technique.

Oil companies look for two seafloor features to indicate the presence of oil: salt domes and seeps. Salt domes were created over eons when oceanic regions were repeatedly drowned and parched, to atmospheric events such as glaciation. This periodic give and take of oceanic deposits squeezes buoyant sea salt to the top of the sedimentary layer, trapping oil and gas underneath, which leaves a unique shape and composition detectable to seismic exploration.

Seeps occur when oil and gas escape from the seabed and cloudily rise through the water column toward the ocean surface, making them verifiable through onsite seafloor analysis.

Deafening array of underwater sounds

Maria Morell is with the zoology department of the University of British Columbia, and specializes in marine mammal acoustics. When a mammal is exposed to an audible sound of high intensity and long duration, she said, the sensory cells of the inner ear can suffer mechanical and metabolical fatigue, followed by a cascade of alterations that can lead to temporary or permanent hearing loss.

Testing for oil, she said, adds another stressful seismic factor to a deafening environment that the Atlantics marine mammals must confront every day, including maritime transport, offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation, industrial and military sonar, military and civilian engineering activities, supersonic aircraft noise, the construction and operation of sea-based wind farms, and acoustic deterrent and harassment devices.

Ingrid Biedron, a marine biologist with the conservation group Oceana, said that Trumps call for offshore drilling may be difficult to enact under federal law. Current proposals conflict with the Marine Mammal Protection Act, she said. They also conflict with the Endangered Species Act because several endangered whale species use the area proposed for seismic airgun blasting.

Citing a federal study, she said that, If seismic airgun surveys are approved in the Atlantic, by the governments own numbers, up to 138,000 whales and dolphins could be harmed and up to 13 million disturbed.

Potential harm to marine species from seismic testing isnt limited to cetaceans. Jessica Coakley, a fishery management specialist with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, said that these impacts stretch from the recent stranding of giant squid off Spain in areas adjacent to seismic testing to sensitive habitats such as deep-sea corals.

Ocean noise roadmap

The recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationsOcean Noise Roadmaprecognizes that sound is a fundamental component of the physical and biological habitat that many aquatic animals and ecosystems have evolved to rely on over millions of years.

In addition, Coakley said, the University of Rhode Island, in partnership with NOAA, has created a website called sound in the sea, through which visitors can click to hear what seismic airguns actually sound like when heard several thousand kilometers away underwater.

The speed of sound underwater is five times faster than sounds traveling through air, so marine creatures perceive sound coming from much farther distances than their terrestrial counterparts.

For animals that rely on sound as much as we do on sight, its not difficult to imagine the grinding anxiety of being subjected to a constant bombardment of sensory deprivation caused by seismic activities, including oil exploration. Marine mammals already facing an uphill struggle for survival could face yet another industrial challenge.

Scientists are especially worried about the North Atlantic right whale, Beidron said, Increased noise from seismic blasting could be one of the factors that further tips this species toward extinction.

Last spring, 28 top marine mammal scientists specializing in right whales signed a statement declaring unequivocally that for this species, among the most endangered whales on the planet, and already facing a desperate level of endangerment, widespread seismic surveys may well represent a tipping point, contributing significantly to a decline towards extinction.

wfunk@bayjournal.com

Bay Journal is published byBay Journal Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to inform the public about issues that affect the Chesapeake Bay. A print editionis published monthly and is distributed free of charge. News, features and commentary are available free online atbayjournal.com.MarylandReporter.comis partnering with the Bay Journal by publishing one of its articles every Friday.

See original here:

Opposition grows to seismic testing for offshore oil amid concerns ... - MarylandReporter.com