I wasn't surprised when Karl Rove's American Crossroads group began pouring massive amounts of money into TV ads to defeat my congressman from rural New York State. American Crossroads has received significant funding from the oil and gas industry, including a $2 million personal donation from Trevor Rees-Jones of Chief Oil & Gas--one of the most active companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation, a geological layer that stretches from Kentucky to New York.
Gas companies want to begin using a risky new method of drilling called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract natural gas from deep underground in the Marcellus. My congressman, Representative Maurice Hinchey, is at the forefront of the movement to ask questions first, before drilling.
And there are good reasons to wait. Everywhere this practice has been used it's the same story: cancer-causing fumes right next to schools, truck accidents with hazardous liquids or even radioactive materials, explosions at drilling sites or pipelines, and--most famously--severe water contamination. Hydraulic fracturing has been linked across the country to cases where the water is so polluted with gas that you can actually light it on fire.
The fracking process involves pumping millions of gallons of toxic chemicals thousands of feet underground to break up rock formations and release pockets of gas. Gas companies don't have to tell us what chemicals they're using because hydraulic fracturing is specifically exempted from disclosure requirements in the Safe Drinking Water Act through to a provision, nicknamed "the Halliburton Loophole," that was inserted by Dick Cheney into the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Right now, because of the Halliburton Loophole and other exemptions for dirty fossil fuels, the EPA has absolutely no power to regulate hydraulic fracturing.
In response, Hinchey has introduced legislation, called the FRAC (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals) Act, that would close the Halliburton Loophole and restore EPA oversight of hydraulic fracturing. Hinchey also secured funding for a comprehensive EPA study on the link between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water contamination.
The gas industry has not been pleased, so it was no big shock when Hinchey ended up on the list of Democratic representatives targeted by the Rove unlimited-spending machine. With my community in Sullivan County, NY slated for a massive drilling operation as soon as the spring of 2011, I knew I had to stand up Rove and his billionaire donors. So I worked with Frack Action USA PAC to shoot and air a commercial highlighting Hinchey's leadership in protecting the public from dangerous gas drilling.
It's a small step to counter the Rove echo chamber that has dominated the airwaves here, and to communicate to other elected officials around the country that we need them to act now to safeguard the public from this dangerous and unregulated practice. But the fight has just begun, and we're prepared to do what it takes to protect our water, air, and children's future--in communities across the country.
The stakes are high, with many people eager to sign gas leases in the hopes that the new industry will bring riches for landowners and needed jobs for the community. But the experiences of people in Pennsylvania--where hydraulic fracturing has taken off in recent years--contradict the industry's fairy tale of easy money with no downsides.
And it's not just people in rural areas who are affected. Fracking is currently going on along the Colorado River, which supplies water to 30 million people in Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson, and is being planned for thousands of sites along the Delaware River, which supplies water to 15 million people in New York City, Philadelphia and most of New Jersey. That amounts to 1 in 6 Americans being at significant risk of exposure to potent toxic chemicals in the drinking water they use every day from spills and runoff from fracking wells.
Five years after the passage of the Halliburton Loophole, the use of hydraulic fracturing shows no signs of slowing down. Major energy corporations are banking on our long term consumption of shale gas. At the same time, politicians in both parties are working overtime to sell us on the idea that natural gas is a panacea for climate change and our foreign oil addiction.
That's why we have to stand up for the leaders who are taking a common-sense approach and advocating that we use caution instead of gambling with our most precious resources. Stay tuned for future dispatches from this battle. This issue is not going away anytime soon, and neither am I.
Follow Mark Ruffalo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mruff221
Jun 20, 2003 ... Enron Style Corporate Crime and Privatization .... that it plans to adopt more responsible social and environmental policies in .... It has contracts to run the water system in cities and regions around the world, ...
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The gas co's have been waving dollar bills in front of poverty stricken rural folks, counting on greed and desperation to get what they want.
The landowners that lease to the gas co.s don't seem to realize that once the lease is signed-- and esp if their water gets contaminated--their land is essentially worthless, and they will never be able to sell their property.
I read recently that clean water will soon be scarce, and will become our next oil---it will be bought up by large corporations, hoarded and sold at premium prices back to the people, and will be another excuse to go to war.
Destroying water supplies while at the same time obtaining natural gas, may serve a dual purpose...making money on the gas, and making the water that remains uncontaminated that much more valuable.
I'm hoping our politicians will stop this insanity and get us off fossil fuels. But I'm getting very cynical about the true intentions of most of our "representatives".
Money talks.
We have to have clean water to live, but then maybe by destroying our free water, they'll buy up all the clean water rights and sell us water like our medications to live. Think long and hard making deals with the devil regarding our drinking water.
It doesn't help us further north, tho...
My water supply is from a well, fed by an underground spring. It's crystal clean and tastes wonderful.
The gas co's couldn't pay me enough to risk losing my water.... but they might pay my neighbors enough, and my water might get ruined anyway.
It's a bad, bad situation...using greed to pit neighbors against each other.
Key quote: "The technology is safe, despite claims to the contrary. State departments of environmental protection have been satisfied that appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent any contamination to water supplies from the tiny amounts of chemicals used in the process (blasting the underground shale with streams of high-pressure water mixed with sand and a small amount of chemicals). The price of natural gas has been plummeting in America, delivering a huge economic stimulus throughout America. Thank-you, shale gas drillers.
Pennsylvanians have been a huge beneficiary of this wealth-sparking an economic renaissance and tens of thousands of jobs throughout the state. Yet Pennsylvanian Democratic Senatorial candidate Joe Sestak opposed this development, claiming contamination risks posed a threat to people. He wanted the EPA to first take control of regulating fracking, new taxes imposed, and Congress closing the "Halliburton loophole" ("whatever that is" wrote the Wall Street Journal editorial staff )."
Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, NOT a newspaper!
1) Karl Rove is really skinny in person.
2) Even some of the gas execs were referring to him as "slime" during the registration.
3) There was a big, organized protest outside and many convention members seemed very afraid of them.
4) They all seemed to think that natural gas jobs will turn Western Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia into Beverly Hills and that lots of millionaires will be produced. I couldn't help but wonder who these millionaires would be and if they would be living in the area with all of the pollution.
The more I learn about Dick Cheney, the more I realize the man has zero humanity. He is so toxic for our country and does nothing in life but seek to do things for the sake of money alone. From the Wars, to the Halliburton debacle on the rig in the Gulf, now to this Halliburton Loophole, there seems to be nothing he will not seek to destroy.
Lives and livelihoods never seem to concern Dick Cheney unless the gains are for the wealthy and himself.
There used to be criminal investigations (by DOJ lawyers!) of those kinds of crimes. Now they are written off as routine by the likes of the Washington Post.
There outta be laws against public corruption (used to be!). For shame.
Once again, privatize the gains and publicly fund the losses.