Brock Yordy: 

Good morning. Welcome to The Driller Newscast, a weekly update on the news and stories impacting the construction, drilling, water, and geothermal industry. I'm your host, Brock Yordy. 

We're going back to school, everybody. We're going to talk about some water rights bills that are being passed, the USDA Farm Bill, of course, the Chevron Deference is still coming up, and other government agencies that are under attack. Our feature this week will be the Farm Bill in the Inflation Reduction Act and what its future looks like. But before we get into all this great news, let's go back to school on some safety.

For this week in safety, we’ve got a lot of future drillers, pump setters, hydrogeologists, engineers, and scientists, along with all the rest of the professionals in the world going back to school. That's right. We got a lot of little people from age five to all the way up to 18 starting school this week, and I think it's time we go back, we take some time to reflect on all of our heavy equipment movements and what it's been like. We've had a nice productive summer, and it's still going, but we got a lot of distracted people on the roads, and as we operate these big trucks, drill rigs, and pump hoists, we know they're not easy to stop, and it's dang hard to see everything that's going on, from small vehicles to small people.

According to SafeKids.org, last year, 40 children were hit by vehicles every day in the US while walking, resulting in more than 15,000 injuries annually. We need to be aware of our school zones. We need to understand that school zones can extend 1 to 2 blocks beyond school property and may have constricted lanes and lots of distracted people walking nearby.

This means drill crews, pump crews, geothermal drilling companies, and industrial drillers. As we make our way through these areas, we need to plan a route. We need to plan ahead and anticipate this new heavy traffic and potential hazards. 

We need to remember that we're in a hurry, trying to rush right into that long four-day weekend we have coming up with Labor Day, but we need to think about maintaining our distance, keeping enough space between us and our truck and other vehicles so that we can react to those accidents, to those distracted people, and to those new cross-walkers in training. Also, I can't instill this enough right now. Owners, and supervisors, we need to think about those distractions, and we need to stay focused with hands-free technology and understand where it's just appropriate to leave it down and wait until we get stopped. 

On top of that, we need to be watching our speed and understanding those posted speeds, and the reason why we do that is because that is the leading cause of these traffic fatalities, injuries, and just all-around mishaps. While driving in school zones and neighborhoods, we need to take extra care. Think about our parents and children doing the unexpected. Sudden stops, double parked cars, children and parents entering the street without crosswalks, and sometimes in crosswalks, clearly distracted as they're excited to get back to school. Parents are excited to get their full day back. 

I just read a statistic that there are over 50 million violations in school zones and around school buses a day during a school year. It's amazing to think about. We need to have that area. 10 feet around a school bus should be recognized as the most dangerous. 

We think of a job site and our danger areas. This is our danger area because we have children who are excited to get back on and off the bus. We need to stay far enough back to give them space to enter and exit the bus. It is illegal in all 50 states to pass school buses that have stopped to load and unload children. 

If the yellow or red lights are flashing and the stop arm is extended, traffic must stop. Never pass a bus from behind or on either side of an undivided road when it is stopped to load or unload children. I want you to think about your little ones getting back to school. I want you to think about your grandchildren. I want you to think about your friends and your community. It is very important for us to think about in these first few weeks—and into the fall—how we're going to be treating our projects that we're commuting to, our big equipment, and remember we're trying to recruit in this industry right now. So that service truck, that drill rig, that company placard pickup truck. It is an ambassador to the next generation, and that's not so good when we're causing accidents. Go out, be safe.

This week in the news, let's jump back to the end of July when the subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries held a legislative hearing on 12 bills related to tribal water rights and settlements. These bills will secure water rights for the Tule River tribe, the Blackfeet tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe, San Juan, the southern Paiute tribe, the Apache tribe, and the Crow tribe.

The House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman issued the following statement at the end of July's hearing. “Today's hearing was an important chance for us to discuss Indian water rights settlements across the West and work towards peaceful negotiations rather than unnecessary litigation. I'd like to thank the numerous witnesses for their insightful testimony today and my colleagues for their hard work on the legislation we discussed.”

 If we look at this, we have seen Supreme Court discussions of the Navajo Nation versus the State of Arizona and the United States. We've seen the Hopi, we've seen so many tribal nations coming together because those water agreements we made supersede states, they are sovereign tribal nations. So, to start with this discussion of unnecessary litigation, if we go to the end of June, we saw tribal nations taking up a case against 12 states for clean water quality and rights.

We've just seen the state of Arizona release $5 billion for three tribes to use water out of the upper and lower Colorado basins, which very much comes from the Navajo nation versus the United States in Arizona. So, Chairman Westerman of Arkansas, I think it's important that we remind the audience that earlier in July, you and James Comer of Kentucky sent letters after the Chevron deference decision that stated, “The expansive administrative state Chevron deference encouraged has undermined our system of government, overburdening our citizenry and threatening to overwhelm the founders’ system of checks and balances. Thankfully, the Court in Loper Bright has now corrected its Chevron error, reaffirming that “‘[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’” 603 U.S. at ___ (slip op. at 7-8) (quoting Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803)). This long-needed reversal should stem the vast tide of federal agencies’ overreach which was given by the Biden administration's track record.” It drives me insane to think about this, and it starts with the implications of the Loper Bright and the limitations that it set of authority. Loper Bright, as we learned from Jesse Richardson, was very much about oversight for overfishing.

Obviously, it came from lower courts, and the idea—the same as the other 7000 times the Chevron doctrine was utilized in court cases or the 18,000 times it has been cited over the last 40 years—was because oversight was necessary. So, this is where we are, and as we talk about these water rights settlements versus litigation, the limitation of our executive branch agencies to be able to make decisions, obviously, it comes back to Congress and law. If it's unambiguous it has to have some interpretations, but the Supreme Court does not have all the bandwidth to hear all of these discussions. And I think it's very significant that we can't react fast enough to climate impacts. This is the reason we keep coming back to the Chevron deference is the ability of federal agencies to enforce regulations. Especially ones that focus on air quality, water quality, and protecting Mother Nature.

This is very important, not to mention protecting people. This includes all of those other agencies, from the FDA to OSHA to banks and securities. So, of course, we've hit this point of Congress wanting to speed through agreements or acts because, with a Chevron deference, the door is now open for legal challenges to any regulation that is not soundly defined.

Sadly, Congress is not full of scientists, engineers, geologists, hydrogeologists, climate scientists, or even environmental legal scholars. There can be a few. We elect people who are good at getting things done and rely on experts in the room to be the voice of reason. But let's consider all those in power who create narratives with wrong motives.

How do we defend rules that protect the environment when those with the most money can create those [unintelligible] to argue fact versus fiction? As I said, 7000 cases utilized the Chevron doctrine. We're eliminating the ability of these government agencies to do what they need to do by creating this narrative of an overreaching agency façade.

I want you to think of it this way: the water we drink, the air we breathe, that airplane we fly into conferences and into job sites, and the trains traveling through those communities. What's inside them? The rules established for highway protection and safety, the rules for banks and retirement accounts, job safety rules to keep our people safe, and the quality of the medical professional that you and your family engage with, or the care you receive—These are all up for discussion. 

So, it's fantastic that the House Committee of Natural Resources found time to create so many new Water Rights Settlement Acts in 2024—12 in total. However, as you can see, most of our water rights and compacts are over 100 years old. 

Even as we look back 18 to 20 years, we didn't see a water rights shortage. I just saw a TikTok of Idaho farmers saying, “We have the most water we've ever had. Let us use it, or we'll just take it.” I want you to think about extreme weather and droughts and the significant events impacting groundwater and waters of the United States and reservoirs. Again, the Navajo nation one year ago lost to Arizona and the United States over discussions on the amount of water they were allotted.

In last week’s Newscast, Episode 121, we sat down with Jesse Richardson and talked about Texas vs. New Mexico, and that was only 66,000 acre-feet that was allotted to Texas. So sovereign nations, tribes—you got what you deserved. Is it a reaction to what could be? I absolutely believe so. So, good job, House Committee. 

Now, how about that Farm Bill? It's been since 2018. So that we're playing fair, on March 11th, 2024, the Biden administration signed into another $460 billion appropriation which will continue to fund the Farm Bill until the 30th of December. The clock is ticking, the USDA and five other federal departments depend on this bill for funding, and we've had four failed attempts this year. 

In early June, the House Appropriations Committee released a proposed funding bill for 2025 in their agriculture appropriations bill, which determined how much funding the USDA should get. And it was cut by 3.6% from 2024. Point of entry protection to private wells for PFAS or other contaminants for rural water, for rural electricity co-ops. There is plenty in the Farm Bill, and that leads precisely into what I want to talk about in our feature this week, which is, the next 10 years of the Farm Bill in the Inflation Reduction Act, and what does that future look like?

For this week's feature, let's go back to school. We need to start talking about the importance of the USDA Farm Bill, its future, and the Inflation Reduction Act's future. They both have big implications for the drilling industry. The Farm Bill is bipartisan. It has funding for farmers, farm loans, conservation programs that fund farmers, and ranchers to improve water programs, reduce soil erosion, and disaster assistance. This allows rehabilitation of farmland and ranchland after natural disasters, which currently fall with failing infrastructure and dams after excessive raids. 

As we look at what's important in our country, this Farm Bill is estimated at $1.5 trillion over 10 years. If we go back to school and learn something here, that's only 2% of our federal spending beyond just our industry drilling irrigation wells.

The Farm Bill has water source protection programs. Think about that: phosphates and nitrates in our water. The Driller Newscast episode 118 talked about the impact of ephemeral streams on drinking water quality, reservoirs, and eventually groundwater. This directly goes back into source protection programs. The Farm Bill has emergency community water assistance grant programs, which were proposed to increase from 35 million to 50 million in 2019. That was only until 2023. 

We've talked about this point many times on the newscast. The USDA Farm Bill has grant funding for point-of-entry protection, not only for rural areas for lead removal but also for point-of-entry for areas that are affected by PFAS contamination. The Farm Bill is directly connected to groundwater and water well drilling as a whole, and from its extension to its deadline, which is now September 30th, 2024, we've been in this limbo, this stall, and a big push for the Farm Bill is its split between the elimination of Snap funding. Let's go back to school again. The history of the Farm Bill has been to cover agriculture and nutrition policy. That's what the United States Department of Agriculture is about. In the seventies, the food stamp program, which is now called Snap, was incorporated to help create bipartisanship in rural and urban communities for the funding of the Farm Bill.

We have urban farms, rural farms with point-of-entry protection for urban impacted areas, and point-of-entry protection for those 14 million private water wells that are out there if they need it. Today, to push the unity further, the Farm Bill considers greenhouse gas emissions and their reduction and has built-in incentives to create more unity.

However, the big debate has come from the Inflation Reduction Act, which issued nearly 11 billion for electrification infrastructure in rural America for the USDA to distribute. Again, as we put the executive branch agencies, these overreaching agenciesm under a magnifying glass and decide that we should just smash the heck out of them with a sledgehammer, they're the ones qualifying and helping distribute these funds. 

So here we are, the second week of August, steamrolling fast through September 30th through October right into November 5th, with the largest Farm Bill to date yet to be agreed on. As we're having our discussions, the National Groundwater Association’s Smart Groundwater Policies fly-in has had a piece for advocation for the Farm Bill every time they go to Capitol Hill.

It's because the Farm Bill is for protecting groundwater and for good groundwater policies. And it is very important to us. Now, onto the Inflation Reduction Act and its future, because let's face it, here we are talking about it again. In Episode 114 of The Driller Newscast, we discussed the Inflation Reduction Act. And I said Congress is gonna be razor thin, and we need to consider that there are plenty of policies there for the IRA that are positive, from biofuels for farmers in Iowa and the mid-con to rural electrification. There are so many pieces that we need for our infrastructure. But as we've watched the weeks turn, there are definitely pieces that are now up for being cut that directly impact the drilling industry. So, let's go back to school on the IRA. The goal of the IRA is to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 33% by 2030.

That is from the 2005 levels. If we hit that, there will be a $5 trillion global economic benefit by 2050. The IRA had goals of lowering electricity rates by 9% and gas prices by 13% by 2030, which will save Americans tens of billions of dollars. The IRA has tax benefits of 30% for upgrading homes and buildings, which comes back to installing ground-source geothermal.

Looking at all the great technologies that are going to help us with that electrical grid issue. This Friday is August 16th. It marks two years since the Inflation Reduction Act was signed. Ironically, February 2nd, 2023, was the first time Congress put up a bill titled ‘Repeal the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.’ This was H.R.812. 

In the morning, at the same time as Punxsutawney Phil determined if we had six more weeks of winter, the House was determining if we had 600 more years of life on this planet. I want you to think about the importance of the IRA. Since then, there have been 41 additional times the repeal of the IRA has been taken up. That's right. 23 votes on the house floor, 19 votes in committees and subcommittees. 

Drillers, even at one point in February 2023, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on environment, manufacturing, and critical minerals had an 11-to-6-fold discussion of eliminating this bill. That's right. I want you to think back to a year and a half ago as we talked about these pieces. We had strategic plans for independence from foreign mind materials.

We enable the Defense Production Act to streamline rare earth mineral exploration and production. The Inflation Reduction Act, along with the Farm Bill and the Federal Infrastructure Law, have influenced our ability to grow our businesses and provide families with self-sustaining wages. 

This isn't about who's sitting in the Oval Office. This is about our representation in Congress, which is empowered right now to make the laws to protect air quality and water quality and ensure that we continue down this path of becoming net zero. So again, it is important in November that we support individuals in the House and Senate who are smart and capable of being environmental stewards and drilling industry advocates for the right types of drilling. It's going to be razor-thin. We don't know who will have majority, but what we do know is we can empower both sides of the aisle.

The next discussion you have in the coffee shop or, bigger, on a state level with one of your representatives, or at a federal level with one of your local representatives, ask that steward, what are you going to do with the Farm Bill, and how do you support the Inflation Reduction Act? 

This isn't about taking cheeseburgers and barbecue grills and big diesel trucks off the road. This is about air quality, water quality, and empowering our executive branch agencies who are empowered by the commander in chief and the cabinet. How they are able to work, from overfishing to ensuring that that individual that comes in to check your heart is qualified to make sure that it's safe. 

We have a lot to think about here. We cannot afford to go backward with the Inflation Reduction Act, and we cannot afford to see larger cuts to the Farm Bill. These are things we need to be thinking about, and that's why I'm saying, as our young people are going back to school, we need to be getting back to school, understanding who represents us appropriately, and what we want to see Congress get done. Because of course, laws to protect groundwater, to protect states' rights to groundwater, to protect sovereign tribal nations' rights to their water and their water quality is the way it should be, and that's gonna take the right individuals on both sides of the aisle to do it. Make sure you're votes heard.

There is so much great news coming out right now. Jump on thedriller.com. J.J. Smith is in DC in meetings on PFAS, water reuse, Geothermal, the Inflation Reduction Act, what's happening with the EPA, and what's happening with OSHA. Our Driller writing staff is kicking butt, grabbing every story that's coming out. 

We want to hear from you. We have more future drillers to come. We have more emerging drillers. We have lots of great content. Check out thedriller.com, go to our social media pages, like and subscribe, and like always; you're empowered to have your voice heard through an article, an interview all the way to, “Hey, I called up my representative, and I had a discussion. We did a letter-writing campaign. The Groundwater Association came together and we helped incite change for our drilling industry.” 

We’re less than 1.5% of the entire United States working population, but there's nothing more important than bringing water out of the ground and protecting Mother Nature. Thanks, everybody.