1970-79: Change and Challenge

Abstract

During the 1970s, SPE evolved from a technical organization into a technical-professional society, established firm groundwork for international expansion, and began to map its future course through its first Long-Range Plan. It was a momentous decade for both the oil and gas industry and for SPE. Energy was front and center in international political debate. Oil came under heavy scrutiny from politicians and the public as air and water pollution, company profits, oil embargoes, OPEC's ascendancy, gasoline shortages, and government regulation dominated the news. The decade began with the first politically charged "Earth Day" and ended with the Iranian revolution and the second "oil shock." For SPE, it was a decade of soul-searching. Just what was the society and in what direction should it go? Should it join—or avoid—the contentious political debate of the times? Was it an organization just for disseminating technical information, or should it be concerned with the larger issues of professionalism and the public standing of petroleum engineering? Was it an adjunct of an American organization, AIME, or should it embrace the internalization of the oil industry, which was rapidly tearing down artificial borders? Air and water pollution emerged as a leading subject of debate, and government regulation began to affect members' jobs. Pollution control was the main topic of the 1970 Fall Meeting in Houston. Representatives of government, the industry, and academia were featured in two 5-paper technical sessions covering petroleum technology and its impact on pollution and oil-spill control. Technical papers at other meetings and in the pages of JPT also addressed these topics. Beginning with the passage of the US National Environmental Protection Act in 1970, the oil and gas industry faced a flood of new regulations. The US Congress passed 14 major federal statutes between 1970 and 1980, including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, designed to protect the health and safety of people and the environment. These statutes generated thousands of pages of regulations at both the federal and state levels, and most of them affected E&P operations. The media were rife with stories about pollution and the oil industry's role in it, articles that often were plagued with inaccuracies. Several SPE local section officers, particularly those from the Gulf Coast Section, began to lobby the SPE Board of Directors for permission to establish a public affairs committee that would work to correct technical inaccuracies being presented to the public. The SPE Board concluded that the best way that the society could contribute to the public debate regarding environmental matters was to provide a forum for the dissemination of knowledge on the technology for improving environmental quality, and to establish a literature base on environmental quality as it applied to the industry. The Board also approved a plan permitting members to participate in public affairs by contributing interpretations of technical issues. The plan allowed local sections to establish Technical Information Committees (TICs) to offer assistance to local civic and government groups and to the news media on matters involving E&P. By the end of 1971, seven TICs had been formed throughout the US.