Brock Yordy:

Good morning and welcome to episode 141 of The Driller Newscast, the industry's update on news and stories and policies impacting the drilling and construction industry. I'm your host, Brock Yordy, and this week in the news, let's talk about the new executive order for unleashing America's energy and how the opportunities for drilling and construction are changing. This week's feature, as promised, outlines water resources available and our withdrawals over the last 25 years and how that impacts civilization. I want you to consider how water drives agriculture, industry, humans' livelihood. But before we jump into all of these great news and features, let's talk about safety and your responsibility as a company regardless of the rules being enforced or not enforced by OSHA. Let's jump into it.

Alright, industry, we're talking a lot about executive branches and overreach of power or rules that don't make sense, and as a safety professional and a drilling professional and a construction professional, safety is a responsibility of everybody on site. Safety is a responsibility of you and your company. So let's talk about the span of control and employer responsibilities for safety.

Companies play a critical role in workplace injury, safety, litigation, especially when it comes to employees from other contracting companies onsite and what happens when they get injured. We have shifted as a family business that does a lot of residential and agricultural, one-contractor, one-customer simple deals. However, today with regulatory agencies coming on site, supply houses coming on site to large geothermal or municipal water projects, we have lots of players — electricians, plumbers, engineers — and you need to understand your role and responsibility in everybody's safety. So your safety culture, your safety program, spans beyond you and your people to the other people on site. You need to understand the span of control, and I know what you're thinking: “Brock, getting away from these dang executive branch agencies having too much power, these heat rules, these noise rules, these dust rules.” At the end of the day when you're driving down the highway and you see that guy holding the hammer on the billboard that says, “I'll get you paid for your injury,” they don't care about OSHA or span of control. They care about your responsibility for maintaining a safe and responsible jobsite.

So, who's your safety manager? It's time to step up. It's time to make sure you have those standard operating procedures, those job safety analyses. Way too many times I'm seeing things online of, “Look at this injury,” or “Look at what's happened,” and really if we dug deep, was it reported appropriately? Was a workman's comp involved? “It's family business, Brock, we can't afford those types of things.” You're absolutely right. He definitely can't afford them when they're not within the business. Your safety managers are there to ensure safety conditions are onsite that can withstand legal scrutiny. Injured employees from other companies can sue the host employer for unsafe conditions, requiring the safety program to show the documentation and that it was thoroughly examined because that's what's going to happen when it goes to court. It's going to be thoroughly examined. Key elements in litigation include proving the employer's duty of care, breach of that duty resulting in injury and causation. 

So we've talked plenty about this. Unsafe acts, unsafe conditions. Pop quiz: what's the one that gets us the most? 80% of all injuries on jobsites are unsafe acts, choices made by employees. So now we have our standard operating procedures, we have our job safety analysis. We have another contractor on site and they make a mistake. Did we have the safety expectations in place? Did we ask for their safety records? Did we ask for their standard operating procedures? Because that is what's going to be needed when we go to court.

Effective safety practices such as site audits, job hazard analysis, and adherence to industry standards are essential for defending against lawsuits. I want you to think about this as we see the new heat rule be eliminated. I want you to think about suspended loads. I want you to think about how often we jump from OSHA's General Industry standards to Construction 1926. It's an awful situation when somebody gets hurt or even worse, but that's why we have standards in place. That's why we have time-weighted values for exposure. That's why we have expectations for trenches. It's why we have fall protection. It's to keep us in the know and to respect those hazardous conditions. I want you to think about, not what the fine is from OSHA; I want you to think about the causation, the criminal fight, and what that will do to your company's business. Go out and be safe. 

For this week of the news, the executive branch agencies are changing, some for the positive, some for the negative. Let's recap what is changing in our industry and that starts with the executive order for unleashing America's energy. We know it's going to improve opportunities for drilling and mining projects across the United States by swiftly getting projects up and running. We hear the terminology, “drill, baby drill,” more drilling jobs are coming, but I'm going to challenge you right now. Your drilling business, is it rooted in mining? Is it rooted in oil and gas? As we see these executive orders come out, I'd like to see us get the USDA farm bill back out there and get our rural projects and our water projects funded, especially as we've seen full pause on federal infrastructure law funding.

So let's take a look at this executive order for unleashing America's energy. The executive order will halt these initiatives, which impact construction and drilling projects. Though we discuss opening up mineral opportunities and oil and gas opportunities, geothermal, solar and wind now are under contest, with geothermal being very favorable to unleashing our energy; we need the subsurface for heating and cooling and energy production. But let's go ahead and take a look at what we had expected in 2025 and 2026 to progress plenty of drilling jobs. I want you to jump to section four, which is the revoking of revisions to certain presidential and regulatory actions.

The following are revoked and any office established therein are abolished.

1) Protecting public health and the environment and restoring science to tackle the climate crisis. 

2) Revoking of certain executive orders concerning federal regulation — that's EPA, OSHA, USDA. 

3) Tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad. We're going to fix the United States first. 

4) This abolished the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. President Trump as number 45 utilized the PCAST for AI, for exploration into space, for planting trees. We have always had the availability of a President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. It's the president's council. 

5) Revoking building and enhancing programs to resettle refugees and planning for the impact of climate change on migration. 

6) Revoking the establishment of climate change support offices.

7) Revoking climate-related financial risk.

8) Revoking strengthening American leadership in clean cars and trucks. This was our voice into the CARB discussions. This was our voice into clean engines. Sure, we need to figure out DEF, but changing programs like this isn't the way we do it. 

9) Revoking catalyzing clean energy industries and jobs through federal sustainability. 

10) Revoking strengthening the nation's forests, communities and local economies. Again, Trump's PCAST committed at the end of 2020 to planting trees. 

11) Revoking implementation of the energy and infrastructure provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. 

12) Revoking revitalizing our nation's commitment to environmental justice for all. As we have reported, as we have seen reported throughout the country, we have serious air quality, water quality contamination issues in underserved communities. This isn't just migrant populations or illegals or people that can't find better places to live. This is where we've decided to put major industry on top of homes and families that can't afford to move out of there. 

13) All activities and programs and operations associated with American Climate Corps, including actions taken by any agency shall be terminated immediately. It goes on to say about the American Climate Corps and the rest of these: within one day of the date of the executive order, unleashing American energies, the Secretary of the Interior shall submit a letter to all parties with a memorandum of understanding dated 2023 to terminate the memorandum, and the head of each party will agree to the termination in writing. The final piece of this states that any asset funds or resources allocated to the entity or program abolished by the subsection of this section shall be redirected or disposed of in accordance with applicable law. 

In 2025, we were supposed to increase 820,000 jobs due to the Inflation Reduction Act and the Federal Infrastructure Law. Regardless of thoughts and opinions on the former administration, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Federal Infrastructure Law, as we see one out of four roads and bridges and community infrastructures are beyond disrepair, this was bipartisan and it had many strong pieces to our future as a civilization and to how we treat Mother Earth. We are 25 years away from hitting our 2050 goals to prevent us breaking beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius to two degrees Celsius. I want you to consider that the $1.85 trillion for the Build Back Better act was significant as it had an investment in more jobs in construction. That's workforce development dollars. That's figuring out how we inspire a new generation to be builders.

A lot of these funds will still be pushed out to the appropriate places and we will continue to build, but it's safe to say there's a strong funnel of projects that are not going to get funded, and we had $39 billion to modernize public transit. So, I taught the pilot tutorial in Boston with HEET and IGSHPA. Many of the young individuals were looking for public transportation to make it to their construction jobs. Why? Not because it's too expensive to have a car. It's too expensive to park and travel in big cities. This was the largest federal investment in public transportation in 50 years. There are $7.5 billion in funds to support the construction of electrical vehicle charging infrastructure plus new research for new renewable energy technologies, focusing on geothermal, solar and wind.

We had plans, and this started in fall of 2020, that if we could stay focused on what could happen, as President Trump had worked towards what an infrastructure bill would look like, that by the fourth quarter of 2025 there would've been an additional 872,000 jobs. We need to be paying attention to this. This investment had $50 billion to protect against droughts, extreme heat, floods, wildfires, and major investment in weatherization and technology. I want you to go to the presidential library to read President Trump's diary October 1st, 2020 as we talk about the floods that hit Wall Street and the excessive amount of rain that came through and his discussion on how climate change and extreme weather would continue.

We have the knowledge, we have the agreement. We need to do a better job focusing. Next week, I want to jump into the discussion on oil and gas and mining within this for the positive, but again, Yordy & Son Well Drilling, we drilled water wells, we just started drilling geothermal wells in the late nineties, early two thousands. Oil and gas is not how my father started his business. It's not what drove our family's legacy. It's not what we walked through the national convention looking at. We need to get with our local, state and federal government and advocate for clean water and geothermal and the drilling that is part of our family businesses. 

In this week's feature, let's talk about water consumption and use not only in the United States but around the world. We started this discussion last week in episode 140 and it came from the United States Geological Survey releasing a comprehensive report on water use across the United States and that water use was from 2010 to 2020.

The study focused on three primary categories: public supply, crop irrigation and thermal electric power, which account for 90% of the water withdrawals in the nation. I want to recap these key findings. Total withdrawals, an estimated average of 244,817,000 gallons a day are withdrawn, with crop irrigation accounting for 43%, thermal electric power at 42.5% and public supply at 14.5%. This is a big deal as we look at crop irrigation being 105,497,000 gallons a day, and irrigation, as we do this average, I want you to consider climate change, how droughts have shifted precipitation. This is all changing and impacting what that consumption is. The United States, we have vast stocks of groundwater as we just talk about finding and defining another 3 trillion gallons in the Cascades.

Thermoelectric power production is our next biggie and this is why geothermal, solar and wind are so important to us. It's because withdrawal averages are 82,656,000 gallons of fresh water a day. That doesn't count for brackish and saline. We have to think about how AI is impacting that amount of consumption. We have to start thinking about all of the industries, all of the water consumption, as we continue to progress our drilling operations. As we look at plutonium and lithium mining, we need water to remove those, and this is a big deal because, as we saw with 14.5%, public supply water in densely populated areas, including the northeast, used the most — which is wild as we think of the Western United States and how we continue to ask California, but those densely populated cities, as we move east, we see these massive reservoirs and we need to think about it. The study that also notes the importance of groundwater, especially for the Western US and how it will continue to play a major role in inter-basin transfers in managing water, as in how we release it, how we allocate it. Go to the USGS, take a look at the detailed information at their website and access the full report.

I want you to consider that water stress is measured by comparing the amount of water withdrawn to the amount of water available. Average groundwater use per person will increase from now to 2050, especially in large parts of the Middle East and South Asia as well as Beijing and Mexico City, who all require groundwater because they use it as their primary source, but we've seen especially in Mexico City and Beijing, the over-exploitation of utilization, the pollution is what we consider fossilized water and it doesn't replace in just a couple years. In many parts of the world, populations already face water insecurity, which is defined as availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and production.

We've seen this for the last couple of years, since 2020, each year at least 4 billion people, nearly half in China and India, experience severe water scarcity for at least one month of the year. Nearly 500 million people are exposed to water scarcity all year long. As of right now, about 2.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water or reliable water service. We need to consider the urgent need for awareness of critical issues on water. The World Bank just came out and estimated that demand for food will rise by 50% by 2030, and I want you to think about our breakdown in the United States and that hundred million gallons a day that is allocated for agriculture, for food.

50% is what we're looking at for an increase in food requirements by 2030. This is because of our world population growth and the expansion of bigger cities. More need. And the haves and the have-nots. So, that consumption goes up with the more money that is made. The more somebody is well-off, the more apt they are to use water. Western world dietary preferences require more water than the eastern world. Think about that. The lack of access to stable supplies of water is reaching critical proportions, particularly for agricultural purposes, and this is only going to worsen because of rapid urbanization worldwide. 1.2 billion people will be added over the next 20 years. Today's experts consider 21 countries with a combined population of 600 million to be either cropland- or freshwater-scarce.

It's all up to a growing population. 36 countries, about 1.4 billion people, are projected to fall into this category within the next few years, and this is why: because research right now shows, from the World Resource Institute, again, from the World Bank, from the World Economic Forums, that water is under-discussed. Think about how many of you are listening to the Newscast. How many of you are sharing? Only about 15% of our US population says they hear about water security regularly from politicians or in the news. Do our customers understand the value of the water they have or the reason why we're increasing that value? It is crucial that media, policymakers, businesses, and other organizations take the lead fostering an urgent conversation on water security.

It's so very important that we integrate water into every bit of our climate dialogue. As we just talked in the news, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, the EPA, clean water, Waters of the United States, cutting red tape impacts our legacy groundwater, the fossilized groundwater that we need to hit 2100. 45% of our population agrees that addressing water security is a vital piece of combating climate change. Think about that as we look at the Los Angeles fires, our two major issues are that information is not that free and the places we have it are not able to give us the feedback we need. Right now in the world, two out of three people have a cell phone where one out of three people lack access to clean water. Climate change is only going to continue to impact this in extreme weather. Events like droughts and floods are going to continue to impact our water scarcity.

We need to make water security a central topic in climate change and we have to continue to push this. This is not a political piece. This is the advancement of humanity. We cannot be the United States that we want to be in leading the world in innovation and showing that we can have the cleanest water and cleanest air if we're not recognizing the exploitation and the destruction of our groundwater supplies versus what's happening around the world. It's time now to accelerate progress towards water security for the world. It's important to support consumers in making sustainable choices. As we've seen the rollback with the IRA and the choice and it says it right in there, the choice to have the right washing machine and shower head and toilet.

We kind of understand that the richer we become, the more we exploit the use of water. More than half of the population believes it's important for individuals to take water action. That's what we need to think about. So how are we going to do this? We have to get back to our local, state and federal level and advocate. We need to engage our customers, helping them recognize opportunities for positive change and empowering them to make sustainable purchasing choices. If it's our right to choose what we purchase, we need to think about it right here. What is it going to take? We can draw inspiration from countries like Australia and Singapore, which have implemented mandatory product water efficiency labeling systems just like we see cigarettes say they're bad for you or we see all the possibilities for carcinogens. Why not have right on the label this bottle of water you're about to drink, consume this watch. Every time I click search using a chatbot, it consumes a pint of water.

This is all because the one thing we can't control right now is that the temperature gets hotter and we need to mitigate climate change and it's driving this whole situation. So as we look within to build a better America, we need to be looking out for the rest of the world with global coordination. This lack of coordination among governments, agencies, and the private sector is leading to mismanagement of water. I want you to consider this as we think drill, baby drill. How about a driller? Better driller, better consumer, better professional, better politician, better ulma owner. This isn't a race car. We're not trying to get, come on baby, give me five more miles per hour so I can beat the race.

This is a multi-sensory marathon to see where our great grandchildren and legacies are beyond how they get to live, how they get to eat, how they get to work, do they talk about looking at old photos and going, remember when we used to have swimming pools in the backyard? This is what this is coming down to and as we don't understand the impact that we're having from water, energy, and food, our global governments are mismanaging this. Unleashing America's energy is important to our entire livelihood, but restraining our appetite to an appropriate level is equally important and that's why we need to coordinate use throughout our country, throughout our states, throughout local municipalities. We need to understand the water withdrawals that we have, the impacts that we're having. Again, from the data collection that we talked about from the now defunct podcast. This is what it all comes down to, water management, and as we look at these, we don't know what climate change is going to do. The last two winters, Los Angeles had atmospheric rivers that dumped trillions upon trillions of gallons and this year Los Angeles burned. Look at Canada. Look at the rest of the world.

Climate change. Fossil fuels our drive to be the best civilization in the world. United States being the greatest power. Stan Lee said it best. With great power comes great responsibility and us leading water conservation and a fight against climate change is so very vital to where we are in the next five decades to the next 500 years. I want you to think about that. Thank you for joining us for episode 141. Check out thedriller.com. We have lots of content coming out. You are the construction professional, you are the drilling professional. We have licenses, we have bonds, we have invested in millions of dollars worth of equipment to be the best companies we can be, and we do that by being responsible for the drilling we do. We have an opportunity here with the Unleashing America's Energy Executive Order for more drilling and there's a lot of opportunity to speed up the permitting processes.