LGBT people in the United States continue to experience discrimination because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, despite increasing acceptance of LGBT people and legal recognition of marriage for same-sex couples nationwide. This ongoing discrimination can lead to under- and unemployment, resulting in socioeconomic disparities for LGBT people. In addition, empirical research has linked LGBT health disparities, including disparities in health-related risk factors, to experiences of stigma and discrimination. Currently, federal statutes in the United States do not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing, or public accommodations, leaving regulation in this area primarily to state and local governments. This creates a limited and uneven patchwork of protections from discrimination against LGBT people across the country. Despite public support for LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination laws across the country, in 28 states there are no statewide statutory protections for LGBT people in employment, housing, or public accommodations. To date, only 20 states and the District of Columbia have enacted comprehensive non-discrimination statutes that expressly prohibit discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity in all three of these areas. One additional state has statutes that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination, but not gender identity discrimination, in these areas. One other state prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment and housing, but not in public accommodations. In states without statutes that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity, there are other policies that afford LGBT people at least some limited protections from discrimination. In some of these states, state executive branch officials have expanded non-discrimination protections for LGBT people under their executive or agency powers. For example, in three states, state government agencies have expanded broad protections from sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination through administrative regulations. And, in 12 states without statutes prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people, governors have issued executive orders that protect state government employees (and sometimes employees of state government contractors) from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, local government ordinances provide another source of protection from discrimination; however, these laws are generally unenforceable in court and provide much more limited remedies than statewide non-discrimination statutes. In recent years, lawmakers have increasingly attempted to limit the reach of state and local non-discrimination laws, which can leave LGBT people vulnerable to discrimination. For example, some states have passed laws allowing religiously motivated discrimination and others have passed laws prohibiting local governments from enacting their own non-discrimination ordinances that are broader than state non-discrimination laws. While most of these bills have not passed, the recent increase in the introduction of these measures suggests that state legislatures will continue to consider rolling back non-discrimination protections for LGBT people in the coming years. Continued efforts are required at both the state and federal levels to ensure that LGBT people are fully protected from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity throughout the United States, including federal legislation and statewide bills in over half the states.

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Background A new extended-release (ER) scale-inhibitor technology showing significantly increased lifetimes has been applied in the Permian Basin. Tomson Technologies and Group 2 Technologies, in partnership with Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), implemented a scale-squeeze program for this carrier system. It allows for fewer squeeze treatments, which results in lower chemical usage, decreased plugging risk, and reduced environmental impact. Squeeze programs are an effective field treatment strategy to prevent scale formation in wells for extended periods of time. However, in some cases, squeeze lifetimes can be short, leading to frequent re-squeezing and production decreases, lowering overall economic recoveries. The ER phosphonate-based chemistry (SI1313) was used in selected wells where incumbent (previous chemical provider) treatment lifetimes were shorter than expected. The incumbent squeeze volumes and additives were used, and the scale-inhibitor (SI) chemistry was replaced with SI1313 to obtain directly comparable results. The wells selected are vertical wells, with predominantly carbonate mineralogy and 14–18% porosity and 9–16 mD permeability. Bottomhole temperature is 105°F (40°C). These wells are under continuous CO2 flooding operations, and the scales of interest are calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate predominantly. The selected wells were targeted to have a good squeeze history for comparison and stable water production. Pre-Job Validation Work Coreflood laboratory experiments were performed to simulate the adsorption and desorption under these specific Oxy Permian conditions. The coreflood showed over 10,000 pore volume (PV) of flow with inhibitor concentration remaining above the minimum effective concentration (MEC) during the entire run. Once greater than two times incumbent performance was reached, the coreflood was stopped, although the return concentration was still above MEC. For reference, corefloods with incumbent phosphonate chemistry under the same conditions usually drop below MEC around approximately 3,000–5,000 PVs. The adsorption of SI1313 to core material was measured during the coreflood experiment and the results show 12.5 mg of inhibitor adsorbed per gram of core material. As a comparison, a typical incumbent phosphonate scale inhibitor adsorbs 1–2 mg of inhibitor per gram of core material. This increase in adsorption is considered a large improvement over traditional chemistry. The carrier platform’s superior adsorption, when combined with controlled desorption, is the basis for extending the lifetimes of scale- inhibitor treatments. The corefloods results validate the ER characteristics expected from SI1313 and allowed for field squeezes to be conducted. Field Application Group 2 Technologies provided SI1313 to be squeezed for Oxy in January 2020, into five vertical conventional wells. The selected wells are in one area where CO2 flooding is in place and there is risk of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and calcium sulfate (CaSO4) scaling. These wells have had many scale squeezes performed on them, yielding an excellent data set to compare against. The goal of this trial was to show significant lifetime extension compared to previous incumbent squeeze lifetimes.