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</div><div>=ct loss1/19<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/colorado-youth-fracking-case-2626070704.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/colorado-youth-fracking-case-2626070704.html</a><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/29/fracking-industry-gas-flaring-problem">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/29/fracking-industry-gas-flaring-problem</a>In 2018, the oil and gas industry operating in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale burned off record amounts of natural gas, largely obtained via hydraulic fracturing (fracking). This process, known as flaring, costs the industry money — it literally burns one of the products being pumped out of the ground — but more importantly, the resulting release of globe-warming emissions of carbon dioxide and methane spells disaster for the climate.And a new analysis of satellite evidence indicates the industry is likely underreporting how much gas it is actually flaring in the Permian Shale, with implications for other oil fields.According to the <a href="https://www.grandforksherald.com/business/energy-and-mining/4548181-north-dakota-natural-gas-flaring-hits-record-high-improvement" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bismarck Tribune,</a> the amount of gas flared in North Dakota in October was enough to heat 4.25 million homes in America. And while the fracking industry in North Dakota is flaring the most gas in the nation, it's not the only place this is a growing issue. Flaring reportedly also <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Record-Permian-gas-flaring-has-nearly-doubled-in-13443024.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doubled in 2018</a> in the booming Permian Shale in Texas and New Mexico, with an estimated $1 million a day of gas burned off.In addition, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) recently <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2019/01/24/satellite-data-confirms-permian-gas-flaring-is-double-what-companies-report/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">analyzed satellite data</a> and concluded that the industry is likely underreporting the actual volumes of gas flared in the Permian. EDF says that the real numbers are closer to double what the industry reports.
Differences in reported versus unreported gas flaring in the Permian Basin in Texas. Credit: <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2019/01/24/satellite-data-confirms-permian-gas-flaring-is-double-what-companies-report/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Environmental Defense Fund</a>This increase in flaring is just one more example of how the oil and gas industry has recklessly pushed forward with the so-called “shale revolution,” producing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-productivity/us-shale-oil-output-to-hit-record-high-79-million-barrels-per-day-in-december-eia-idUSKCN1NI2JV" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">record amounts of oil</a> while <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">losing money</a> and showing blatant disregard for the environment and climate along the way. It is also an excellent example of how federal and state regulators are allowing this to happen.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Fracking Oil in America Means Flaring Gas</h3>Flaring has alway been a part of oil production, conventional or otherwise. Natural gas often is found with oil reservoirs and when adequate infrastructure doesn't exist to capture both the oil and gas, the gas is flared, or burned, while the oil is captured and sold. (Natural gas is primarily methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and burning it transforms the methane to water and carbon dioxide, which is perhaps the best-known greenhouse gas.)Flaring did not begin with fracking's modern introduction to oil and gas fields, but the rush to develop shale fields via fracking seems to have encouraged the practice in recent years. For comparison, let's look at Iraq.In Iraq, where the oil industry has been rebuilding after the damages of the Iraq War, production currently falls between 4 and 5 million barrels of oil per day, using conventional drilling methods. Compare that with the approximately 4 million barrels per day of oil <a href="https://ycharts.com/indicators/permian_region_total_oil_production" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">produced </a>via fracking in the Permian Basin.Iraq's industry has been flaring <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/iraq-to-reach-zero-gas-flaring-by-2021-says-oil-minister-1.695074" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">billions of dollars </a>of gas because there is no infrastructure to capture it, a situation companies there are moving to remedy but one which will require <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/iraq-could-save-5-2bn-in-four-years-from-flared-gas-reduction-says-siemens-1.704555" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">large investments</a> in gas processing facilities. Iraq is working with several foreign corporations to construct the infrastructure and aims to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-gas-energy/iraq-orion-sign-deal-to-process-gas-from-giant-oilfield-idUSKBN1FB0W6" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">end flaring by 2021</a>, a move projected to save over $5 billion in the next four years. 
Original image: Gas flaring in southern Iraq in 2014. Credit: <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/83178/gas-flaring-in-iraq" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">NASA Earth Observatory</a>, public domain wow]However, the companies fracking for oil in America’s major shale plays appear less interested in building adequate capacity, which hasn't been built in the first place, to capture the gas they currently flare. This isn't a technological problem.A <a href="https://www.thestate.com/news/business/national-business/article224702755.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">new report</a> from the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota suggests that North Dakota should capture the gas and store it underground, a common method of storing gas. But as the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/23/aliso-canyon-disaster-phmsa-natural-gas-storage-regulation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Aliso Canyon disaster </a>made clear when an uncontrolled leak spewed methane from a gas storage facility in southern California for several months, the approach is not without its risks. However, it is the cheapest option. John Harju, vice president for strategic partnerships at the EERC, told the <a href="https://www.thestate.com/news/business/national-business/article224702755.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Associated Press</a> that capturing the gas and using pipelines to move it to processing facilities is always the ideal way to handle it. However, the best option is often the most expensive option.

“The economics aren't great, but it is economic under the right circumstance,” Lynn Helms, the director of North Dakota's Department of Mineral Resources, said of the proposed underground gas storage plan, <a href="http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/117107-north-dakota-considers-underground-natural-gas-storage-to-cut-flaring" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to the trade publication Natural Gas Intel</a>.If the industry can make money capturing the gas, it will. If not, it will continue flaring.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">North Dakota's Flaring Guidelines Do Little to Reduce Flaring</h3>In April 2018, North Dakota updated its flaring regulations based on changes “submitted by an industry group” that were supposed to result in reduced flaring. The state's main oil and gas industry lobbying group is the North Dakota Petroleum Council (NDPC), which is supported by the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-petroleum-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Petroleum Institute</a>.<a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/business/north-dakota-regulators-amend-rules-aimed-at-flaring/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">According to The Associated Press</a>, Kari Cutting, NDPC vice president, reportedly told the newspaper that the “oil industry is committed to meeting the flaring targets, even if it means cutting back on crude production.”“We’ll do what we have to do,” Cutting said.However, the language in the <a href="https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/GuidancePolicyNorthDakotaIndustrialCommissionorder24665.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">new guidelines</a> actually gave the oil companies more options to flare. For example, according to the guidelines: “The initial horizontal well drilled … should be allowed to produce at its maximum efficient rate, regardless if the well is connected to a gas gathering system.” [Emphasis added.]Predictably, North Dakota set records for <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/122018-after-months-of-record-bakken-oil-output-dip-expected-next-month" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">oil production</a> and <a href="https://www.grandforksherald.com/business/energy-and-mining/4548181-north-dakota-natural-gas-flaring-hits-record-high-improvement" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">flaring </a>in 2018, after the new flaring guidelines were announced. So much for the oil industry's commitment to reducing flaring even if it requires reducing oil production.North Dakota oil production may decline in 2019 but that would be tied more to the drop in oil prices in late 2018.[img]And with an <a href="https://www.grandforksherald.com/business/energy-and-mining/4548181-north-dakota-natural-gas-flaring-hits-record-high-improvement" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">estimated $10 billion </a>more in infrastructure needed to address the North Dakota flaring issues, the fracking industry, which continues to lose money, especially with current low oil prices, appears unlikely to address flaring on a significant scale any time soon.Ron Ness, president of the NDPC, confirmed this in remarks to the <a href="https://www.grandforksherald.com/business/energy-and-mining/4548181-north-dakota-natural-gas-flaring-hits-record-high-improvement" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bismarck Tribune</a>, saying the necessary investment wasn’t going to come “right away” because “[o]ur productivity has just outpaced the expectations on gas so much.”And so flaring will continue on the Great Plains.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Federal Regulations on Flaring and Venting Natural Gas Repealed</h3>At the end of the Obama administration in 2016, the Bureau of Land Management released <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/11/18/2016-27637/waste-prevention-production-subject-to-royalties-and-resource-conservation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">new regulations</a> “to reduce waste of natural gas from venting, flaring, and leaks during oil and natural gas production activities on onshore Federal and Indian leases.”After Trump took over, however, the agency decided to review this new rule and in October 2018 released a revised, relaxed form of those regulations.At the time of the release, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/david-bernhardt" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">David Bernhardt</a>, now the acting Secretary of the Interior, <a href="http://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/BLM-issues-final-venting-flaring-rule-13271809.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">explained the purpose of the changes</a>: “We’re fulfilling a commitment to a policy vision the president established to promote clean development of our resources without regulation that encumbers business, restrains growth, and prevents job creation.”
Satellite image of U.S. flaring in 2018. Credit: <a href="https://skytruth.org/viirs/#top" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">SkyTruth</a> wow]The Midland Reporter-Telegram, a newspaper in the heart of the Permian, <a href="https://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/BLM-issues-final-venting-flaring-rule-13271809.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">summarized</a> the gutting of the Obama-era regulations, which included the removal of “requirements pertaining to waste minimization plans, gas-capture percentages, well drilling, well completion and related operations, pneumatic controllers, pneumatic diaphragm pumps, storage vessels, and leak detection and repair.”Or as Matt Watson of the Environmental Defense Fund explained to The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/climate/trump-methane-rollback.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">New York Times</a>: “This is a complete dismantling of federal methane regulation in the United States.”One of the main arguments for weakening these natural gas and methane regulations was that implementing them would have been cost prohibitive for some small oil and gas producers and would have caused them to stop operations.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Fracking's Many Climate Impacts</h3>“<a href="http://priceofoil.org/2019/01/16/report-drilling-towards-disaster/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Drilling Towards Disaster</a>,” a new report by Oil Change International, outlines how fracking is driving oil and gas production in America (and being exported to the rest of the world) and the dangers this poses by driving future climate impacts at a time when rapid decarbonization of the global economy is required.By essentially providing no real limitations on flaring, state and federal regulators are allowing the oil and gas industry to produce record amounts of oil, which accelerates climate change when the oil is burned. However, the situation also releases additional carbon dioxide when the gas is flared, without providing any economic benefit, such as powering millions of American homes.Additionally, the methane that is <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/21/methane-leaks-oil-gas-60-higher-epa-estimates-science-study-edf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">leaked in the supply chain</a>, and in some cases intentionally vented into the atmosphere, adds to global warming. Methane traps more heat than carbon dioxide in the short term.And even with the Trump administration rolling back a number of environmental regulations like the rules for methane flaring and venting, the oil and gas industry is looking <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/15/api-oil-industry-lobbyist-government-shutdown" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">for still more deregulation</a> from the federal government. With the federal government now open after a 35-day-long shutdown, it's back to business as usual.pruitt epa<div>5/5 see also main and tag frack</div><div>also methane</div><div>LNG export, pipelines</div><div>=-see desmog on ponzi scheme:<div></div><div><div>=</div><div>12/18 predictably</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greater-sage-grouse-2622600663.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/greater-sage-grouse-2622600663.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Feds Move to Slash Sage Grouse Protections For More Oil & Gas Development</div><div>The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management published proposals on Thursday designed to roll back critical measures that protect the imperiled greater sage grouse on public lands in order to boost fossil fuel development and mining in the American West.</div><div>
</div><div>The spectacular bird once numbered 16 million and roamed across 13 Western U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. But rampant oil and gas development and other factors have cut its habitat in half. Its population has significantly plunged to an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 individuals across 11 western states and southern Alberta.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2015, the charismatic bird saw a glimmer of hope with the Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plan, which then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called a "truly historic moment—one that represents extraordinary collaboration across the American West." A remarkable coalition of scientists, ranchers, environmental groups, extractive industries, federal agencies and state and local governments worked together to create a management plan for the keystone species.</div><div>
</div><div>As the New York Times explained, that Obama-era effort to protect the sage grouse set out to ban or sharply reduce drilling in 10.7 million acres of its habitat.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But the Trump administration's plan would effectively limit the grouse's protected habitat to a mere 1.8 million acres, "essentially opening up nine million acres of land to drilling, mining and other development," the paper said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke started the process last year when he signed a secretarial order to overhaul the Obama administration plan.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div>Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt defended Thursday's move. "I completely believe that these plans are leaning forward on the conservation of sage grouse," Bernhardt told The Associated Press.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Do they do it in exactly the same way? No. We made some change in the plans and got rid of some things that are simply not necessary," he added.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>Conservation groups blasted the Trump administration's proposal. The Audubon Society pointed out that more than 40 thousand Americans have urged Secretary Zinke to honor the 2015 Greater Sage-Grouse conservation agreement.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Out West we know a deal is a deal. To have plans that took years of work, backed by good science and strong public support, brought into question is disheartening, a waste of tax-payers money and will threaten our public lands," Brian Rutledge, director of Audubon's Sagebrush Ecosystem Initiative, said in a press release.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Center for Biological Diversity said it's not just the sage grouse at risk, but also hundreds of other sagebrush-dependent wildlife species.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"These plans show that Zinke will stop at nothing to make it easier for polluting industries to mine and frack every last acre of the West," Michael Saul, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release emailed to EcoWatch. "This is a huge step backward for greater sage grouse and for hundreds of other species that depend on unspoiled public land."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bobby McEnaney, senior director for the Western Renewable Energy Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council had similar sentiments.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"It's hard to pretend at this point that Zinke is a steward of America's public lands: he acts more like a pillager," McEnaney said in an online statement. "This rolls back a conservation plan that was carefully crafted by states, ranchers, conservationists and public officials to protect this iconic western bird and the unique sagebrush landscape it inhabits. Zinke's move to unravel it is his single largest land use decision to date. It has no basis in science—it's a bald-faced giveaway to the oil and gas industry."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sage Grouse Initiative - Wildlife Conservation Through Sustainable ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Sage Grouse: an awkward bird symbolizes the fight over ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Massive Fracking Plan Near Yellowstone National Park Threatens ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Proposed Rule Change Would Be 'Death Sentence' for Nearly 300 ... ›</div></div><div>
</div><div></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/ireland-ban-fracking-2450255362.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1;">We've Made History': Ireland Joins France, Germany and Bulgaria in Banning Fracking</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">UK fight?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> =</div></div><div></div><div>11/18 boosts OIL exports, key to plastic boom</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><div></div><div>The petrochemical industry anticipates spending a total of over $200 billion on factories, pipelines, and other infrastructure in the U.S. that will rely on shale gas, the American Chemistry Council <a href="https://www.americanchemistry.com/Media/PressReleasesTranscripts/ACC-news-releases/US-Chemical-Industry-Investment-Linked-to-Shale-Gas-Reaches-200-Billion.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> in September. Construction is already underway at many sites.This building spree would dramatically expand the Gulf Coast’s petrochemical corridor (known locally as<a href="https://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2018/03/cancer_alley_community_fights.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> “Cancer Alley”</a>) — and establish a new plastics and petrochemical belt across states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.<div class="view view-in-this-series view-id-in_this_series view-display-id-block_1 view-dom-id-5c0be57fe74a04bd6f9b172865db6e3b" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" desmog2015="desmog2015" images="images" desmog-series-list.jpg="desmog-series-list.jpg" center="center" top="top" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" margin="margin" border-bottom="border-bottom" solid="solid" background-position="background-position" initial="initial" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" style="float: right; clear: left; width: 170px; background-image: url("");"><div class="view-content"><div class="item-list"><ul sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" desmog2015="desmog2015" images="images" desmog-series-arrow.gif="desmog-series-arrow.gif" style="margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; list-style-image: url("");"><li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first"><div class="views-field views-field-title"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/28/field-guide-petrochemical-plastics-industry" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A Field Guide to the Petrochemical and Plastics Industry</a></div></li><li class="views-row views-row-2 views-row-even"><div class="views-field views-field-title"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/12/pipeline-exploded-pennsylvania-part-sprint-build-fracking-reliant-petrochemical-corridor" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Pipeline that Exploded in Pennsylvania Part of Push to Build Fracking-Reliant Petrochemical Network</a></div></li><li class="views-row views-row-3 views-row-odd views-row-last"><div class="views-field views-field-title"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/07/01/state-regulators-struggle-keep-industry-pushes-multi-billion-dollar-fracked-petrochemical-projects" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">As Industry Pushes Billion-Dollar Fracked Petrochemical Projects, State Regulators Struggle To Keep Up</a></div></li></ul></div></div></div>If those projects are completed, analysts predict the U.S. would flip from one of the world’s highest-cost producers of <a href="http://www.plasticsindustry.org/sites/plastics.dev/files/PLASTICS%20Size%20&%20Impact%20-%20Summary.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">plastics</a> and <a href="https://www.americanchemistry.com/Policy/Energy/Shale-Gas/Infographic-Shale-Gas-and-New-US-Chemical-Industry-Investment.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">chemicals</a> to one of the cheapest, using raw materials and energy from fracked gas wells in states like Texas, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.Those petrochemical plans could have profound consequences for a planet already showing signs of dangerous warming and a cascade of other impacts from climate change.The gathering wave of construction comes as the Trump administration works to deregulate American industry and roll back pollution controls, putting the U.S. at odds with the rest of the world's efforts to slow climate change.Trump <a href="http://climateanalytics.org/briefings/ratification-tracker.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> in June 2017 that the U.S. had halted all implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement and intends to fully withdraw. America is now the world’s only state refusing <a href="http://climateanalytics.org/briefings/ratification-tracker.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">participation</a> in the global agreement to curb climate change (after Syria, the final holdout, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/syria-is-joining-the-paris-agreement-now-what/545261/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">signed</a> in November 2017).This petrochemical industry expansion — much of it funded by foreign investors — makes America’s refusal to participate in the Paris Agreement all the more significant, because much of this new U.S. infrastructure would be built outside of the greenhouse gas agreement affecting the rest of the globe.If American policy makers approve this wave of new plastics and petrochemical plants with little regard to curbing climate change and reducing fossil fuel use, environmentalists warn, they’ll be greenlighting hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into projects at risk of becoming stranded assets.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">From Rust Belt to Plastics Belt</h3>Some of the largest and most expensive petrochemical projects in the U.S. are planned in the Rust Belt states of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, a region that has suffered for decades from the collapse of the domestic steel industry but that has <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/07/01/state-regulators-struggle-keep-industry-pushes-multi-billion-dollar-fracked-petrochemical-projects" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">relatively little experience</a> with the kind of petrochemical complexes that are now primarily found on the Gulf Coast.In November 2017, the China Energy Investment Corp., signed a Memorandum of Understanding with West Virginia that would result in the construction of $83.7 billion in plastics and petrochemicals projects over the next 20 years in that state alone — a huge slice of the $202.4 billion U.S. total. Those plans have <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/25/west-virginia-petrochemical-hub-china-trade-war-corruption-thrasher" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">run into snags</a> due to trade disputes between the U.S.and China and a corruption probe, though <a href="http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115573-chinese-companies-said-still-honoring-us-agreements-despite-trade-war" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Chinese officials said</a> in late August that investment was moving forward.The petrochemical industry’s interest is spurred by the fact that the region’s Marcellus and Utica shales contain significant supplies of so-called “wet gas.” This wet gas often is treated as a footnote in discussions of fracking, which tend to focus on the methane gas, called “dry gas” by industry — and not the ethane, propane, butane, and other hydrocarbons that also come from those same wells.Those “wet” fossil fuels and chemical feedstocks are commonly referred to as “natural gas liquids,” or NGLs, because they are delivered to customers condensed into a liquid form — like the liquid butane trapped in a Bic lighter, which expands into a stream of flammable gas when you flick that lighter on.Ethane can represent a surprising amount of the fossil fuel from a fracked shale well, particularly in the Marcellus. For every 6,000 cubic feet of methane (the energy equivalent of the industry’s standard 42 gallon barrel of oil), Marcellus wet gas wells can produce up to roughly 35 gallons of ethane, based on data<a href="https://www.aogr.com/magazine/cover-story/infrastructure-projects-connect-marcellus-shale-to-ethane-ngl-markets" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> reported by the American Oil and Gas Reporter</a> in 2011.And U.S. ethane production is projected to grow dramatically. By 2022, the region will produce roughly 800,000 barrels of ethane per day, up from 470,000 barrels a day in 2017,<a href="https://marcellusdrilling.com/2017/10/poor-prospects-for-moving-marcellusutica-ethane-to-gulf-coast/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> according to energy consultant RBN Energy</a>.That supply glut is driving down ethane prices in the Rust Belt.“The lowest price ethane on the planet is here in this region,” Brian Anderson, Director of the West Virginia University Energy Institute, told the NEP Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction conference in Pittsburgh in June.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Chemicals and the Climate</h3>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/backbone_campaign/33321041742/in/photostream/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Image projected onto Houston petrochemical plant during the Houston Toxic Tour, 2017. </a>Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/backbone_campaign/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Backbone Campaign</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CC BY 2.0</a>]The petrochemical and plastics industries are <a href="http://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2017/9/29/fueling-plastics-new-research-details-fossil-fuel-role-in-plastics-proliferation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">notoriously polluting</a>, not only when it comes to toxic air pollution and plastic waste, but also because of the industry’s significant greenhouse gas footprint — affecting not only the U.S., but the entire world.“The chemical and petrochemical sector is by far the largest industrial energy user, accounting for roughly 10 percent of total worldwide final energy demand and 7 percent of global [greenhouse gas] emissions,” the International Energy Agency reported in 2013. Since then the numbers have <a href="https://6fefcbb86e61af1b2fc4-c70d8ead6ced550b4d987d7c03fcdd1d.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/cms/reports/documents/000/002/683/original/CDP_Chemicals_2017.pdf?1507139412" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">crept up</a>, with the IEA finding petrochemicals responsible for an additional percentage point of the world’s total energy consumption in <a href="https://6fefcbb86e61af1b2fc4-c70d8ead6ced550b4d987d7c03fcdd1d.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/cms/reports/documents/000/002/683/original/CDP_Chemicals_2017.pdf?1507139412" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2017</a>.Carbon emissions from petrochemical and plastics manufacturing are expected to grow 20 percent by 2030 (in other words, in just over a decade), the IEA concluded in a <a href="https://webstore.iea.org/download/direct/2310?fileName=The_Future_of_Petrochemicals.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> released October 5. A few days later, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">warned</a> that by 2030, the world needs to have reduced its greenhouse gas pollution 45 percent from 2010 levels, in order to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to a less-catastrophic 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).The petrochemicals industry has so far drawn relatively little attention from oil and gas analysts and policy makers. “Petrochemicals are one of the key blind spots in the global energy debate, especially given the influence they will exert on future energy trends,” Dr. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s Executive Director, <a href="https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/october/petrochemicals-set-to-be-the-largest-driver-of-world-oil-demand-latest-iea-analy.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said in a statement</a> this month.“In fact,” he added, “our analysis shows they will have a greater influence on the future of oil demand than cars, trucks and aviation.”The new investments, which will rely on decades of continued fracking in the U.S, offer the oil and gas industry a serious hedge against competition from renewable energy, even in the event that climate policies push fossil fuel energy to the margins.“Unlike refining, and ultimately unlike oil, which will see a moment when the growth will stop, we actually don’t anticipate that with petrochemicals,” Andrew Brown, upstream director for Royal Dutch Shell,<a href="https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/As-gasoline-demand-wanes-oil-industry-looks-to-12741377.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> told the San Antonio Express News in March</a>.The planned infrastructure could also help bail out the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">heavily indebted</a> shale drilling industry financially by consuming vast amounts of fossil fuels, both for power and as a raw material.The American Chemistry Council has <a href="https://www.americanchemistry.com/Media/PressReleasesTranscripts/ACC-news-releases/US-Chemical-Industry-Investment-Linked-to-Shale-Gas-Reaches-200-Billion.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">linked</a> 333 chemical industry projects, all announced since 2010, to shale gas — that is, gas that is produced using fracking. Forty-one percent of those projects are still in the planning phase as of September, according to the council, and 68 percent of the projects are linked to foreign investment.State regulators in Texas and Louisiana have already issued permits that would allow a group of 74 petrochemical and liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects along the Gulf Coast to add 134 million tons of greenhouse gases a year to the atmosphere, an <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/27/texas-louisiana-new-petrochemical-oil-gas-projects-climate-change-29-coal-power" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Environmental Integrity Project analysis found</a> in September. The group said that was equal to the pollution from running 29 new coal power plants around the clock.The expansion of plastics manufacturing in America also has environmentalists worried over a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/19/plastic-pollution-risks-near-permanent-contamination-of-natural-environment" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">plastics pollution crisis</a>. “We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it,” Carroll Muffett, president of the U.S. Center for International Environmental Law,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/26/180bn-investment-in-plastic-factories-feeds-global-packaging-binge" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> told The Guardian in December 2017</a>.
This story is part of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-plastics" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Fracking for Plastics</a>, a DeSmog investigation into the proposed petrochemical build-out in the Rust Belt and the major players involved, along with the environmental, health, and socio-economic implications.]<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Petrochemical Paradox</h3>The petrochemical industry transforms ethane and other raw material into a huge range of products, including not only plastic, but also vinyl, fertilizers, Styrofoam, beauty products, chemicals, and pesticides.The petrochemicals industry itself straddles an uncomfortable fence when it comes to renewable energy and climate change. A significant portion of its revenue comes from “clean” technology sectors, as it provides materials used to make batteries and electric cars.<a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/despite-innovation-chemicals-sector-slow-paris-goals" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">One report</a> last year concluded that roughly 20 percent of the industry’s revenue comes from products designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the American Chemistry Council cited the industry’s role supplying “materials and technologies that improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions,” as it <a href="https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i23/Scientific-groups-disappointed-Trump-move-on-climate.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">opposed Trump’s decision</a> to drop out of the Paris Agreement.But petrochemical manufacturers are also heavily reliant on fossil fuels. They need them to power and supply a dreamed-of “manufacturing renaissance,” as the ExxonMobil-funded <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> explained as it <a href="https://cei.org/blog/5-advantages-stepping-away-paris-climate-treaty" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pushed</a> for Trump to abandon the Paris Agreement.Plans to use American shale gas would also link petrochemicals to the expansion of fracking, which carries its own environmental concerns. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark study on fracking and drinking water <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/fracking-can-harm-drinking-water-in-some-circumstances-epa-says/?utm_term=.3c06d4173d93" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">concluded</a> in 2016 that fracking has led to water contamination and poses continued risks to American water supplies.In addition, though conversations about climate change usually focus on carbon emissions, the gas industry has<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/nasa-study-fracking-global-warming-0fa0c5b5f5c7/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> such a bad methane leak problem</a> that using natural gas<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/methane-leaks-erase-climate-benefit-of-fracked-gas-countless-studies-find-8b060b2b395d/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> can be</a> even worse for the climate than burning coal.“We share IEA’s view that the production, use and disposal of petrochemical-derived products present a variety of environmental challenges that need to be addressed,” the American Chemistry Council said in a statement sent to DeSmog, which also cited the use of petrochemical products in the renewable energy industry and the manufacture of products that raise energy efficiency like home insulation and lighter auto parts. “We are committed to managing energy use in our companies and manufacturing facilities.”<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Pittsburgh and Paris</h3>Climate implications make a petrochemical build-out risky, not only from an environmental perspective, but also from a fiscal perspective, Mark Dixon, co-founder of<a href="https://nopetropa.wordpress.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> NoPetroPA</a>, which opposes fracking-based petrochemicals projects, told DeSmog.One plant, Shell’s $6 billion ethane “cracker” plant currently under construction in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, has permits to pump 2.25 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year into the air near Pittsburgh, roughly equal to the annual carbon pollution from 430,000 cars.Industry advocates say the region can produce enough ethane to support up to <a href="https://marcellusdrilling.com/2018/03/m-u-could-support-8-crackers-why-dont-companies-build-more/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">seven more ethane cracker plants</a>like Shell’s.“We’re trying to drop our emissions 50 percent by 2030,” Dixon said, referring to Pittsburgh’s<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/pittsburgh-fires-back-trump-paris-agreement" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> highly touted plans</a> to comply with international climate targets despite the federal government’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. “The Shell cracker alone will decimate that.” [no cracker sign]
<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Stranding Assets</h3>International negotiators <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-accord/good-progress-at-bangkok-climate-talks-on-draft-paris-accord-rules-u-n-official-idUSKCN1LP0DN" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">met in Bangkok</a> in September to hash out details on how the Paris Agreement will be implemented. The U.S., which participated in talks despite the Trump administration’s intention to withdraw from the accord, faced <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/world/developing-countries-accuse-us-allies-of-stalling-progress-on-paris-accord-as-emergency-un-climate-talks-wrap-up-5150381.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">criticism</a> over working to <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/climate-negotiations-struggling-to-make-real-progress-ahead-of-poland-talks_us_5b96d740e4b0162f47300fa4" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">delay clarity</a> over the agreement’s financing (nonetheless, a top UN negotiator <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-accord/good-progress-at-bangkok-climate-talks-on-draft-paris-accord-rules-u-n-official-idUSKCN1LP0DN" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">praised</a> “good progress” from the talks).While the Paris Agreement is not directly binding, globally there has been <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-06-tariffs-paris-climate-commitments.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">discussion</a> of using trade agreements and tariffs to pressure countries that fail to keep up with their carbon-cutting commitments.In February, the European Union (EU)<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eu-trade-deal-paris-climate-change-accord-agreement-cecilia-malmstr-m-a8206806.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> declared</a> that it will not sign new trade agreements with any country that refuses to get on board with the Paris Agreement.“One of our main demands is that any country who signs a trade agreement with EU should implement the Paris Agreement on the ground,” France’s foreign affairs minister <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2018/02/08/eu-tells-trump-no-paris-climate-deal-no-free-trade/#363586e437c7" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne told the French Parliament</a>. “No Paris Agreement, no trade agreement.”“They’re already shooting across the bow, saying look, you’ve got to implement the Paris climate agreement,” Dixon told DeSmog. “We could very well spend 10 years building an infrastructure to support fracking all over the region, crackers, ethane, plastics, everything, then have Europe say, ‘sorry, you can’t do that. You have to shut it down.’”In other words, whether or not the U.S. puts its signature on the climate pact’s dotted line, the pressure from trading partners to reduce greenhouse gas pollution — and the underlying concerns about the rapidly warming climate — could remain the same.That said, while the U.S. is the only country to reject Paris on paper, it is far from the only country on track to miss its targets aimed at warding off catastrophic climate change. Only Morocco and The Gambia are projected to hit “Paris Agreement Compatible” targets, according to the <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Climate Action Tracker</a> (whose rating tracker includes many major polluters but not all countries worldwide).The EU itself currently earns a rating of “insufficient” from the group (China is ranked “highly insufficient,” while the U.S. and four other nations earned the worst “critically insufficient” grade).<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Closing Windows</h3>The next several years will determine the future of petrochemical production for decades to come, crucial years when it comes to the fate of the climate, if industry gets its timing right — particularly in the Rust Belt.“The window to make this all work is not forever,” Charles Schliebs of Stone Pier Capital Advisors told the NEP Northeast U.S.Petrochemical Construction conference in June. “It’s maybe two to five years.”That means key decisions may be made while <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/donald-trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a> remains in office — though state and local regulators will also face important calls over permits and construction planning.For some living near the center of the planned petrochemical expansion, the problem is readily apparent.“We’re not going to be able to double down on fossil fuels,” Dixon said, “and comply with the Paris climate agreement.”Follow the DeSmog investigative series, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-plastics" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Fracking for Plastics</a>, and get your questions answered with our <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/21/field-guide-petrochemical-and-plastics-industry" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Field Guide to the Petrochemical and Plastics Industry</a></div><div>---</div></div><div></div><div><span class="title" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?451365-2/saudi-america" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">Bethany McLean, Saudi America</a><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Vanity Fair's Bethany McLean took a critical look at the fracking industry…<span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">booktv 1018</div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">=</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/18/congressman-clay-higgens-gas-industry-three-percenters">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/18/congressman-clay-higgens-gas-industry-three-percenters</a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div class="new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 15px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.7px;">Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana arrived at this year's <a href="http://www.ourenergypolicy.org/event/expanding-global-gas-infrastructure/" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">Expanding Global Gas Infrastructure seminar</a> with a message.</div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="min-height: 280px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">“Welcome to the war for the future of our planet,” Higgins said to the gathered officials from liquefied natural gas (LNG) firms and other fossil fuel companies.“My role as your representative is to be not just your ally,” Higgins added, “but your warrior. Please allow the service of my office to represent the point of the spear that you wield. We'll knock down every bureaucratic wall. We'll kick down every federal barrier. We'll work with you. We'll work for you.”Higgins, who represents Louisiana’s Third District in the U.S. House of Representatives, offered up a very specific idea of where the LNG industry, which exports gas from wells drilled and fracked in the U.S. to other countries, should fit into that planetary war.“Some of you know, some of you perhaps do not, that the Revolutionary soldiers that gave birth to this nation, represented only three percent of the populace, the colonists,” he said. “Some of us refer to ourselves as 'Three Percenters.'”“You, ladies and gentlemen, are the Three Percenters of the modern era,” he continued, “where wars are fought with monies and strategies and energy.”He asked the crowd to “harken back to the courage and the faith represented by the three percent that you now join.”What Higgins didn’t mention during his talk is that the Three Percenter ideology (sometimes written as 3%er or III%er) has its roots in a loosely organized right-wing militia movement with a troubling history of violent attacks and attracting white supremacists to its ranks.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">The Three Percenter Movement and Its Ties to White Supremacy and Violence</h3>The Three Percenter movement was founded in 2008, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/michael-brian-vanderboegh-0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to the Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, which notes that claim that three percent of American colonists took up arms is “disputed” by scholars and historians.Because the network is loosely organized, Three Percenter groups represent a range of beliefs which are at times contradictory. Some Three Percenter organizations appear to focus heavily on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/1000000PatriotsDefendingOurSecondAmendmentRights/posts/-what-is-a-three-percenter-during-the-american-revolution-the-active-forces-in-t/466057346798458/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">gun rights</a>. Some have said they are <a href="http://www.fox9.com/news/investigators/minnesota-3-percenters-say-theyre-ready-for-civil-war" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">preparing for civil war</a> while others <a href="https://www.mymilitia.com/forums/topic/9971-three-percenter-state-chapter-louisiana/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">describe</a> themselves as “true patriots” or <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/election-matters/wisconsin-three-percenters-group-defends-itself-republican-lawmaker-defends-visit/article_9060427a-109d-51ef-b31b-b4977437fd0f.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">say</a> they’re “very pro-government, so long as the government abides by the Constitution.”Some Three Percenter groups have publicly <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/election-matters/wisconsin-three-percenters-group-defends-itself-republican-lawmaker-defends-visit/article_9060427a-109d-51ef-b31b-b4977437fd0f.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">disavowed</a> racist ideology, while an Alberta-based chapter has been <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/three-percenters-canada-1.4647199" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">labeled</a> Canada’s “most dangerous” extremist group and a Georgia-based branch is considered an “anti-Muslim hate group,” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/hate-groups-in-america/17/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to CBS News</a>.Nationwide, Three Percenter adherents have <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/undercover-border-militia-immigration-bauer/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">engaged</a> in self-appointed, heavily armed “border patrols,” <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-oklahoma-bomb-plot-arrest-20170814-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">attempted</a> to detonate a car bomb outside a bank in Oklahoma City last year, and bombed a mosque <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/blog/hate-report-get-to-know-the-three-percenters/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in Minnesota</a> in March.Three Percenters also provided self-appointed “security,” via an armed presence, during the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/charlottesville-timeline/?utm_term=.588bae5e1643" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">deadly</a> Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.Parts of the Three Percenter network sought to distance themselves from white supremacists following the deaths in Charlottesville last year. The Three Percenters National Council <a href="https://www.thethreepercenters.org/single-post/2017/08/12/The-Three-Percenters-Official-Statement-Regarding-the-Violent-Protests-in-Charlottesville" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">issued</a> a “stand down” order, writing that while their group would “support and defend everyone's right to free speech, we will not align ourselves with any type of racist group.”It’s not clear whether Rep. Higgins counts himself as a member of any particular Three Percenter chapter or organization. A spokesperson for Higgins had not replied to questions from DeSmog as of publication time. But it’s not the first time Higgins has been connected to the Three Percenter movement.In May, Higgins drew scrutiny over t-shirts with what appeared to be a <a href="https://www.bayoubrief.com/2018/08/13/captain-of-the-militia/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Three Percenter logo</a> on the back. The shirts were distributed to participants in the “Redemption Ride,” a motorcycle and jeep ride featuring Higgins and Dog the Bounty Hunter. Registration payments were <a href="http://captainhiggins.com/redemptionride/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">processed online</a> as individual donations to Higgins’ congressional campaign.
Three Percenter <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=three+percenter+logo&client=firefox-b-1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmkYmt54zeAhUMvFkKHZgzBGEQ7Al6BAgGECE&biw=1536&bih=752" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">logos</a> commonly feature the roman numeral three surrounded by a circle of thirteen stars.Higgins, a former police officer, resigned from the Opelousas, Louisiana, police department in 2007 while <a href="http://theind.com/article-24002-clay-higgins-resigned-from-opd-in-2007-on-cusp-of-major-disciplinary-measures.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">facing disciplinary action</a> for “unnecessary force on a subject” and making “false statements during an internal investigation.”He went on to work for the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s office, but, as the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/07/this-is-what-happens-in-war-gop-congressman-defends-call-for-killing-radical-muslims/?utm_term=.5e8e4a7413c3" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>, “resigned after he appeared in a viral video calling a group of predominantly black gang members ‘thugs,’ ‘heathens,’ and ‘animals.’”Rep. Higgins referenced his role in law enforcement — but not the reasons he’d resigned — during his talk to the gas exporting industry, held in Washington, D.C. on March 22. “Before I became a Congressman, I was a street cop, for twelve years,” he said. “It was a hell of a demotion from Captain to Congressman, I would like you to know. But I have embraced this path because I love my country and I serve my fellow man.”Despite his law enforcement background and current role as a lawmaker, Rep. Higgins — who still refers to himself online as “Captain” Higgins — seemed to ignore the distinction between being suspected of wrongdoing and being guilty, and to connect being Muslim to crimes meriting death, when he wrote in a June 2017 <a href="https://www.facebook.com/captclayhiggins/posts/997878010315211:0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Facebook post</a>:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">“Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter. Their intended entry to the American homeland should be summarily denied. Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down. Hunt them, identify them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.”</blockquote>He later <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/07/this-is-what-happens-in-war-gop-congressman-defends-call-for-killing-radical-muslims/?utm_term=.5e8e4a7413c3" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told the Washington Post</a> that he didn’t expect those comments to be controversial and that he stood by what he wrote.The following month, Higgins released <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5shebLp9Onw" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a video</a> in which he narrated his walk through the Auschwitz-Berkenau Memorial and Museum, including inside the Auschwitz gas chambers — despite signs at the entrance requesting that visitors maintain silence in that building. The video concludes with an image of Higgins above the logo for his congressional campaign website.The video drew international condemnation, including from the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AnneFrankCenterforMutualRespect/posts/congressman-your-conduct-at-auschwitz-is-a-global-disgrace-us-congressman-clay-h/10155606259574040/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">called</a> the video a “global disgrace.” Higgins subsequently <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/340710-anne-frank-center-calls-gop-lawmakers-auschwitz-video-a-global-disgrace" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">issued an apology</a> and retracted the video.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Fossil Fuel Industry Funds Higgins</h3>Higgins’ record has not appeared to deter some companies in the gas industry from funding his political campaign.Tellurian, Inc. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/tellurian-driftwood-lng/tellurian-to-start-building-la-driftwood-lng-export-terminal-in-2019-idUSL1N1UZ0FV" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">plans to begin</a> construction on the Driftwood LNG export terminal, sited in Higgins’ district, next year. The Driftwood terminal will have the capacity to export 3.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from the Gulf Coast, fed by pipelines <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/shipping/122617-tellurians-driftwood-lng-export-terminal-faces-delay-due-to-us-ferc-schedule" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">connecting</a> the terminal to the Permian and Haynesvilles shales in Texas and Louisiana.In 2018, Higgins was Tellurian’s second biggest recipient of political contributions in the House of Representatives, just after Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Democrat, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000068133&cycle=2018" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to The Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org</a>.In April, Higgins signed onto <a href="https://clayhiggins.house.gov/sites/clayhiggins.house.gov/files/La%20Delegation%20Ltr%20to%20FERC%204-23-18.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a letter</a> to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), urging the commission to “review the [Driftwood LNG project’s] application as expeditiously as possible” and asserting that “the project enjoys substantial community and state support.”“We're going to bring pressure at every opportunity,” Higgins said in a <a href="https://clayhiggins.house.gov/media/press-releases/higgins-delegation-urge-ferc-approve-driftwood-lng-permits" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">public statement</a> accompanying that letter.All told, Higgins received $51,850 from the oil and gas industry from 2017 to 2018, making the industry Higgins’ <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00039953" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">second largest source</a> of campaign contributions after <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=Q03" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Leadership PACs</a>, or political action committees run by politicians.On his website, Higgins strikes a different tone than he did in his talk to the industry, when he pledged to be “not just your ally but your warrior” and to “kick down every federal barrier.”“While unnecessary regulations will be removed,” his <a href="https://clayhiggins.house.gov/issues/energy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">issues page</a> says, “it is important that a balanced approach is taken that results in real economic benefits but also considers environmental impacts.”Higgins has expressed doubts in climate science, telling <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/watch-louisiana-rep-clay-higgins-skepticism-human-caused-climate-change" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">PBS News Hour</a> in August 2017: “Climate change has always happened, that's my argument, well before, you know, we had four-wheel drive trucks and boats and Suburbans rolling around or, you know, large industrial plants and whatnot.”(NASA's website on the causes of climate change <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">points out that</a> “In its Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet.”)<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Paving the Path for LNG Exports</h3>Last year, Higgins introduced a bill that would streamline the approval process for LNG export projects.“While the United States has a strong and transparent regulatory process for the approval of LNG export terminals, there is no question that this process is expensive and time-consuming,” LNG Allies, the organization that sponsored the seminar where Higgins made his comments about the Three Percenters, said in a July 2017 <a href="https://clayhiggins.house.gov/media/press-releases/higgins-cassidy-introduce-bill-expedite-lng-export-approvals" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a> commending Higgins and a Senate sponsor of the bill. “Thus, LNG Allies supports measures — such as the LNG Now Act — that would lessen the time and expense of securing LNG project authorizations.”In September, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission moved the Driftwood project one step further along by releasing an Environmental Impact Statement for the project, Higgins praised the commission. “Under President Trump’s leadership, FERC has demonstrated that it is determined to work past the bureaucratic barriers that have delayed project approvals,” Higgins <a href="https://clayhiggins.house.gov/media/press-releases/higgins-commends-ferc-issuing-eis-driftwood-lng-project" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> in a press release.During the industry seminar in March, Higgins made his stance on exports of American fossil fuels clear.“LNG exports must grow,” Higgins said. “The sun should not set upon the expansion of LNG.”And he again sought to connect the gas industry to the Three Percenters.“Because together, as the Three Percenters, we represent everything that's right about this world,” he told the industry representatives, “and we stand against everything that's wrong.”Some of his listeners appeared receptive to Higgins’ message.“I think we're all Three Percenters now, aren't we?” a panel moderator said as the Congressman from Louisiana left the microphone, to a smattering of applause.</div></div></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">=</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-california-public-lands-2594203156.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-california-public-lands-2594203156.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Trump</a> administration took the first steps on Wednesday towards opening up 1.6 million acres of public land in California to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fracking</a> and oil drilling, <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article216322295.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Sacramento Bee reported</a>.In a <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/08/08/2018-16957/notice-of-intent-for-potential-amendment-to-the-resource-management-plan-for-the-bakersfield-field" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">notice of intent</a> published on the Federal Register Wednesday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it would prepare an environmental impact statement on the use of fracking on 400,000 acres of public land and 1.2 million acres of mineral estate overseen by BLM in California counties including Fresno, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/400939-trump-administration-opens-door-to-fracking-in-california" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Hill reported</a>.Concerned citizens have 30 days from Wednesday to comment on the proposal.The move would lift a five-year moratorium on leasing federal land in California to oil companies, <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Center for Biological Diversity</a> (CBD) said in a <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/california-oil-drilling-08-08-2018.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">statement</a>.It also comes less than a week after the Trump administration <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-fuel-efficiency-proposal-2592345279.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">proposed</a> revoking California's waiver to set its own vehicle emissions standards under the Clean Air Act and just days after Trump <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-says-california-lawmakers-to-blame-for-wildfires-2593274782.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">blamed</a> the state's environmental policies for the record-breaking <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">wildfires</a> it is currently battling."It's a coordinated attack on California by the Trump administration," CBD senior attorney Clare Lakewood told The Hill.No federal lands in the state have been leased to oil companies since 2013, when a federal judge found that the BLM had leased land in Monterey County without fully considering the environmental impact of fracking.Environmentalists are concerned that fracking can increase the risk of earthquakes and contaminate groundwater, The Sacramento Bee reported.The later risk is increased in California, a 2015 report from the California Council on Science and Technology found, because fracking in the state happens in areas with shallow depths close to groundwater and uses an especially high amount of toxic chemicals, The CBD reported.Residents of San Luis Obispo are even considering a ballot measure this November that would ban new fracking operations and oil wells in parts of the county that are unincorporated, though it would have no impact on what happens on federal land, The Sacramento Bee reported.One of the key movers behind that initiative, Charles Varni of the Coalition to Protect San Luis Obispo County, told The Sacramento Bee that he was angered by the BLM's decision."We don't want to see any expansion of oil and gas extraction in San Luis Obispo County," he said. "We want to protect our groundwater resources for higher uses."<a href="https://earthjustice.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Earthjustice</a> attorney Greg Loarie said that, while he was glad that the BLM was investigating the impacts of fracking, he thought such an investigation was a little beside the point."[A]nalyzing the impacts of fracking is like analyzing the impacts of smoking cigarettes: there's really no question that more fracking would be terrible for California," he said in the CBD statement.<div class="around-the-web"><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mexico-bans-fracking-2592125998.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Newly Elected President of Mexico to Ban Fracking ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/second-controversial-fracked-gas-pipeline-runs-into-legal-trouble-2593893066.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Second Controversial Fracked Gas Pipeline Runs Into Legal Trouble ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="http://mb.boardhost.com/UntilRitaReturns/msg/1533769616.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Trump officials open door to fracking in California ›</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/05/06/us-tax-breaks-shale-oil-gas-master-limited-partnerships">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/05/06/us-tax-breaks-shale-oil-gas-master-limited-partnerships</a></div><div>
</div><div>no lnx</div><div><div>About a half decade ago, as the shale drilling rush was sweeping across the U.S., drillers needed upfront cash — and quick — to let them snap up acreage, drill and frack exploratory wells, and hone their skills at the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that fueled an oil and gas boom.</div><div>
</div><div>Bankers and financiers began attending shale industry conferences, marketing a clever idea. By dusting off an obscure part of the tax code, drillers and pipeline builders could attract a different class of investor than would usually look at a boom-and-bust prone industry, an investor hunting for stability and predictability. Form a Master Limited Partnership, or MLP, shale drillers and pipeline builders were advised, and you'll be able to access that capital.</div><div>
</div><div>[series:</div><div>The Fracking Industry’s Water Nightmare</div><div>The Fracking Industry Is Cannibalizing Its Own Production, Increasing Spill Risks</div><div>Oil Industry Plans to Keep Workers Safe—by Firing Them and Having Robots Do Their Jobs</div><div>Rise of the Machines: Fracking Execs Plan Profits by Using Automation to Shrink Workforce</div><div>Why It Matters If Fracking Companies Are Overestimating Their ‘Proved’ Oil and Gas Reserves</div><div>Flip This Well: How Fracking Company CEOs Get Rich While Losing Billions</div><div>This Fed Policy Enabled the Fracking Industry’s $280 Billion Loss</div><div>How Wall Street Enabled the Fracking ‘Revolution’ That’s Losing Billions</div><div>GOP Tax Law Bails Out Fracking Companies Buried in Debt</div><div>Low Octane: The Surprising Reason Shale Oil Makes a Poor Fuel for High-Tech Cars and Trucks</div><div>Despite Disappointing Returns, Oil Driller Pushes Ahead with Fracking Near Rare Texas Wildlands]</div><div>
</div><div>The Secret of the Great American Fracking Bubble</div><div>The pitch for investors on MLPs was hard to resist: They “offer high yields and low taxes,” as the Financial Times described them in 2013. The tax benefits were a huge part of the draw, especially for wealthy investors (not just individuals, but also pension funds, which poured in billions).</div><div>
</div><div>The biggest benefit: a tax loophole that lets MLPs dodge so-called “double taxation,” paid by regular corporations and much-hated by investors, in which tax is paid both by the corporation on earning money and by investors as personal income. No corporate income tax, more money to go around for everyone but the government.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2000, MLPs had a total market value of less than $14 billion; by 2014, they had drawn over $500 billion in investments and some people were breathlessly predicting MLPs could wind up a trillion-dollar asset class.</div><div>
</div><div>And MLPs offer another quirk that investors found exciting. Holders not only stand to collect “distributions,” or a percentage of profits every three months, they can also trade MLP shares like stocks, meaning there were two ways to profit during the sector's rapid expansion.</div><div>
</div><div>Meanwhile, the tax benefits were substantial — from 2009 to 2012, MLPs shaved $13 billion dollars off their beneficiaries' tax bills, one 2013 report calculated.</div><div>
</div><div>Investment firms pushed MLPs hard. In 2014, Bloomberg reported that 109 out of 114 MLPs had favorable recommendations from the majority of Wall Street analysts covering them. “At the top, everybody’s a believer,” Timothy Gramatovich, Chief Investment Officer at California-based Peritus Asset Management, told Bloomberg.</div><div>
</div><div>Wall Street loved them for their own reasons: the $890.3 million that Bloomberg calculated MLPs earned banks in fees in 2013. “MLPs are Wall Street’s dream,” a Hedgeye Risk Management analyst observed. “They’re fee machines.”</div><div>
</div><div>MLPs helped to pour gasoline on the shale industry's fire, fueling the rapid expansion of fracking nationwide. In a perfect trifecta of poor public policy, the benefits from an energy MLP are exclusively available to producers of non-renewable fuels, set up a tax shelter benefitting these corporations, and create incentives for companies to go deeper into debt....</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> =<a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/rainforest-action-network-why-defending-indigenous-rights-integral-fighting-climate" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/environment/rainforest-action-network-why-defending-indigenous-rights-integral-fighting-climate</a>...Since the fracking industry began on Casey Camp-Horinek’s reservation in Ponca, Oklahoma, tribal members have experienced a <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/battling-pollution-our-lands-mekasi-horinek" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">spike in cancer</a>. She says that since fracking began there, her small community <a href="https://www.movementrights.org/seeking-climate-justice-for-the-ponca-nation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">averages a death per week</a>. The water wells on her reservation are now <a href="https://intercontinentalcry.org/ponca-nation-oklahoma-recognize-rights-nature-stop-fracking/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">too toxic to drink</a>. “They need to understand that what they call resources, we call life sources. We all know that water is life. The years of fish kills related to the fracking and injection wells amount to environmental genocide.”Eriel Deranger leads a panel, “Belly of the Beast,” featuring Indigenous frontline land defenders fighting extractive industries. Casey Camp-Horinek consoles Cherri Foytlin as she expressed the corporate and governmental opposition she faces fighting the Bayou Bridge pipeline. (image: Rudi Tcruz)]Eriel Deranger, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, expressed during a press conference that the U.S. and Canada, by further investing in dirty energy projects that infringe on Indigenous rights of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (like Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners’ Bayou Bridge pipeline, Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline, and TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, to name a few) are making decisions and policies that move society further away from a climate-stable future. “They aren’t adhering to international climate commitments,” said Deranger, who is a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. “This is an indication that we the people, Indigenous peoples, must be prepared to take real action on climate change and be the leaders for the protection of Mother Earth.”...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><h1 class="title">=</h1><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-wastewater-spikes-2596433647.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Fracking Wastewater Spikes 1,440% in Half Decade</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2596433647" data-authors="DeSmogBlog" data-headline="Fracking Wastewater Spikes 1,440% in Half Decade" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief">By Sharon KellyBetween 2011 and 2016, fracked oil and gas wells in the U.S. pumped out record-breaking amounts of wastewater, which is laced with toxic and radioactive materials, a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-08-fracking-risen-percent.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">new Duke University </a><a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-08-fracking-risen-percent.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">study</a><a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-08-fracking-risen-percent.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"> concludes</a>. The amount of wastewater from fracking rose 1,440 percent during that period.Over the same time, the total amount of water used for fracking rose roughly half as much, 770 percent, according to the paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances."Previous studies suggested hydraulic fracturing does not use significantly more water than other energy sources, but those findings were based only on aggregated data from the early years of fracking," Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, said in a statement. "After more than a decade of fracking operation, we now have more years of data to draw upon from multiple verifiable sources."The researchers predict that spike in water use will continue to climb.And over the next dozen years, they say the amount of water used could grow up to 50 times higher when fracking for shale gas and 20 times higher when fracking for oil—should prices rise. The paper, titled "The Intensification of the Water Footprint of Hydraulic Fracturing," was based on a study conducted with funding from the National Science Foundation."Even if prices and drilling rates remain at current levels, our models still predict a large increase by 2030 in both water use and wastewater production," said Andrew J. Kondash, a PhD student in Vengosh's lab who was lead author of the paper.<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">More Water Than Oil</h3>The shale industry has been heavily focused on amping up the amount of fossil fuels it can pump per well by drilling longer horizontal well bores and using more sand, water and chemicals when fracking (which raises the costs per well and, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/08/10/fracking-industry-cannibalizing-own-production-increasing-spill-risks" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">as DeSmog recently reported</a>, raises risks of water pollution).But the water use and wastewater production per well have been growing even faster than the per-well fossil fuel production, the researchers found, labeling the water demand and wastewater growth "much higher" than the oil or gas increases.<div class="share-tab-img share-buttons share-trigger" style="max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; overflow: hidden;"><img class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9VZK7Z1534518821" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="19a91" lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rbl.ms/18311966/980x.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><div class="share-media-panel">Shale drilling and fracking often occurs in areas already suffering from water stress.Duke UniversityThe researchers studied data from more than 12,000 oil and gas wells representing each of the major shale-producing regions in the U.S.
Their findings are particularly troubling news for arid areas like the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, where underground water supplies are already taxed by residential and agricultural demand, and where fights over water use are brewing.On average, a Permian Basin well used 10.3 million gallons of water in 2016, according to a <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Bigger-wells-but-more-water-12512262.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">San Antonio Express-News investigation</a> earlier this year—more than double the average per-well demand just a few years ago.<h3>A Waterfall of Waste</h3>The wastewater problem has attracted the eye of industry analysts, particularly in the Permian."One of the biggest risks facing operators today is the issue of produced water," <a href="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5ac4b8ca6484cf1bd33e91bb/5b4de9428ebe67c7d3f847ff_Oilfield%20Tech%20Article.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a><a href="http://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5ac4b8ca6484cf1bd33e91bb/5b4de9428ebe67c7d3f847ff_Oilfield%20Tech%20Article.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Ryan Duman</a>, a Wood Mackenzie senior energy analyst, describing how in parts of Texas and New Mexico, wells can produce up to 10 gallons of wastewater for every gallon of crude oil. "The sheer volume of water is unprecedented."And that wastewater can be a toxic blend that's very difficult to treat, in part because it may contain high levels of corrosive salts, naturally occurring radioactive materials, and fracking chemicals whose identities are considered trade secrets and which even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can't list.The agency highlighted this fact in its 2016 <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/12/13/fracking-can-contaminate-drinking-water-has-made-some-water-supplies-unusable-epa-announces-long-awaited-study" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">national study on fracking and American drinking water supplies</a>. While drafted under strong pressure from industry, the EPA study found that fracking not only generates vast amounts of wastewater but also can and has polluted drinking water supplies in areas nationwide."There aren't water quality standards or even approved analytical methods for most of the chemicals we know are a concern in produced water," <a href="http://nmpoliticalreport.com/868263/nm-officials-consider-options-to-reuse-oilfield-water-en/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> Colin Leyden, senior manager for state regulatory and legislative affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund.There's so much toxic wastewater produced from fracking oil and gas in the U.S. that it's difficult to envision just how much water comes from the wells. Expressed in terms of barrels or swimming pools, the numbers still grow dizzyingly high.One way to think of it is literally in terms of a waterfall of toxic waste. "One of the things I think we can lose sight of is just how much produced water we are creating … which is more on a per day basis than Niagara Falls has going over it in an hour," <a href="http://www.lw.com/people/joel-mack" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Joel Mack</a>, an attorney at Latham & Watkins, a firm which <a href="https://www.lw.com/industries/OilAndGas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">represents</a> oil and gas companies, <a href="https://www.epmag.com/service-providers-regulators-can-help-tackle-water-management-1711821" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recently said</a> in an E&P Magazine article. He has predicted that water-related costs in the Permian could top $17 billion in 2018.Wastewater disposal—which often uses "injection wells" that pump toxic water down underground into areas where oil has been pumped out—is suspected not only of playing a role in causing earthquakes across the U.S., but also linked by scientists to <a href="http://blog.smu.edu/research/2018/03/20/radar-images-show-large-swath-of-texas-oil-patch-is-heaving-and-sinking-at-alarming-rates/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the emergence of massive sinkholes</a> in parts of Texas."The ground movement we're seeing is not normal," said geophysicist Zhong Lu, an earth sciences professor at Southern Methodist University, who recently published research that highlighted the connection of the sinkholes to fracking. "These hazards represent a danger to residents, roads, railroads, levees, dams, and oil and gas pipelines, as well as potential pollution of ground water."<h3>Wringing Water From the Desert</h3>The industry's demand for water during fracking is also a growing concern, especially in the Permian Basin, which produces most of America's shale oil and which stretches in part over the Chihuahuan Desert.Summer temperatures in the Permian can often <a href="https://www.weather.gov/maf/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">top 100 degrees</a>. The <a href="https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/pecos/texas/united-states/ustx1033" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">average annual rainfall</a> in Pecos, Texas, located in the basin, is just 11.55 inches (compared to a <a href="http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-state-precipitation.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Texas-wide </a><a href="https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-state-precipitation.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">average</a><a href="http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-state-precipitation.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> of 28.9 inches a year</a>). Much of New Mexico has been <a href="https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/new-mexico" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in the grips</a> of a severe drought since the year began, and the same is true to a lesser degree <a href="https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/texas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in Texas</a> as well.This means demand for water for drilling and fracking is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry. "Next to profitability and safety, water may well be the next most important topic for an oil company," Laura Capper, CEO at EnergyMakers Advisory Group in Houston, told <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-14/forget-oil-water-is-the-new-ticket-for-pipeline-growth-in-texas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bloomberg</a>. "It has risen to the forefront over the last five years unlike anything I've ever seen."And as the climate warms, Texas and New Mexico will also benefit less from water supplied by rivers flowing into the state from more lush regions. The Rio Grande River Basin is <a href="http://nmpoliticalreport.com/868263/nm-officials-consider-options-to-reuse-oilfield-water-en/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">expected</a> to see less water flowing per year, with flows down four to 14 percent over the next dozen years, and the Colorado River Basin expected to dry up even more significantly, up to 30 percent by 2050.Most of the water used in the region is claimed by the agricultural industry—60 percent compared to the one percent used by the oil and gas industry. But a key difference is that water used for fracking is often permanently removed from the hydrologic cycle, because it becomes so contaminated that it must be injected in underground disposal wells. This means that the freshwater used by the oil and gas industry can add up over time much more dramatically than water used by other industries.In addition, spats over the oil and gas industry's use of water in the Permian are flaring up between its two states. Driven by Permian Basin demand, some landowners in Texas are selling water to drilling companies, drawing down aquifers relied on by residents of New Mexico."Texas is stealing New Mexico's water," New Mexico State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/07/texas-landowners-new-mexico-stealing-water-fracking/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told The Texas Tribune</a>. "If you put a whole bunch of straws in Texas and you don't have any straws in New Mexico, you're sucking all the water from under New Mexico out in Texas and then selling it back to New Mexico."The latest findings from Duke reinforce this tension, showing "a need to find alternative water sources," the doctoral student Kondash <a href="https://psmag.com/environment/fracking-operations-are-using-more-and-more-water" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told the Pacific Standard</a>."Especially in water-scarce areas," he predicted, "you will have more strain and more competition for water."<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-wastewater-spikes-2596433647.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-wastewater-spikes-2596433647.html</a></div></div></div></div><div></div>=<div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mexico-bans-fracking-2592125998.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/mexico-bans-fracking-2592125998.html</a>
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</div>OMG local regs:<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/12/bradley-foundation-funds-web-climate-change-deniers/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/12/bradley-foundation-funds-web-climate-change-deniers/</a></div><div>
</div><div>Armiak</div><div>
</div><div>Bradley Foundation internal documents reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveal a concerted effort by the organization to delegitimize climate science, while promoting fossil fuel energy development in the United States.An analysis of Bradley’s climate-related activities shows that the foundation has made significant grants to support energy policy think tanks, attack-dog groups that target environmentalists, and efforts to discredit climate science.A 2013 internal foundation document details how Bradley “instructed staff to explore options…to make more energy-related grants.” The document also notes that the Board gave a “terminal grant” of $263,591 to the Sand County Foundation (SCF), which previously administered the Bradley Fund for the Environment.The documents do not reveal Bradley’s motivation in splitting from SCF, but they do outline a serious effort to promote fossil fuel industry interests at the expense of the environment.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CENTERS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL AND FOSSIL FUEL DEVELOPMENT</h2>As part of its push to support studies and public relations to cast doubt on mounting scientific evidence on climate change, Bradley has focused its resources on “Energy Policy Centers,” many of which are housed in “Bradley-supported” <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/spn/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">State Policy Network</a> (SPN) “think tanks.” SPN is a web of 156 right-wing groups in 49 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Canada, and the UK that receives funding from the billionaire Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation, and the Roe Foundation, as well as many multi-national corporations.The examined documents show that the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment (CEPE) at the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Manhattan Institute for Policy Research</a> (MIPR), a member of SPN, received a total of $500,000 for its Center, with another $200,000 distributed in <a href="http://www.bradleyfdn.org/Portals/0/pdfs/Report2016/2016%20Annual%20Report.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>. (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, February 23, 2016) CEPE works to promote fossil fuel development despite the devastating effects of climate change. A background document on CEPE states its goal clearly: “The Center’s research and public education activity aims at demonstrating that the United States is poised to reap substantial economic benefits in the form of job creation, lower gasoline and electricity prices, and increased productivity provided public policies allow companies to access valuable energy resources and distribute them at home and abroad.”A recommendation by Bradley staff on the Manhattan Institute’s 2016 grant proposal specifically states that CEPE is worth funding because, “They have succeeded in identifying and publicizing so many of the falsehoods that surround energy and the environment.” (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, February 23, 2016) Anexample of this “success” can be found in the work of CEPE senior fellow Mark Mills, who is recognized as originating the idea that North America can surpass the Middle East as the largest energy supplier in the world. (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, November 12, 2013)The Energy Policy Center (EPC) at another SPN “think tank”, the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Independence_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Independence Institute</a>, received $195,000 from the Bradley Foundation between 2012 and 2016.Bradley documents examined show that EPC’s purpose is to “consciously counter-balance former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s environmental think tank” at Colorado State University, which promotes a “New Energy Economy.”Bradley considers EPC to be highly successful in fighting local and federal environmental initiatives. The Bradley documents note that EPC was a “key coalition partner” in preempting local bans on fracking in Colorado, and that it “has developed a toolkit for policymakers, attorneys general, and other conservative state think tanks to help them push back against U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.” (Independence Institute GPR, June 2, 2015)In addition to these two centers, Bradley has funded the Center for Energy and Environment (CEE) at the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> (CEI), an “associate member” of SPN, and the Center for Energy Innovation and Independence at Consumers’ Research.CEE is led by the prominent climate change denier Myron Ebell, who steered Trump’s EPA transition team. Ebell also chairs the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cooler_Heads_Coalition" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Cooler Heads Coalition</a>, which brings together right-wing activists and scholars for monthly meetings. The coalition was established on May 6, 1997, “to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis.”CEI was long tied to tobacco disinformation campaigns, but is now a leading organization in the movement to discredit climate science.Bradley does not mention how much of its funding to CEI was designated for CEE operations. Between 1986 and 2015, Bradley Foundation gave $2.2 million to CEI, the majority of which was “to support general operations.” (Competitive Enterprise Institute GPR, June 2, 2015).The Center for Energy Innovation and Independence received $250,000 from Bradley in 2013 to get the new group off the ground. According to a background document, the group “will closely monitor federal environmental regulations and potentially lay the foundation for multi-state litigation against them, similar to those actions in the Obamacare and Dodd-Frank lawsuits, of which aggressive (Scott) Pruitt was and is a part.” Pruitt is the former AG of Oklahoma and recently resigned as the EPA Administrator under Trump.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SMEAR CAMPAIGNS AND FUNDING EFFORTS TO DISCREDIT CLIMATE SCIENCE</h2>At the same time Bradley rolled out funding for “Energy Policy Centers,” it was doling out cash to discredit environmental organizations and climate change science.A grant proposal record for the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Consumer_Freedom" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Consumer Freedom</a> (CCF), a front group created by the close Bradley ally <a target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Rick Berman</a>, details an organized effort to weaken the credibility of well-respected, national environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, and Food and Water Watch. (The Center for Consumer Freedom GPR, November 12, 2013) Berman also founded <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rick_Berman" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Berman and Company</a>, a notorious Washington, D.C.-based corporate lobbying and PR company known for creating numerous corporate “front groups” and astroturf propaganda campaigns.Berman’s anti-environmental project at CCF was called Big Green Radicals and was seeded with a $150,000 “public education” <a href="http://www.bradleyfdn.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=5haFFTeImkg=&portalid=0" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">grant</a> from Bradley in 2013.According to Bradley’s background document, the Big Green Radicals project would include the following components:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[N]ew, updated research profiles for NRDC, Food and Water Watch, and Sierra Club; standalone websites for all three organizations; a Facebook group seeded with several thousand fans to provide a base for the message; the production of two online videos to explain the real agenda of the environmental left; and Google keyword advertising for members of the media and the public searching for information about one of the targeted groups.</blockquote>In addition to providing the start-up funding for Big Green Radicals, Bradley gave $85,000 to the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Capital_Research_Center" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Capital Research Center</a> (CRC), a group led by former Berman and Company employee Scott Walter. The grant was designated for “general operations,” but it may have been used to support the publication Green Watch. A background document on CRC states that, “Green Watch tracks the money flow to environmental nonprofits and critiques their positions, and those of their allies, including their policymaking ones.” (Capital Research Center GPR, August 19, 2014)Since 2014, the Bradley Foundation has distributed numerous grants to discredit the vast amount of scientific research demonstrating the harmful effects of climate change. In 2014, it gave $65,000 to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_C.Marshall_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">George C. Marshall Institute</a> (GMI), a right-wing front group largely funded by oil and gas interests. Newsweek <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">called</a> GMI “a central cog in the denial machine” in 2007.GMI folded in late 2015, so Bradley recommended $50,000 in “seed funding” the following year for its “successor organization,” the CO2 Coalition. The coalition is led by a <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/William_Happer" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Dr. William Happer</a>, a well-known climate change denier. “We’re doing our best to try and counter this myth that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant. It’s not a pollutant at all,” Happer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Asj-3efMVB8" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> at a Heritage Foundation event on energy and climate.Another $10,000 Bradley grant in 2014 for the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CSCDGC) went to support its Science & Public Policy Institute (SPPI). A staff recommendation notes that SPPI “has helped demonstrate that no real-world data confirms that floods, draughts [sic], or hurricanes are becoming more frequent or severe, as global-warming alarmists allege. Neither is there any real-world data that sea levels are about to rise precipitously, inundating the world’s coasted [sic] lowlands, as is also often alleged.” (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change GPR, June 17, 2014)<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase;">ENERGY ROUNDTABLES</h2>Documents show that, beginning in 2013, Bradley provided funding to the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Thomas_Jefferson_Institute_for_Public_Policy" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy</a>, also an SPN member, to host and organize two “energy roundtables” a year — one before the Heritage Foundation’s annual Resource Bank meeting, and the other before SPN’s annual fall meeting. (Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 10, 2015)The $50,000-per-year grant from Bradley for the meetings was matched “by staff arrangement” by the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Consumer_Energy_Alliance" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">C</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Consumer_Energy_Alliance" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">onsumer Energy Alliance</a> (CEA), a front group for the energy industry that promotes fossil fuel development and opposes efforts to regulate its activities.“Planned and put on in close cooperation with the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), the roundtables allow state think tanks to better promote free-market energy and environmental policies,” one document states. (Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 12, 2013)Attendance has been high at the roundtables, with as many as “67 SPN leaders” attending the event in Denver in September 2014. The agenda for that meeting details presentations from a number of fossil fuel lovers including: Artic Power, Consumer Energy Alliance, Vital for Colorado, Devon Energy, GOPAC (a political action committee that backs and trains Republican candidates), and Freedom Partners. Freedom Partners, a funding conduit for the billionaire Koch brothers, delivered a talk on “Messaging and State Action.” (Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 11, 2014)<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BRADLEY GRANTEES WORKED TOGETHER TO DEFEAT LOCAL REGULATIONS ON FRACKING IN COLORADO</h2>In 2014, the Independence Institute and Berman’s Big Green Radicals worked in lockstep in Colorado to defeat local fracking bans, such as the one that passed by ballot measure in Longmont in November of 2013. A 2015 Bradley backgrounder on the Independence Institute praises the anti-fracking work of Independence Institute’s Energy Policy Center, saying, “It has also been a key coalition partner in the movement to stop local and statewide bans on hydraulic fracturing. Last year, current Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper crafted a delicately balanced compromise on local control of oil and gas drilling that removed all initiatives on the issue from the state ballot.”Berman’s Big Green Radicals rolled out an attack campaign to discredit anti-fracking efforts in the state in May of 2014. Big Green Radicals <a href="https://www.biggreenradicals.com/colorado/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">asserted</a>that “extreme groups, mostly based far from Colorado in San Francisco, New York, or Washington D.C., are spending millions and spreading their anti-science message to scare voters into approving ballot measures in November to send the oil and gas industry (and the jobs and affordable energy it provides) packing from the Centennial State.”The efforts by these two groups were successful in overturning local fracking bans. Bradley agreed and decreased its funding recommendation for EPC to $25,000 in 2016, saying, “it is unlikely that there will be any significant developments for EPC in the upcoming months, and therefore staff believes this reduced award is important.”It is uncertain where the next battleground for energy development will be for Bradley, but the documents demonstrate that they have the funds to bankroll infrastructure in place to discredit climate science and smear the opposition.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">OTHER NOTABLE BRADLEY GRANTS</h2>Other significant Bradley grants to support fossil fuel development or dispute climate science in recent years include:<ul style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">$150,000 to Opportunity Ohio for “program activities.” (2016)</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">$100,000 to Energy and Environment Legal Institute for “transparency practice general.” (2016) HORNER SCHNARE</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">$20,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment for “general operations.” (2016)</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">$200,000 to Competitive Enterprise Institute for “general operations” and “litigation.” (2013, 2015)</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">$100,000 to The Sand County Foundation for “energy resource development.” (2014)</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">$100,000 to National Center for Policy Analysis for “general operations.” (2014)</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">$20,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment for “general operations.” (2014)</li></ul></div><div></div>=<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oil and Gas Fields Leak Far More Methane than EPA Reports, Study Finds</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21062018/methane-leaks-oil-gas-climate-change-risks-natural-gas-slcp-global-warming-pollution-science-edf-study" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21062018/methane-leaks-oil-gas-climate-change-risks-natural-gas-slcp-global-warming-pollution-science-edf-study</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div></div><div><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-weakened-us-fossil-fuel-regulations-threaten-environmental-justice-in-colorado-87161">https://theconversation.com/how-weakened-us-fossil-fuel-regulations-threaten-environmental-justice-in-colorado-87161</a></div><div>
</div><div>From the start, President Donald Trump’s administration has made <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/04/trump-emvironmental-rollback-epa-scrap-regulations" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">dismantling regulations</a>, especially for the <a href="https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/stories/1060079189/search?keyword=%22deregulation%22" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">oil, gas and coal industries</a>, a top priority.</div>And though his <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-deregulatory-record-doesnt-include-much-actual-deregulation-96161" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">claims of rolling back</a> <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/has-trump-killed-more-regulations-than-any-other-president/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">more regulations than any other administration are exaggerated</a>, Trump’s team has <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060077573" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">tried hard to erase</a> many <a href="https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/stories/1060069079/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">environmental and energy-related rules</a>.Environmental Protection Agency Administrator <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/29/16684952/epa-scott-pruitt-director-regulations" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Scott Pruitt</a>, Interior Secretary <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/ryan-zinkes-deregulation-quest/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Ryan Zinke</a>and Trump have teamed up with the Republican-led Congress to <a href="https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/stories/1060069079/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">get federal agencies</a> on the case, by <a href="https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1060078515/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">streamlining environmental permitting</a> and <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/us-environmental-protection-agency-scott-pruitts-ethics-violations-havent-stopped-his-rollbacks?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">attempting other sweeping changes</a>.As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9cA_KYAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">environmental sociologist</a> who has spent hundreds of hours researching communities directly affected by oil and gas production, I find that many people living in these places feel that fossil fuel industries already had the upper hand before Trump took office.Even among people who support drilling, many believe these industries need to be more regulated. The residents I have interviewed <a href="http://www.cfoy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/PENNSYLVANIA-FARMERS1-s2-0-S0743016715300668-main.pdf" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">report feeling uncertain and vulnerable</a>. They tell researchers like me they consider themselves powerless to control their surroundings or to protect the environment, their health or their property. Reducing regulations even more will only intensify these problems.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">The fracking boom</h2><div>...</div>=<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-fracking-wastewater-2568743255.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-fracking-wastewater-2568743255.html</a>How <div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">Trump’s EPA Is Moving to Undo Fracking Wastewater Protections</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2568743255" data-authors="DeSmogBlog" data-headline="How Trump’s EPA Is Moving to Undo Fracking Wastewater Protections" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">By Sharon KellyBack in 2008, residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and surrounding areas received a notice in the mail advising them to drink <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bottled-water" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bottled water</a> instead of tap water—a move that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) internal memos at the time <a href="http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/DRILLING_DOWN_SERIES.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">described</a> as "one of the largest failures in U.S. history to supply clean <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" style="text-decoration-line: none;">drinking water</a> to the public."The culprit: <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wastewater" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" style="text-align: center;">wastewater</a> from oil and gas drilling and coal mines. This included <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" style="text-align: center;">fracking</a> wastewater that state officials had allowed to be dumped at local sewer plants—facilities incapable of removing the complex mix of chemicals, corrosive salts and radioactive materials from that kind of industrial waste before they piped the "treated"water back into Pennsylvania's rivers.The levels of corrosive salt in some of the oil and gas wastewater was so high that at <a href="https://www.wateronline.com/doc/pa-dep-fines-jersey-shore-75000-for-sewage-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">some sewage plants</a>, it was suspected of killing off the "good bacteria" that removes fecal coliform and other dangerous bacteria from raw sewage.State and federal regulators responded with a mix of <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/06/14/epa-bans-disposal-of-fracking-waste-water-at-public-treatment-plants/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">voluntary requests</a> and, eventually, rules designed to stop drillers from bringing their wastewater to ill-equipped <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/water" style="text-decoration-line: none;">water</a> treatment plants.Eight years after the Pittsburgh incident, in 2016, the EPA finished writing <a href="https://www.epa.gov/eg/oil-and-gas-extraction-effluent-guidelines" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the rules</a> that would stop that kind of failure from reoccurring, specifically forbidding sewage treatment plans from accepting untreated wastewater from fracked wells.A few months earlier, the EPA had announced its long-awaited <a href="https://www.epa.gov/hfstudy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">national study</a> of the risks that fracking-related pollution posed to American drinking water supplies. That study specifically examined the impacts of using sewage plants and commercial wastewater plants to handle fracking waste. It made special note of the dangers of toxic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals" style="text-decoration-line: none;">chemicals</a> called trihalomethanes that were created during the treatment process, as well as the likelihood that "radium, metals, and organic compounds can also be discharged."Changing the Rules Again?Now, the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> administration's EPA is <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-seeks-input-study-management-wastewater-oil-and-gas-extraction" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announcing</a> that it wants to study the industry's wastewater all over again. The Trump-era study will examine oil and gas wastewater, asking, in the administration's words, "whether any potential federal regulations that may allow for broader discharge of treated produced water to surface waters are supported."In other words, Trump's EPA is questioning whether the rules should be changed, allowing wastewater from oil and gas wells, including fracked wells, to make its way into America's rivers, streams, lakes and reservoirs after some treatment....</div></div><div><div class="views-field views-field-title" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/11/climate-change-two-degree-warming-fracking-natural-gas-rush-ingraffea" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: 700;">World May Hit 2 Degrees of Warming in 10-15 Years Thanks to Fracking, Says Cornell Scientist</a></div><div class="views-field views-field-body" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" style="text-align: left;">In 2011, a Cornell University research team first made the groundbreaking discovery that leaking methane from the shale gas fracking boom could make burning fracked gas worse for the climate than ...</div></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">=</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wall-street-fracking-revolution-2566742237.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/wall-street-fracking-revolution-2566742237.html</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div><div class="headline-container"><h1 class="headline h1" style="text-align: left;">         How Wall Street Enabled the Fracking 'Revolution' That's Losing Billions</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2566742237" data-authors="DeSmogBlog" data-headline="How Wall Street Enabled the Fracking 'Revolution' That's Losing Billions"><div class="body-description">By Justin MikulkaThe U.S. shale oil industry hailed as a "revolution" has burned through a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/18/finances-great-american-fracking-bubble" target="blank">quarter trillion dollars</a> more than it has brought in over the last decade. It has been a money-losing endeavor of epic proportions.In September 2016, the financial ratings service <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Oil-bust-on-par-wit-telecom-crash-of-dot-com-era-9218492.php" target="blank">Moody's released a report</a> on U.S. oil companies, many of which were hurting from the massive drop in oil prices. Moody's found that "the financial toll from the oil bust can only be described as catastrophic," particularly for small companies that took on huge debt to finance fracking shale formations when oil prices were high.<div id="AdThrive_Content_1_desktop" class="adthrive-ad adthrive-dynamic adthrive-content">And even though shale companies still aren't turning a profit, Wall Street continues to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2018/01/26/challenges-of-funding-shale-boom-2-0/%231d91d64d49b5" target="blank">lend the industry</a> more money while <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4135701-continental-resources-great-stock-oil-bulls" target="blank">touting these companies</a> as good investments. Why would investors do that?David Einhorn, star hedge fund investor and the founder of Greenlight Capital, has referred to the shale industry as "<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/04/investing/david-einhorn-oil-fracking-terrible-investment/index.html" target="blank">a joke</a>.""A business that burns cash and doesn't grow isn't worth anything," said Einhorn, who often goes against the grain in the financial world.Aren't investors supposed to be focused on putting money toward profitable companies? While, in theory, yes, the reality is quite different for industries like shale oil and housing.If the U.S. financial crisis of 2008 has revealed anything, it is that Wall Street isn't concerned with making <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/levin-repeatedly-references-shty-deal-at-goldman-hearing/" target="blank">a "shitty deal"</a> when it means <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/wall-street-bailout-executive-compensation/" target="blank">profits and bonuses for its traders and executives</a>, despite their roles in the crash.Wall Street makes money by facilitating deals much like a Vegas bookie makes money by taking bets. As the saying about Las Vegas goes: "The house always wins." What's true about casinos and gambling also holds true for Wall Street.Wall Street caused the 2008 financial crisis, with some of its architects personally benefiting. However, while a few executives profited, the result was a <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/04/art1full.pdf" target="blank">drop in employment of 8.8 million</a> people, and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/the-true-cost-of-the-bank-bailout/3309/" target="blank">according to Bloomberg News</a> in 2010, "at one point last year [2009] the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy."JP Morgan (along with much of Wall Street) required large sums of money in <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/jpmorgans-12-billion-bailout/" target="blank">the form of bailouts</a> to survive the fallout from all of the bad loans made, which brought about the housing crisis. Is JP Morgan steering clear of making loans to the shale industry? No. Quite the opposite.As shown in this chart of which banks are loaning money to shale company EOGResources, while all of the big players in Wall Street are in on the action, JP Morgan has the biggest bet.<div id="AdThrive_Content_2_desktop" class="adthrive-ad adthrive-dynamic adthrive-content"><img class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2V69H91525708089" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="0266f" src="https://assets.rbl.ms/17633440/980x.png" />To understand why JP Morgan and the rest of these banks would loan money to shale companies that continue to lose it, it's important to understand the gambling concept of "the vigorish" or the vig. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vigorish" target="blank">Merriam-Webster defines vigorish</a> as "a charge taken (as by a bookie or a gambling house) on bets."
Wall Street makes money by taking a cut of other people's money. To a gambling house, it doesn't matter if everyone else is making money or losing it, as long as the house gets its cut (the vig)—or as it's known in the financial world—fees.Understanding this concept gives insight into why investors have lent a quarter trillion dollars to the shale industry, which has burned through it. If you take the vig on a quarter trillion dollars, you have a big pile of cash. And while those oil companies may all go bankrupt, Wall Street never gives back the vig.Trent Stedman of the investment firm Columbia Pacific Advisors LLC <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank">explained to The Wall Street Journal</a> at the end of 2017 why shale producers would keep drilling more oil even when the companies are bleeding money on every barrel produced:<blockquote style="text-align: left;">"Some would say, 'We know it's bad economics, but it's what The Street wants.'"</blockquote>And "The Street" generally gets what it wants, even when it is clear that loaning money to shale companies that have been losing money for a decade and are already deep in debt is "bad economics." But Wall Street bonuses are based on how many "fees" an employee can bring to the bank. More fees mean a bigger bonus. And loans—even ones that are clearly bad economics—mean a lot more fees.Shale Oil Companies Are "Creatures of the Capital Markets"In 2017 "legendary" hedge fund manager Jim Chanos referred to shale oil companies as "<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/it-ll-take-oil-above-50-for-shale-boom-oil-sands-to-pay-off" target="blank">creatures of the capital markets</a>," meaning that without Wall Street money, they would not exist. Chanos is also on record as shorting the stock of heavily leveraged shale oil giant Continental Resources because the company can't even make enough money to pay the interest on its loans.And he has a point. In 2017 Continental <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4154414-continental-resources-rises-downturn" target="blank">spent $294.5 million </a>on interest expenses, which is approximately 155 percent of its 2017 adjusted net income generation. When you can't even pay the interest on your credit cards, you are broke.And yet in 2017, investor capital was still flowing, with Continental Resources among those bellying up to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2018/01/26/challenges-of-funding-shale-boom-2-0/%234f0e55ca49b5" target="blank">the Wall Street trough</a> for another billion in debt.<blockquote style="text-align: left;">"<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5469ca98-e065-11e7-8f9f-de1c2175f5ce" target="blank">In 2017, U.S. [exploration and production] firms raised more from bond sales</a> than in any year since the price collapse started in 2014, with offerings coming in at around $60 billion — up nearly 30 percent from 2016, according to Dealogic. Large-cap players like Whiting Petroleum, Continental Resources, Southwestern, Noble, Concho and Endeavor Energy Resources each raised $1 billion or more in the second half of 2017."</blockquote>How big of a problem is this business of loaning money to an industry burning through billions and burying itself in debt? So big that the CEO of shale company Anadarko Petroleum is blaming Wall Street and asking its companies to please stop loaning money to the shale oil industry. Yes, that's right.In 2017, Anadarko CEO Al Walker <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-street-cash-pumps-up-oil-production-even-as-prices-sag-1499419801" target="blank">told an investor conference</a> that Wall Street investors were the problem:<blockquote style="text-align: left;">"The biggest problem our industry faces today is you guys. You guys can help us help ourselves. It's kind of like going to AA. You know, we need a partner. We really need the investment community to show discipline."</blockquote><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-street-cash-pumps-up-oil-production-even-as-prices-sag-1499419801" target="blank">The Wall Street Journal reported</a> that Walker maintains: "Wall Street has become an enabler that pushes companies to grow production at any cost, while punishing those that try to live within their means."Imagine begging banks to stop loaning you money. And being ignored.Growing production at any cost is the story of the shale "revolution." The financial cost paid so far has been the more than $280 billion the industry has burned through—money that its companies have received from Wall Street and, despite the plea from Al Walker, continue to receive.The Economist <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21719436-exploration-and-production-companies-are-poised-go-another-investment-spree-americas" target="blank">summarized</a> the situation in 2017:<blockquote style="text-align: left;">"It [the shale industry] has burned up cash whether the oil price was at $100, as in 2014, or at about $50, as it was during the past three months. The biggest 60 firms in aggregate have used up $9 billion per quarter on average for the past five years."</blockquote>Higher oil prices are now being touted as the industry's savior but, as The Economist noted, the shale industry was losing money even when oil was $100 a barrel.Still Wall Street keeps giving the shale industry money and the shale industry keeps losing it as it ramps up production. To be clear, this arrangement makes shale company CEOs and financial lenders very rich, which is why the trend is likely to continue. And why Continental Resources CEO <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/harold-hamm-on-jim-chanos-continental-resources-short-2017-9" target="blank">Harold Hamm will continue to repeat</a>the myth that his industry is making money, as he did at the end of 2017:<blockquote style="text-align: left;">"For anybody to even put forth the suggestion we haven't had great expansion and wealth creation in this industry with horizontal drilling and all the technology that's come about the last 10 years, I mean, it's totally ridiculous."</blockquote>No one will argue that Hamm and his partners on Wall Street are not extremely wealthy. That has happened despite Hamm's company and the rest of the fracking industry losing epic sums of money. The same year Hamm made that statement, his company couldn't even cover its interest expenses. To put that in perspective, Continental Resources couldn't even make the equivalent of the minimum payment on its credit card.Watch What the Industry Does, Not What It SaysHigher oil prices are yielding <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/frackers-could-make-real-money-in-2018-if-they-dont-blow-it/ar-AAuXTdz" target="blank">more stories </a>about how 2018 will be the year that the shale industry finally makes a profit. Harold Hamm refers to it as Continental Resources' "<a href="http://newsok.com/article/5593269" target="blank">breakout year</a>." Interesting how potentially not losing money for a year is considered a "breakout year" in the shale industry.As reported on DeSmog, the industry certainly got a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/26/gop-tax-law-bails-out-fracking-companies-debt-eog-hamm" target="blank">huge boost</a> from the recent tax law, which will help its companies' short-term finances. Continental Resources alone took home $700 million in tax relief.Recent reports in the financial press detail how the new approach in the shale industry will be to focus only on profitable oil production, not just producing more barrels at a loss. As The Wall Street Journal put it in a headline: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank">Wall Street Tells Frackers to Stop Counting Barrels, Start Making Profits</a>.In that very article, Continental CEO Hamm assures that he is on board with this new approach, saying, "You are really preaching to the choir."But has Continental actually embraced this new approach of fiscal responsibility and restraint?Not so much.The fracking firm appears to have done the opposite, increasing production to record levels along with the rest of the shale industry. Continental recently reported plans <a href="http://newsok.com/article/5593269" target="blank">to drill 350 new wells</a> at an estimated cost of $11.7 million per well, which adds up to over $4 billion in total costs on those wells. The company currently holds more than $6 billion in debt and less than $100 million cash.How will Continental fund those new wells? Hamm has promised that going forward, there would be "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-continental-resources-ceo-absolutely-no-new-debt-2017-8" target="blank">absolutely no new debt</a>." Perhaps Continental will fund it by selling assets because without more debt, Continental does not have the money to fund those new wells. However, if past is prelude, then Wall Street will happily lend Continental as much money as it wants.Why would Hamm say one thing and do another? Well, he personally has accrued billions of dollars while his company has burned through billions.Despite leading Continental to another money-losing year in 2017, Hamm took home <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-contl-resources-salary/continental-resources-boosts-ceo-hamms-pay-38-percent-in-2017-idUSKCN1HC2LI" target="blank">a fat raise</a>.</div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">=</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/18/finances-great-american-fracking-bubble">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/18/finances-great-american-fracking-bubble</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div>2008, Aubrey McClendon was the <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/list-of-highest-paid-ceos-for-2008/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">highest paid</a> Fortune 500 CEO in America, a title he earned taking home $112 million for running Chesapeake Energy. Later dubbed <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bloomberg-Businessweek-Aubrey-McClendon-1959-2016/dp/B01CWBLDA0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“The Shale King,”</a> he was at the forefront of the oil and gas industry's next boom, made possible by advances in fracking, which broke open fossil fuels from shale formations around the U.S.What was McClendon’s secret? Instead of running a company that aimed to sell oil and gas, he was essentially flipping real estate: acquiring leases to drill on land and then reselling them for five to 10 times more, something <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2015/08/02/once-burned-twice-shy-utica-shale-touted-investors-shale-drillers-continue-posting-losses" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">McClendon explained</a> was a lot more profitable than “trying to produce gas.” But his story may serve as a cautionary tale for an industry that keeps making big promises on borrowed dimes — while its investors begin losing patience, a trend DeSmog will be <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">investigating in an in-depth series</a> over the coming weeks. From 2008 to 2009, Chesapeake Energy’s stock swung from $64 a share under McClendon to around $17. Today, it's worth just <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=NYSE:+CHK&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$3 a share</a> — the same price it was in 2000. A visionary when it came to fracking, McClendon perfected the formula of borrowing money to drive the revolution that reshaped American energy markets. <h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">An Industry Built on Debt</h3>Roughly a decade after McClendon's rise, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street Journal reported</a> that “energy companies [since 2007] have spent $280 billion more than they generated from operations on shale investments, according to advisory firm Evercore ISI.”As a whole, the American fracking experiment has been <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a financial disaster </a>for many of its investors, who have been plagued by the industry's heavy borrowing, low returns, and <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/amp/The-oil-bust-forced-more-than-330-North-American-12831308.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bankruptcies,</a> and the path to becoming profitable is lined with significant potential hurdles. Up to this point, the industry has been drilling the <a href="http://partners.wsj.com/ceraweek/connection/sweet-spot-key-shale/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“sweet spots” </a>in the country's major shale formations, reaching the easiest and most valuable oil first.But at the same time energy companies are borrowing more money to drill more wells, the sweet spots are drying up, creating a Catch-22 as more drilling drives more debt. “You have to keep drilling,” David Hughes, a geoscientist and fellow <a href="http://www.postcarbon.org/publications/shale-reality-check/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">specializing in shale gas and oil</a> production <a href="http://www.postcarbon.org/our-people/david-hughes/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">at the Post Carbon Institute</a>, told DeSmog. But he also noted that with most of the sweet spots already drilled, producers are forced to move to less productive areas.The result? “Productivity goes down and the costs remain the same,” he explained.While Hughes understands the industry's rationale for continuing to drill new wells at a loss, he doubts the sustainability of the practice.“I don't think in the long-term they can drill their way out of this,” Hughes told DeSmog.While politicians and the mainstream media tout an American energy “revolution,” it is becoming clear that — like the housing bubble just a few years earlier — the American oil and gas boom spurred by fracking innovations may be one of the largest money-losing endeavors in the nation's history. And it caught up with McClendon.In 2016, the shale king was indicted for rigging bids at drilling lease auctions. He died the very next day in a single car crash, leading to speculation McClendon committed suicide, a rumor impossible to confirm. However, the police chief on the scene <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/aubrey-mcclendon-no-evidence-suicide-death-indicted-oil-man-n588181" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noted</a>: “There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the roadway and that didn't occur.”The same could be said of the current shale industry. There is plenty of opportunity for these energy companies to correct their path — for example, by linking CEO pay to company profits rather than <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">oil production volumes</a> — but instead they are plowing <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/01/u-s-breaks-47-year-old-monthly-oil-production-record/#6b93d78468cc" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">full-speed ahead </a>with a business model that seems poised for a crash. <h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">But Hope Springs Eternal</h3>Of course, business media and conservative think tanks are still selling the story that the fracking industry has produced an economic and technical revolution.In 2017 Investors Business Daily ran an opinion piece with the title, <a href="https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/the-shale-revolution-is-a-made-in-america-success-story/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“The Shale Revolution Is A Made-In-America Success Story.”</a> It was authored by Mark Perry of the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Enterprise Institute</a> — a free market-focused think tank funded in part by the oil and gas industry.How does the author measure success? Not via profits. The metric Perry uses to argue the success of the fracking industry is production volume. And it is true that the volumes of oil produced by fracking shale are increasing and currently <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35052" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">at record levels</a>. But here is the catch — when you lose money on each barrel of oil you pump and sell — the more you pump, the more money you lose. While it is true that the industry has been successful at getting oil out of the ground, its companies have mostly lost money doing it.However, much like with the U.S. housing boom, this false narrative persists that the fracking industry is a money-making, rather than money-losing, venture.A <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-could-make-more-money-than-ever-in-2018-if-they-dont-blow-it-1516536000" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street Journal headline</a> published in early 2018 projected this eternal optimism about the fracking industry: “Frackers Could Make More Money Than Ever in 2018, If They Don’t Blow It.”This headline manages to be, at the same time, both very misleading and true. Misleading because the industry has never made money. True because if oil and gas companies make any money fracking in 2018, it would be more “than ever.”However, the nuance comes in the sub-headline: “U.S. shale companies are poised to make real money this year for the first time since the start of the fracking boom.”Poised to make “real money” for “the first time.” Or to put it another way, the industry hopes to stop losing large amounts of real money for the first time this year.In March 2017, <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21719436-exploration-and-production-companies-are-poised-go-another-investment-spree-americas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Economist </a>wrote about the finances of the fracking industry, pointing out just how much money these businesses are burning through:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">With the exception of airlines, Chinese state enterprises, and Silicon Valley unicorns — private firms valued at more than $1 billion — shale firms are on an unparalleled money-losing streak. About $11 billion was torched in the latest quarter, as capital expenditures exceeded cashflows. The cash-burn rate may well rise again this year.</blockquote>Some historic money-losing has been going on, and is expected to continue, as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported by the Wall Street Journal</a>: “Wood Mackenzie estimates that if oil prices hover around $50, shale companies won’t generate positive cash flow as a group until 2020.” However, Craig McMahon, senior vice president at Wood MacKenzie, notes, “Even then, only the most efficient operators will do well.”U.S. oil produced via fracking is priced as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which averaged <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/266659/west-texas-intermediate-oil-prices/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$41 a barrel in 2016</a> and $51 in 2017. The consensus is that WTI should average over <a href="https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/prices.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$50 a barrel </a>in 2018, thus providing the industry another reason to keep pushing forward. However, even in 2017 with the average over $50 a barrel, the industry as a whole was not profitable. <h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Irrational Exuberance</h3>In the introduction to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393338827" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Big Short</a>, Michael Lewis’ book-turned-movie about how the 2008 financial crash unfolded, he describes the finances of the housing bubble:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">“All these subprime lending companies were growing so rapidly, and using such goofy accounting, that they could mask the fact that they had no real earnings, just illusory, accounting-driven, ones. They had the essential feature of a Ponzi scheme: To maintain the fiction that they were profitable enterprises, they needed more and more capital to create more and more subprime loans.”</blockquote>If you substitute “shale oil and gas development companies” for “subprime lending companies,” it becomes an apt description of the current shale industry. These companies are losing more money than they make and can only sustain this scenario if lenders continue to bankroll their efforts, allowing the fracking industry to drill more wells as it points to production increases, rather than profits, as progress. Which — for now — Wall Street continues to do <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-13/bankers-fading-fear-of-oil-lending-is-latest-boon-for-shale" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in a big way.</a>This article is the first in a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">series investigating the economics of fracking</a> and where the vast sums of money being pumped into this industry are actually going. The series will look at how fracking companies are shifting these epic losses to the American taxpayers. It will review the huge challenges facing the industry even if oil and gas prices rise: the physical production limits of fracked wells, rising interest rates, rising water costs, competition from renewables, OPEC’s plans, and what happens if Wall Street stops loaning it money.The oil industry has always been a boom or bust industry. And during each boom someone inevitably declares that “this time is different,” assuring everyone there won’t be a bust. The sentiment about the early 2000s housing bubble was much the same, with critics being drowned out by the players claiming that, this time it was different, arguing “Housing doesn’t go down in value.”And what about for shale production? Is this time really different? Some in the industry apparently think so.“Is this time going to be different? I think yes, a little bit,” energy asset manager Will Riley told the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-could-make-more-money-than-ever-in-2018-if-they-dont-blow-it-1516536000" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street Journal. </a>“Companies will look to increase growth a little, but at a more moderate pace.” There is <a href="https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/US-Oil-Production-Is-Rising-Much-Faster-Than-Expected.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">little evidence</a> of restraint or moderation in the industry. Until analysts and investors start talking about profits instead of growth, however, this time is likely to end, at some point, in a completely familiar and predictable way: bust. A fate even Aubrey McClendon, the highest-paid CEO, the shale king, eventually met.David Hughes summed up his take on the industry's financial outlook: “Ultimately, you hit the wall. It's just a question of time.”</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">=</div><div style="text-align: left;">interesting that frack was seen by me as part of triple whammy take out coal but now tip pt the other /bad way:</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div><div class="views-field views-field-title" style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/11/climate-change-two-degree-warming-fracking-natural-gas-rush-ingraffea" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: 700;">World May Hit 2 Degrees of Warming in 10-15 Years Thanks to Fracking, Says Cornell Scientist</a></div><div class="views-field views-field-body">In 2011, a Cornell University research team first made the groundbreaking discovery that leaking methane from the shale gas fracking boom could make burning fracked gas worse for the climate than ... 2011, a Cornell University research team first made the groundbreaking discovery that leaking methane from the shale gas fracking boom could make burning fracked gas worse for the climate than coal.In a sobering lecture released this month, a member of that team, Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, Professor of Engineering Emeritus at Cornell University, outlined more precisely the role U.S. fracking is playing in changing the world's climate.The most recent climate data suggests that the world is on track to cross the two degrees of warming threshold set in the Paris accord in just 10 to 15 years, says Ingraffea in a 13-minute lecture titled “Shale Gas: The Technological Gamble That Should Not Have Been Taken,” which was posted online on April 4.That's if American energy policy follows the track predicted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which expects 1 million natural gas wells will be producing gas in the U.S. in 2050, up from roughly 100,000 today.<h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">The Difference of a Half Degree </h3>An average global temperature increase of 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) will bring catastrophic changes — even as compared against a change of 1.5° C (2.7° F). “Heat waves would last around a third longer, rain storms would be about a third more intense, the increase in sea level would be approximately that much higher and the percentage of tropical coral reefs at risk of severe degradation would be roughly that much greater,” with just that half-degree difference, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained in a 2016 <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2458/why-a-half-degree-temperature-rise-is-a-big-deal/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">post</a> about climate change.A draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/14/leaked-u-n-climate-report-sees-very-high-risk-the-planet-will-warm-beyond-key-limit/?utm_term=.e046e98e5406" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">leaked</a> this January, concludes that it's “extremely unlikely” that the world will keep to a 1.5° change, estimating that the world will cross that threshold in roughly 20 years, somewhat slower than Ingraffea's presentation concludes.Earlier models, like an often-cited 2012 paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, dramatically underestimated the rise in temperatures, when its projections are compared against more than a half-decade of additional temperature recordings, Ingraffea says. “Every one of these scenarios under-predicted actual global warming,” he points out as he describes the models presented in that landmark 2012 study.“Whereas the worst-case scenario brought us to 1.5 degrees Centigrade in 2040,” he adds, “we're almost there today.”<h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">A Different Energy Future, if Not for Fracking?</h3>So what happened?Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, U.S. natural gas production was flat or falling. If that trend had continued along the same track it was following from 2006-2008, then wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources might have had a chance to displace both natural gas and coal as major energy sources in America, according to Ingraffea.Instead, the shale gas rush, propelled by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), swept across the U.S., with drillers snapping up land to drill for previously inaccessible fossil fuels locked in geologic formations of shale rock from coast to coast.If the shale gas rush hadn't disrupted trends around that time, Ingraffea estimates that the wind energy sector alone could have produced roughly triple the amount of energy expected by the end of this coming decade, a difference of roughly 400 gigawatts.“We can easily see there is a loss of potential — large amounts of wind energy — because of the injection of shale gas into our energy economy,” Ingraffea explains in the lecture.While the shale gas industry promised benefits like jobs and American energy security, Ingraffea notes, those benefits would have been almost exclusively aimed at just 5 percent of the world's population, North Americans. But the harms will affect the remaining 95 percent of the world as well.It's an alarming message — even though the shale rush has stumbled somewhat as gas prices collapsed and many drillers went bankrupt, the cumulative impact of American fracking appears to have set the entire world on a collision course with climate change's most extreme effects.The climate is changing faster and more dramatically than it might have otherwise, and — far from serving as a bridge fuel — fracking huge amounts of natural gas has already played a significant role in pushing the world toward a vastly more difficult future.Ingraffea's lecture, part of the Spring Creek Project's Bedrock Lectures on Human Rights and Climate Change series, can be viewed below:...</div></div><div>=-</div></div><div style="text-align: left;">=</div><table class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" style="border-collapse: collapse;">G<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://desmogblog.cmail20.com/t/t-l-utkyitd-yuirlyty-e/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">OP Tax Law Bails Out Fracking Companies Buried in Debt</a><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" align="left"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td style="border-collapse: collapse;">
</td><td class="yiv0270886340w30" width="15" style="border-collapse: collapse;" /></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td style="border-collapse: collapse;" /><td class="yiv0270886340w30" width="15" height="5" style="border-collapse: collapse;" /></tr></tbody></table><div align="left" class="yiv0270886340article-content" style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px;">EOG Resources is one of the top companies in the fracking industry, and thanks to the new tax bill passed by Republicans and President Donald Trump at the end of last year, EOG had an exceptionally strong year compared to 2016.In 2017, the company reported a net income of $2.6 billion. The previous year? A loss of $1.1 billion. That financial turnaround seems very impressive until you realize that $2.2 billion, or about 85 percent, of its 2017 income was the result of the new tax law. Without that gift from the GOP and Trump, EOG would have lost approximately $700 million between those two years. Instead they are $1.5 billion ahead of the game. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://desmogblog.cmail20.com/t/t-l-utkyitd-yuirlyty-g/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Read more.</a>
<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/26/gop-tax-law-bails-out-fracking-companies-debt-eog-hamm">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/26/gop-tax-law-bails-out-fracking-companies-debt-eog-hamm</a>E<a href="http://www.eogresources.com/" target="blank" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" color="color" rgb="rgb">OG Resources</a> is one of the top companies in the fracking industry, and thanks to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/15/the-final-gop-tax-bill-is-complete-heres-what-is-in-it/?utm_term=.629ca7899ba5" target="blank" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" color="color" rgb="rgb">new tax bill passed</a> by Republicans and President Donald Trump at the end of last year, EOG had an exceptionally strong year compared to 2016.In 2017, the company reported a net income of $2.6 billion. The previous year? A loss of $1.1 billion. That financial turnaround seems very impressive until you realize that <a href="http://investors.eogresources.com/2018-02-27-EOG-Resources-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2017-Results-and-Announces-2018-Capital-Program?pagetemplate=widgetpopup" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$2.2 billion</a>, or about 85 percent, of its 2017 income was the result of the new tax law. Without that gift from the GOP and Trump, EOG would have lost approximately $700 million between those two years. Instead they are $1.5 billion ahead of the game.<div class="view view-in-this-series view-id-in_this_series view-display-id-block_1 view-dom-id-136de7c86a0e24228566d77b10c599a4" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" desmog2015="desmog2015" images="images" desmog-series-list.jpg="desmog-series-list.jpg" center="center" top="top" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" font-size="font-size" margin="margin" border-bottom="border-bottom" solid="solid" font-family="font-family" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" style="float: right; clear: left; width: 170px; background: url("");"><div class="view-content"><div class="item-list"><ul sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" desmog2015="desmog2015" images="images" desmog-series-arrow.gif="desmog-series-arrow.gif" style="margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; list-style-image: url("");"><li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first"><div class="views-field views-field-title"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/24/octane-surprising-reason-shale-oil-makes-poor-fuel-high-tech-cars-and-trucks" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Low Octane: The Surprising Reason Shale Oil Makes a Poor Fuel for High-Tech Cars and Trucks</a></div></li><li class="views-row views-row-2 views-row-even"><div class="views-field views-field-title"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/19/west-texas-permian-basin-alpine-high-fracking-apache" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Despite Disappointing Returns, Oil Driller Pushes Ahead with Fracking Near Rare Texas Wildlands</a></div></li><li class="views-row views-row-3 views-row-odd views-row-last"><div class="views-field views-field-title"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/18/finances-great-american-fracking-bubble" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Secret of the Great American Fracking Bubble</a></div></li></ul></div></div></div>With numbers like these, it is easy to see how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was a much-needed lifeline for the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/18/finances-great-american-fracking-bubble" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">money-losing fracking industry</a>. EOG is <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4153704-eog-resources-perhaps-good-time-move" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">routinely touted</a> as one of the best shale oil and gas companies. Yet the company still lost $700 million in the past two years. Or at least it would have if not for the tax bill.This is the same company that an analyst at the investment advice website <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4153126-coming-fcf-giant-known-eog-resources?page=2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Seeking Alpha</a>says is “generally considered one of the best unconventional upstream oil and gas players in the business, and its financials back it up.” If those are the best financials in your industry, your industry has a big problem.An interesting side note is that EOG stands for <a href="http://www.eogresources.com/about/company_history.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Enron Oil and Gas</a>, which was spun off as its own company from Enron — the company notorious for one of the great <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/the-enron-ponzi-scheme/303156/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">energy Ponzi schemes</a> of the 20th century. Today, an Enron spinoff company is being held up as the most fiscally sound in the shale oil industry.And Seeking Alpha is now pushing EOG as a good investment and wondering when “the equities market will wake up and smell this opportunity” despite EOG still being over $6 billion in debt. Without the tax overhaul it would be much harder to make this argument.There is one prominent person in the shale industry warning against rosy forecasts for shale oil, and that is Mark Papa, head of independent oil company Centennial Resource Development. Papa’s last job? CEO of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/07/pioneering-oilman-mark-papa-says-us-shale-oil-forecasts-too-optimistic.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EOG Resources</a>.Continental Resources is another of the shale companies being heralded as a good investment in 2018. Continental is run by Harold Hamm who was <a href="https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Harold-Hamm-Rejects-Trumps-Offer-of-Energy-Secretary.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">an advisor</a> to the Trump campaign and has taken the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-16/shale-king-hamm-wants-to-give-oil-forecasters-a-reality-check" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">title of “Shale King”</a> that once <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-aubrey-mcclendon/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">belonged to Aubrey McClendon</a>. Hamm’s net worth is estimated at over $13 billion.Thanks to the new tax law, Continental took home an extra $700 million because its effective tax rate for 2017 was negative 406 percent.---

</div></td></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" height="10" style="border-collapse: collapse;" /></tr></tbody></table><table class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://desmogblog.cmail20.com/t/t-l-utkyitd-yuirlyty-w/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Finances of Fracking: Shale Industry Drills More Debt Than Profit</a></td></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
</td></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" height="15" style="border-collapse: collapse;" /></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><div align="left" class="yiv0270886340article-content" style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px;">Since 2007, the oil and gas industry has lost $280 billion betting on the shale boom, which has been made possible by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and Wall Street financing, and these companies are still borrowing heavily. But even as the industry struggles to recoup costs — much less profits — by continuing to borrow and drill, the great promise of the shale revolution is also threatened by another specter: declining production at each well.In this series, DeSmog’s Justin Mikulka and Sharon Kelly investigate the finances of the fracking industry and how falling fossil fuel output and questionable lending practices reminiscent of the mid-2000s housing bubble may be setting up another bubble, one with a bill that may ultimately be paid by American taxpayers and the planet. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://desmogblog.cmail20.com/t/t-l-utkyitd-yuirlyty-yh/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Read more.</a></div></td></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" height="10" style="border-collapse: collapse;" /></tr></tbody></table><table class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td class="yiv0270886340w580" width="580" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://desmogblog.cmail20.com/t/t-l-utkyitd-yuirlyty-yk/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Low Octane: The Surprising Reason Shale Oil Makes a Poor Fuel for High-Tech Cars and Trucks</a></td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/11/climate-change-two-degree-warming-fracking-natural-gas-rush-ingraffea">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/11/climate-change-two-degree-warming-fracking-natural-gas-rush-ingraffea</a>In  2011, a Cornell University research team first made the groundbreaking discovery that leaking methane from the shale gas fracking boom could make burning fracked gas worse for the climate than coal.In a sobering lecture released this month, a member of that team, Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, Professor of Engineering Emeritus at Cornell University, outlined more precisely the role U.S. fracking is playing in changing the world's climate.The most recent climate data suggests that the world is on track to cross the two degrees of warming threshold set in the Paris accord in just 10 to 15 years, says Ingraffea in a 13-minute lecture titled “Shale Gas: The Technological Gamble That Should Not Have Been Taken,” which was posted online on April 4.That's if American energy policy follows the track predicted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which expects 1 million natural gas wells will be producing gas in the U.S. in 2050, up from roughly 100,000 today.<h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">The Difference of a Half Degree </h3>An average global temperature increase of 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) will bring catastrophic changes — even as compared against a change of 1.5° C (2.7° F). “Heat waves would last around a third longer, rain storms would be about a third more intense, the increase in sea level would be approximately that much higher and the percentage of tropical coral reefs at risk of severe degradation would be roughly that much greater,” with just that half-degree difference, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained in a 2016 <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2458/why-a-half-degree-temperature-rise-is-a-big-deal/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">post</a> about climate change.A draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/14/leaked-u-n-climate-report-sees-very-high-risk-the-planet-will-warm-beyond-key-limit/?utm_term=.e046e98e5406" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">leaked</a> this January, concludes that it's “extremely unlikely” that the world will keep to a 1.5° change, estimating that the world will cross that threshold in roughly 20 years, somewhat slower than Ingraffea's presentation concludes.Earlier models, like an often-cited 2012 paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, dramatically underestimated the rise in temperatures, when its projections are compared against more than a half-decade of additional temperature recordings, Ingraffea says. “Every one of these scenarios under-predicted actual global warming,” he points out as he describes the models presented in that landmark 2012 study.“Whereas the worst-case scenario brought us to 1.5 degrees Centigrade in 2040,” he adds, “we're almost there today.”<h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">A Different Energy Future, if Not for Fracking?</h3>So what happened?Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, U.S. natural gas production was flat or falling. If that trend had continued along the same track it was following from 2006-2008, then wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources might have had a chance to displace both natural gas and coal as major energy sources in America, according to Ingraffea.Instead, the shale gas rush, propelled by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), swept across the U.S., with drillers snapping up land to drill for previously inaccessible fossil fuels locked in geologic formations of shale rock from coast to coast.If the shale gas rush hadn't disrupted trends around that time, Ingraffea estimates that the wind energy sector alone could have produced roughly triple the amount of energy expected by the end of this coming decade, a difference of roughly 400 gigawatts.“We can easily see there is a loss of potential — large amounts of wind energy — because of the injection of shale gas into our energy economy,” Ingraffea explains in the lecture.While the shale gas industry promised benefits like jobs and American energy security, Ingraffea notes, those benefits would have been almost exclusively aimed at just 5 percent of the world's population, North Americans. But the harms will affect the remaining 95 percent of the world as well.It's an alarming message — even though the shale rush has stumbled somewhat as gas prices collapsed and many drillers went bankrupt, the cumulative impact of American fracking appears to have set the entire world on a collision course with climate change's most extreme effects.The climate is changing faster and more dramatically than it might have otherwise, and — far from serving as a bridge fuel — fracking huge amounts of natural gas has already played a significant role in pushing the world toward a vastly more difficult future.Ingraffea's lecture, part of the Spring Creek Project's Bedrock Lectures on Human Rights and Climate Change series, can be viewed below:...graphs<div style="text-align: left;">=</div><div>On Friday, February 9, Lissa Lucas — a Democratic Party candidate for West Virginia's House of Delegates — was <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lissa-lucas-west-virginia_us_5a812a88e4b0c6726e14cb0b" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">forcibly removed</a> from a Senate hearing for calling out how many thousands of dollars legislators backing a pro-oil and gas industry bill have received from that very industry.The video of Lucas's public comment and removal <a href="https://nowthisnews.com/videos/politics/woman-dragged-away-for-exposing-state-politicians-and-oil-corporations" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">has gone viral</a> and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/13/candidate-thrown-out-of-west-virginia-legislature-for-reading-off-fossil-fuel-donors-raises-historic-sum-of-campaign-money/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">served as a launching pad</a> for her campaign, which has raised more than $46,000 since the incident. Previously, she had raised just over $4,000. Coincidentally, Lucas <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7xa2wc/ama_request_lissa_lucas_the_woman_who_was/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">supports</a>a publicly funded campaign finance system. The <a href="http://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/bills_history.cfm?INPUT=4268&year=2018&sessiontype=RS" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bill (HB 4268)</a> she opposed, however, has <a href="http://wvpublic.org/post/house-passes-landowner-rights-bill-known-co-tenancy#stream/0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">passed</a> in the West Virginia House of Delegates.That law, “forced pooling” legislation which makes it easier for the oil and gas industry to obtain mineral rights from private landowners as a precursor to drilling, <a href="https://www.wvonga.com/legislative/majority-protection-act.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">has the support</a> of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association. It enables oil and gas companies to perform more <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a> on private land in the state by mandating that, rather than securing land lease contracts from all landowners, companies only need 75 percent of those living in an area to sign leases and are granted the remaining 25 percent by default.<h3 style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Appalachian Storage Hub Advances</h3>Beyond HB 4268, in the days surrounding Lucas's removal from the hearing, both the West Virginia legislature and congressional delegation took steps to advance a proposal that would create a petrochemical storage and refining hub in the state, which would be fueld by fracked oil and gas development in the region's Marcellus and Utica shale basins.That hub is set to receive <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/06/fracking-appalachian-storage-hub-china" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$83.7 billion in capital</a> from China, an agreement finalized in a ceremony overseen by President <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/donald-trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a> and Chinese President Xi Jinping and which took place during a U.S. Department of Commerce trade mission to China in November.On February 7, one day after DeSmog <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/06/fracking-appalachian-storage-hub-china" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">published an investigation</a> on the proposed Appalachian Storage Hub, which would also cover Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the West Virginia House of Delegates <a href="http://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/bills_text.cfm?billdoc=hr7%20intr.htm&yr=2018&sesstype=RS&i=7&houseorig=H&billtype=R" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">introduced a resolution (H.R. 7)</a> calling on Congress to pass various pieces of legislation which would create favorable regulatory conditions for the hub. This was also one day before Lucas was ousted from the hearing on the forced pooling bill.The same day as the Lucas incident, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a major backer of the federal bills, <a href="https://www.manchin.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/XVII%20LPO%20letter%20to%20Appropriators%20(UPDATED).pdf?cb" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">co-wrote a letter</a> asking the Senate Appropriations Committee to support and continue funding the Department of Energy's Title XVII loan guarantee program, which came under scrutiny after providing a $535 million loan to the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/solyndra-solar-panel-corporation-scandal-ablaze-thinkprogress-sets-record-straight" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ill-fated solar company, Solyndra.</a> The Energy Department, as DeSmog previously reported, is considering offering a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/06/fracking-appalachian-storage-hub-china" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$1.9 billion loan guarantee</a> to develop the petrochemical hub in West Virginia, a move <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/adg-invited-to-submit-part-ii-application-for-19-billion-in-loan-guarantees-under-does-title-xvii-loan-guarantee-program-300577137.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lauded by Manchin</a>, who is up for re-election in November. In his office's press release about the letter supporting the loan guarantee program, Manchin explicitly linked the funding request with the prospective creation of the petrochemical hub in his state.“The Title XVII Innovative Loan Guarantee has a successful track record of helping finance innovative American energy technologies,” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/06/fracking-appalachian-storage-hub-china?utm_source=dsb%20newsletter" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reads the press release</a>. “In 2017, Senator Manchin introduced the Capitalizing American Storage Potential (CASP) Act to ensure a regional storage hub, like the proposed Appalachian Storage Hub, is eligible for the Department of Energy’s successful Title XVII loan guarantee program.”The proposed state bill, H.R. 7, requests that Congress “renew its support for and fully fund the Department of Energy’s highly successful Loan Programs Office.”</div>lil sis
Last year we released a <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h1/88fkwi8SpjSLirz77j2S7MM5cfDWKMhGoYskgmJBoKAmevdR9WaR3phgnHw8YT6dzGVNh09VfhbLnnG3nmf-2BbNnimPGJ5LbG37gxeGBSYzZU1gkL-2FF5f3vgCICsYVo0Qhkgu-2FnQqIhv8rfUkLFSSmcRat2tuNX-2Bbn-2Fp21FvhGfehzlEVceW8Qvdl4CTeBdE4RsCS8mA8XUkMGzfzuTZ1ItWihMxnoCvEe2BWt98Qua-2FT3NY6L0-2BD4TGD0xmaKpfdoI-2Ftw-2BRKkwPD-2BRm5kXv1LJBMySbfLRQ2EtS8scpgxKgEwtSc9e9FBLHbcO5bGRIjZ49raUjwBsJanfAIJhI7-2FBWX5QPay0N4AoPrBlyzJ6uhrW9X-2B49k2vQ-2BuP6rSC9n593UuwbHNREpr2PplkVqTA-3D-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; outline: none;">frackademia report</a> that uncovered the fossil fuel industry ties and conflicts of interest surrounding a University of Minnesota Duluth study on the Line 3 pipeline.  It turns out our report pressured a UMD professor who was tied to the industry-backed study to <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h2/IGbuxRGxf-2FM66JIJ8i1XmnKI2ZI3I5tYh-2B8Y9dC6QwvaMKO-2FDYRh8Vs441P4sD5xkRD5C4HDIYDIJLn3ip1Rw9iZNvtWqrbxTmimgW9U-2Bl53znuKi6ga69GpVIYBa8JwVjJfbfQWwT-2FUcnWKYROeoiCEwN3VJCdMUYFUMaM6mJkxg6r3GxKKZac5VUCFD4hPt70-2FWhsYaswC4euYcn7gQ2nUCuIDxfxajIhpjgNcr5tcr07HKucho6aX2lhm0ArrHYr4EzKLsMV37hT1tXvUrK6ZWprOjry8EZeCvdiypw57-2Bnnq2tueOou7dyiT1gQUgwGOpMbJeWFFbpJ-2FvOO9FePiNZ49lexG7esAAVj2MEdG1-2FD-2FsN1eRHiVAY0-2FjqLgIFGn2Yzyl6v43-2FO-2FthsAslR0G-2FGHdFQE8eGTwFDLfgCR-2Fyguhai0C6WwW6Enuo1seV3ptFxg9SqypNAv4J4j44kmtDGx-2Bv8RvfHvmGYX22CMVgIhTrymZB3ZbEshyV5se3hbJIDyXMIuWrvi7OtTuw-3D-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; outline: none;">resign</a> his board seat from the business group that commissioned it. He <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h3/r5TyegGHMfROThC4bmKe28-2FwnUJQc6waOyvyt9RfLItoEO6-2Bw2v1OABtwm4-2BqO9f2zjxSPlEBWhILfYCfeM8kLrzbTklqL-2F13XjRUN8-2BUV8v8HNNsGxnXLaTCpOya7C-2FLkCbG50r2iLlTcz4FvgdML1oUkhvaNBEUdoyF5u5CnPOkhekqjMEnmnjkUW3MZ5ZjSRDcGZROu0YsHtiPeBn-2F1DApmYzHBxNGUKxjiudeOUuHiOAbI-2F4zGZhbCNoem9SRKMsfh0sMWwiaP8PjvwfseYz8mBTNjjRwTakrqu9eqzQFDfoQebD9nydFBx0vR-2B77XLGw584oMkYSJi642vnRDhFW0NEbW9APaC-2BsF5N683I-2F3gB-2BdK7D-2FPwl92Ul5CRR-2BWfOkdIg8-2F3GaBQxU7JhlWGlCsNxnvqLdcHfne-2Bn3pXuNl9iAvBJpkonVMpDVOCEpyKn0FHClqSHjqK00UXAfcC0tnKbThopwAZPcbmuko-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; outline: none;">told</a> Minnesota Native News that he didn’t want his department “to be involved in any organization that advocates for specific projects.”This is our latest (though <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h6/IGbuxRGxf-2FM66JIJ8i1XmnKI2ZI3I5tYh-2B8Y9dC6QwuFnhhod0vby5qhGWCcyq5RvMKzAqlqvfHWd77ejDdGRIqReihZteBXm-2BYKaJuotfSRE7AFcNmY6oXiixHZAeVqDZrXFFsoaNH8zhgTU3bbas6-2BS-2BAxkTDAUeHG45SwEsNRs0fgvpaXlhanG5ZZOz7A5VkBiEnjPKxKFH117TmDOl3C45xnQclEa-2Fta-2FsZHyJfOXJyXOS9WfIVv2oAeGMfoVI-2B1vW4LXe5G4TFnn44FIx6KadeZt-2Fj6SdwmQ5pB3ZMKGwxmOtUkbzjAGR5pOTpUTKn02oM-2FMr6KmLMYuGxgeKK5Asv-2FPN-2B9jCcYlXaCWPRBcUgc9oVdAWDzXD8-2FJgtX2-2FHA9PUyLfFCWqmzis2DxICgfjLCNw2R4fBk2u4-2BvLYiVuIiXHhGpci01cvjQTZTvX880mCo8E2j-2ByIPuUpYDTGFTbTJ8yEE6WKlo30VYZs-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; outline: none;">not our first</a>) strike against frackademia - exposing the role it plays in packaging fossil fuel industry-backed “research” under the guise of neutral expertise. =<a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/we-are-drowning-plastic-and-fracking-companies-are-profiting">https://www.alternet.org/environment/we-are-drowning-plastic-and-fracking-companies-are-profiting</a>guarduk links?...less than a decade, tens of billions of dollars have been invested in creating new manufacturing sites around the world to turn fossil fuels into resin pellets used to manufacture plastic products. The companies profiting off this surge in plastics are contributing to a growing climate crisis while generating mountains of plastic garbage.One company behind this plastics surge is the U.K.-based chemical company Ineos. While not a household name like Shell or Exxon, Ineos is at the center of this growing plastics industry—but the damage caused by the company extends beyond the mounds of discarded waste littering beaches and waterways. The company’s 75 manufacturing facilities across 22 countries are responsible for chemical leaks, fires, explosions, and air and climate pollution. This <a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/awful-environmental-record-ineos-disqualifies-fracking-ambitions" style="text-decoration-line: none;">record</a> includes a 2008 <a href="https://www.ineos.com/news/ineos-group/fire-at-ineos-koln---precautionary-advice-lifted/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">chemical fire in Germany</a> and air pollution in Scotland, where the company’s Grangemouth facilities were the <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15626151.RevealedScotlands_worst_corporate_carbon_polluters/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">country’s single largest emitter</a> of carbon dioxide in 2016.And the Ineos business model also relies on polluting communities thousands of miles away in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the fracking industry is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ohio-fracking-lawsuit/conservationists-sue-to-halt-fracking-in-ohios-only-national-forest-idUSKBN17Y25O" style="text-decoration-line: none;">scarring the </a><a href="https://grist.org/climate-energy/frackers-are-chewing-up-pennsylvanian-forests/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">landscape</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/21/appalachia-ohio-fracking-wells-toxic" style="text-decoration-line: none;">polluting </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/science/earth/fracking-chemicals-detected-in-pennsylvania-drinking-water.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">water</a>, and threatening <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/#72bf26985945" style="text-decoration-line: none;">public </a><a href="https://www.pennlive.com/news/2018/02/natural_gas_waste_water_radioa.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">health</a>. The company uses the liquid gas found in the shale formations there to feed its chemical plants. To meet this demand, the company <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-37474396" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recently built a fleet</a> of so-called “<a href="https://www.ineos.com/big-boats/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">dragon ships</a>” to carry volatile gas liquids across the Atlantic.And Ineos wants to continue ramping up. After the first crossing of one of these liquid gas transport ships from the U.S. to the U.K., the chairman of Ineos called the event a “gamechanger” that could “spark a shale gas revolution,” according to a company <a href="https://www.ineos.com/big-boats/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">news release</a>.Expanding this business will require new pipelines like the Mariner East 2, now under construction across Pennsylvania. The project belongs to Sunoco, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline that generated international opposition. There is a movement to stop the Mariner East, too, in places across the state where residents have lost their land to Sunoco through the companies use of <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/10/31/a-new-front-emerges-in-the-battle-against-eminent-domain/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">eminent domain</a> and are being told <a href="https://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/Parents-protest-Mariner-Pipeline.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">that they must allow</a> the pipeline to be built near their schools, homes, and community centers.Sunoco’s safety record was a concern before the drilling started; since 2010, the company has had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pipeline-nativeamericans-safety-i/sunoco-behind-protested-dakota-pipeline-tops-u-s-crude-spill-charts-idUSKCN11T1UW" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a higher rate of oil pipeline spills</a> than its competitors. And this record of spills continued once construction of the pipeline began. Dozens of drilling spills and accidents and several cases of tainted water supplies eventually forced <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2018/01/03/dep-suspends-all-construction-on-mariner-east-2-pipeline/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the state government to shut down the construction</a> at the beginning of this year. Pennsylvania environmental regulators <a href="https://www.apnews.com/850e83266b3c4b4193467e30769d3482/Pennsylvania-shuts-down-construction-on-Sunoco-gas-pipeline" style="text-decoration-line: none;">deemed Sunoco’s “egregious and willful violations”</a> of environmental laws serious enough to apply the brakes on a project that had been rushed through the regulatory process by drilling-friendly politicians of both major parties.On February 8, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2018/02/08/sunoco-to-resume-work-pay-12-6-million-for-mariner-east-2-pipeline-violations/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">allowed construction of the pipeline to resume</a>, after issuing a $12.6 million civil penalty against Sunoco.While plastic junk floating in the oceans gets the headlines, the truth is that the entire business model wreaks havoc on communities and the planet—from the fracking wells in Pennsylvania and the pipelines that carry the materials in the U.S., to the air pollution from petrochemical plants producing plastics in the U.K.Pennsylvania was right to hit the pause button on this fracking-for-plastics pipeline, but if we’re to create a stable climate and a healthy planet for all, we need state legislators to stop construction altogether. And we need political leaders in Europe willing to stop fracking before it starts.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-waste-laws-2526588629.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-waste-laws-2526588629.html</a>
<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="text-align: left; margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px;"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-waste-laws-2526588629.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Fracking Waste Lawsuit Highlights Dangerous Trend of Corporations Targeting Community Rights Defenders</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url expanded" data-elid="2526588629" data-authors="DeSmogBlog" data-headline="Fracking Waste Lawsuit Highlights Dangerous Trend of Corporations Targeting Community Rights Defenders" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief">By Simon Davis-CohenIn early January, a federal judge ordered the nonprofit law firm Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to pay $52,000 to an oil and gas exploration company for defending a rural Pennsylvania township's ban on underground injections of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">fracking</a> waste.This sanction comes at the request of Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association, but is part of a growing trend to prevent municipalities across the nation from pushing back against state and federal attempts to overrule them.</div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms ease 0s; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1;">Starting in 2012, PGE proposed an injection well which, according to Grant Township's Board of Supervisors, "would receive 30,000 barrels [1.26 million gallons] of frack wastewater per month for 10 years." The board of supervisors for this small community near Pittsburgh warned that the injection well "threatens to subject every resident of Grant Township to a slow poisoning, and threatens thousands more who depend on Grant Township's watershed for clean <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">water</a>."The community's law, they added, bans the injection well "as a violation of our basic civil rights." PGE operates multiple gas-extraction wells in the township.Rights of Nature, Local GovernanceCELDF, which has defended Grant's efforts to prevent waste injection wells for over three years, has worked with some 200 municipalities in the U.S. to defend local laws challenging similar corporate projects. The group aims to drive state constitutional change to bolster the rights of local residents and ecosystems against what it calls regressive state preemption and corporate personhood.Grant Township, for example, <a href="http://celdf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/grant-township-community-rights-home-rule-charter.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">is elevating</a> a "right of self-government," rights "to clean air, water, and soil" and "ecosystem rights" above corporations' "rights" to inject waste from oil and gas extraction in the township.These types of local laws often face substantial legal pushback from private corporations and states which claim authority over issues such as fossil fuel production. Along with the sanctions against CELDF, PGE is suing Grant Township itself, population 741, for damages that would likely be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Among its claims: The injection well ban violates the corporation's rights as a "person" under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Contract Clause and Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.Grant Township is the fourth local government CELDF has defended in federal court.'Frivolous' Legal ArgumentsAt the heart of the court's decision awarding PGE sanctions against the legal nonprofit (the company originally asked for $500,000) is an argument that the sanctions are justified because CELDF's legal arguments are contrary to "settled" law and therefore "frivolous." This reasoning asserts that corporate personhood and Pennsylvania's authority over municipalities on issues affecting drinking water and fossil fuel development is settled, and therefore CELDF's defense of Grant's claim to the contrary is "clearly unreasonable."
Grant Township, the court wrote, "seeks to disavow constitutional rights afforded corporations so as to prevent PGE from the lawful exercise of its right to pursue gas extraction related activities within its borders." On top of all this, Grant's law recognized legal rights for a local ecosystem. CELDF's attempt to represent that ecosystem in court, the judge ruled, violates the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a set of rules that govern how legal proceedings take place in U.S. district courts.Local Governments Sanctioned Across U.S.CELDF is not alone in facing sanctions for challenging so-called settled law on similar issues. Defend Local Solutions is a campaign led by Tallahassee's Mayor Andrew Gillum which is aimed at expanding the powers of municipalities in Florida. The campaign said <a href="http://defendlocal.com/resource/the-threat-of-super-preemption/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">at least seven</a> states have "super preemption" bills on the books that sanction local officials who dare challenge specific state preemption bills that rescind powers from municipalities.
In Florida, for example, <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/01/a-florida-mayor-fights-the-gun-lobby/512345/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Gillum personally faced the threat of sanctions</a> after he refused to repeal a local law that banned fire arms in public parks (even though the ordinance wasn't being enforced).New bills, such as Texas's highly controversial "show me your papers" and sanctuary city preemption bill (SB4), also include punitive language for municipalities pushing back against state and federal authority.Texas's bill would fine local officials and employees $25,000 per day or even remove them from office if they defy the law, according to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Parts of this section of the law, however, are hung up in court. However, the court ruled that local officials can be sanctioned if they outright ban police from asking for people's immigration papers, and other sections of the bill are in effect, including a section that threatens punishment for local jail officers. The concept of economic retribution for noncompliance is spreading.Georgia's 2017 bill, HB37, removes funding from any private college that "prohibits or restricts officials or employees … from communicating or cooperating with federal officials or law enforcement officers with regard to reporting [immigration] status information." And in 2016 Arizona <a href="http://yalejreg.com/nc/state-preemption-arizona-vs-local-control/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">passed a bill</a> which withholds state funds from localities that enact policy that challenges the state's claimed supremacy.In CELDF's sanction case, the court acknowledges that sanctions can have the effect of "chilling novel legal or factual arguments."Thomas Linzey, CELDF's director and one of the two attorneys being personally sanctioned, said "that's exactly the point. For years, the oil and gas corporations believed that they could stop the community rights movement by suing municipalities to overturn their local laws; but having failed to do so, they're now coming after the lawyers who are helping those communities to stop drilling. In many ways, the industry's filing for sanctions against us is just proof of how strong the community rights movement is becoming."In court records, CELDF pointed to Brown v. Board of Education (which overturned "separate but equal" schools for Black and White students, 1954), courts striking down bans on gay marriage, and other novel legal arguments as evidence that sanctions against lawyers who challenge "settled" law could set a dangerous precedent."We understand that the real problem isn't the injection well, but the system of law that keeps trying to shut us down," the Grant Township Board of Supervisors said in a statement. "We're not going anywhere."Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/17/community-environmental-legal-defense-fund-pennsylvania-grant-township-fracking-waste-ban" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">DeSmogBlog</a>.<div class="around-the-web"><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="text-align: left; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem" style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/nevada-fracking-protest-2509373208.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Massive Fracking on Nevada Public Lands Sought by Trump ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem" style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/01/574932180/trump-reexamines-regulations-regarding-fracking-oil-drilling" class="around-the-web__link" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Trump Re-Examines Regulations Regarding Fracking, Oil Drilling ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-waste-gulf-of-mexico-2515883905.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-waste-gulf-of-mexico-2515883905.html</a><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px;"><h1 class="headline h1" style="text-align: left; margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">Lawsuit Launched Against Trump EPA for Approving Fracking Waste Dumping Into Gulf of Mexico</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2515883905" data-authors="Center for Biological Diversity" data-headline="Lawsuit Launched Against Trump EPA for Approving Fracking Waste Dumping Into Gulf of Mexico" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">The <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Biological Diversity</a> filed on Thursday a formal <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/offshore_fracking/pdfs/NOI_EPA_Gulf_of_Mexico_NPDES_Permit_12-7-17.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">notice</a> of intent to sue the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> administration for allowing oil companies to dump waste from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fracking</a> and drilling into the Gulf of Mexico without evaluating the dangers to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-turtles" style="text-decoration-line: none;">sea turtles</a>, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" style="text-decoration-line: none;">whales</a> or other imperiled <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life" style="text-decoration-line: none;">marine life</a>.In September the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) finalized a Clean Water Act permit for new and existing <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/offshore-oil-drilling" style="text-decoration-line: none;">offshore oil</a> and gas platforms operating in federal waters off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The permit allows oil companies to dump unlimited amounts of waste fluid, including chemicals involved in fracking, into the Gulf of Mexico."The Trump administration is letting the oil industry turn our <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" style="text-decoration-line: none;">oceans</a> into toxic-waste dumps. The EPA's supposed to protect water quality, not help pollute the Gulf," said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It's time for the courts to remind this agency that its mission is to safeguard the environment and public health."Thursday's notice letter highlighted the fact that the agency's approval of the permit without studying risks to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" style="text-decoration-line: none;">imperiled species</a> in the Gulf of Mexico is a violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.Fracking chemicals and other contaminants in produced water raise grave ecological concerns because the Gulf of Mexico provides important habitat for whales, sea turtles and fish—as well as being federally designated critical habitat for imperiled loggerhead sea turtles. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dolphins" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dolphins</a> and other species in the Gulf are still suffering the lingering destructive effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.Federal waters off Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi host the largest concentration of offshore oil and gas drilling activities in the country. Previous records requests revealed that oil companies dumped more than 75 billion gallons of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wastewater" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wastewater</a> into these waters in 2014 alone. Records also show that fracking has been on the rise in the Gulf of Mexico, and the EPA has failed to conduct any meaningful review of the environmental impacts of dumping fracking waste into the water.In October the Trump administration announced plans to auction off more than 76 million acres of Gulf of Mexico waters to oil companies. That lease sale, which is scheduled for March 2018, will be the largest oil sale in U.S. history. It includes federal waters off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and could vastly expand drilling and fracking in the Gulf."Only the courts can stop Trump's assault on our oceans," Monsell said. "Oil-industry pollution was already a problem in the Gulf, but this administration isn't even trying to protect wildlife from fracking chemicals. We need to fight back on behalf of marine wildlife."At least 10 fracking chemicals routinely used in offshore fracking could kill or harm a broad variety of marine species, including marine mammals and fish, Center for Biological Diversity scientists have <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/fracking-09-11-2014.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">found</a>. The California Council on Science and Technology has identified some common fracking chemicals to be among the most <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/toxics" style="text-decoration-line: none;">toxic</a> in the world to marine animals.Today's 60-day notice of intent to sue is required before a lawsuit can be filed to compel the federal government to comply with the Endangered Species Act.</div></div><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16112017/fracking-chemicals-safety-epa-health-risks-water-bush-cheney">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16112017/fracking-chemicals-safety-epa-health-risks-water-bush-cheney</a>no link ing...For Latkanich and all those who believe their water has been tainted by fracking, there are few remedies. Congress took away the most powerful one in 2005, prohibiting the Environmental Protection Agency from safeguarding drinking water that might be harmed by fracking and even denying the regulator the authority to find out what chemicals companies use. That provision of the Energy Policy Act was justified by an EPA study about fracking into coalbed methane reservoirs, completed under the George W. Bush administration, that concluded that fracking posed no risk to drinking water.Concerns about the study emerged from the outset, including a 2004 whistleblower complaint that called it "scientifically unsound." Now, InsideClimate News has learned that the scientists who wrote the report disagreed with the conclusion imposed by the Bush EPA, saying there was not enough evidence to support it. The authors, who worked for a government contractor, went so far as to have their company's name and their own removed from the final document.At EPA, "there was a preconceived conclusion that there's no risk associated with hydraulic fracturing into coalbed methane. That finding made its way into the Energy Policy Act, but with broader implications," said Chi Ho Sham, the group manager of a team of scientists and engineers for The Cadmus Group, the Massachusetts firm hired to do the report. "What we would have said in the conclusion is that there is some form of risk from hydraulic fracturing to groundwater. How you quantify it would require further analyses, but, in general, there is some risk."The fracking provision, widely known as the Halliburton loophole, after the oilfield services company once run by Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, is among a host of exemptions to federal pollution rules that Congress and successive administrations have given oil and gas companies over the last 40 years.
Pollution Exemptions for Oil and GasWinning these exemptions is at the heart of a successful strategy by the fossil fuel industry and its allies in Washington to limit environmental oversight of companies' operations. As a result, oil and gas drilling and production are exempt from laws regulating hazardous waste, chemical-laced runoff from well sites and toxic air pollution from well equipment. Some exemptions, such as the Halliburton loophole, were justified by EPA studies whose findings were ignored or bent to political ends, according to documents and interviews with scientists, lawmakers and former regulators who have worked on federal rulemaking since the late 1970s.The Cadmus study was not the first EPA report to have its science thwarted, and under President Donald Trump, it likely won't be the last. Current EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is a staunch ally of fossil fuels, and his agency is moving on several fronts to quash science that documents the oil industry's contributions to climate change and other forms of pollution, the first step to rolling back regulations, critics said."I've been caught off-guard by how fast and diverse the attacks are on scientists within the government and how science is used," said Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Choke Hold SeriesThe EPA did not respond to multiple requests for comment made over two months. Former EPA officials from the Bush administration involved with the study would not comment on the record. Cadmus also would not comment and referred inquiries to the EPA.The consequences of loopholes built on disputed science have rippled through the country during the latest energy boom. Domestic production of oil and gas has surged, creating thousands of jobs and boosting company profits—and leading to thousands of complaints in states such as Pennsylvania, Texas and North Dakota that drinking water is being contaminated. But, in the absence of federal protections, there is only a patchwork of often-lax state regulations. If it were not for the Halliburton loophole, the EPA could have developed standards for the entire country. State rules could have been tougher, but not weaker, than the national standards, and if states failed to regulate effectively, citizens could have petitioned the federal government to intervene.
"My dream was to build houses on this land for my sons and their families when they grew up, and to start a truck farm when I retired," Latkanich said. "Now I'm just fighting a battle by myself against a billion dollar company."
Chevron Comes Calling: 'This Was a Godsend'Before four Chevron Appalachia employees came calling in 2011 with promises of riches, Latkanich's life had crumbled. In 1998, he had used an inheritance to buy land from a farmer in Deemston, 35 miles south of Pittsburgh. Latkanich was a counselor at the Washington County jail, often working with murderers. His wife was a nurse at a state penitentiary. They bought the rural tract as a haven from their tough jobs and built a dream house on a hill, with a wide front porch overlooking a two-acre pond.  Brian Latkanich stands in his yard with the fracking well behind him. Credit: Anna Belle PeeveyThe two wells drilled on Bryan Latkanich’s property are among 1,655 that have been hydraulically fractured in Washington County since 2004. Credit: Anna Belle PeeveyBut by 2010, the marriage had ended. His wife had left for a nearby town with his two older sons. Latkanich underwent an operation to remove a benign brain tumor, which, because of its size and location, threatened his life. While he was in a coma, his girlfriend gave birth to Ryan. She was addicted to cocaine and opioids, and the newborn spent three weeks going through withdrawal. The state placed Ryan in foster care.When Chevron Appalachia showed up, Latkanich was on disability. He had spent the year in a hospital bed in his dining room with failing kidneys, back problems and $150,000 in bills from lawyers handling his divorce and efforts to regain custody of Ryan. Chevron offered him $400 for each of his 33 acres and estimated thousands more in royalties a month once the gas started to flow. He signed on. "In my situation, when it looked like I could lose everything, this was a godsend," he said.
To Regulate or Not: Industry Gets Boost From CheneyThe two wells on Latkanich's property are among 1,655 that have been hydraulically fractured in Washington County since 2004. Halliburton fracked the first commercial well in the United States in 1949. Technology has improved over time, getting a big boost from more than $135 million in federal grants beginning in the 1970s to spur development of oil and gas in shale formations. In the 1990s, fracking was used to extract coalbed methane, or natural gas, touted then as the next great investment for the industry.
Dick CheneyThe EPA and industry long maintained that fracking did not need federal oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The EPA used the law to protect groundwater from other industrial activities, such as disposal of oilfield wastewater as part its Underground Injection Control (UIC) program. But the agency contended that fracking did not fall under the UIC program and state oversight was adequate.That assertion was successfully challenged in 1997 when the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation (LEAF) won a case against the EPA on behalf of an Alabama couple who said their well water had been contaminated by nearby fracking for coalbed methane. The LEAF suit alleged that federal oversight of fracking under the SDWA was needed because the process was in fact a form of underground injection and state regulation was insufficient.LEAF's success scared the industry and politicians allied with it, said Hannah Wiseman, a law professor at Florida State University. They didn't want federal rules that would have required a UIC permit for each frack job, potentially slowing energy extraction and choking revenues.In 1999, Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), longtime allies of the oil industry, introduced a bill to exempt fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act. A year later, the EPA announced a study to determine if fracking into coalbed methane reservoirs affected drinking water.Industry got a huge boost when Cheney, the CEO of Halliburton, became vice president in 2001. At the time, fracking was unknown to the broader public. But an energy policy task force Cheney helmed in spring 2001 highlighted fracking's potential, and it recommended a comprehensive exemption to the SDWA for all types of fracking, not just for coalbed methane. The EPA cautioned against an overly broad approach.EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman wrote to Cheney on May 4, 2001, "I strongly suggest limiting the recommendation to the problem we know about—hydraulic fracturing for coalbed methane. Otherwise, before the (coalbed methane) study is completed, we are potentially walking into a trap because we don't yet know the environmental consequences of the broader exemption, or why it is needed."
A draft version of the coalbed methane report was released in 2002 for public comment. Industry and environmental activists alike remarked on the disparity between the details of the study, which noted the possibility of threats to drinking water from fracking with toxic chemicals, and the overall conclusion, which stated that fracking was entirely safe. Industry wanted the details changed; activists wanted the conclusion amended to reflect the details.
EPA's Own Contractor Finds Fracking Poses Risks; EPA Dismisses ItCadmus took over the report in late 2002 from the original contractor. The project faced obstacles from the outset, according to EPA documents and Cadmus staff. The oil and gas industry declined to provide information about the composition of fracking fluids, asserting that they were trade secrets. There wasn't enough time or money for Cadmus to begin monitoring groundwater before, during and after fracking jobs to see if the process affected water quality. With little insight into what was actually pumped into the earth during fracking, Cadmus researchers had to rely on existing literature and discussions with a limited number of experts familiar with the process.
Cadmus sent chapters of its working draft to the EPA starting in mid-2003. The agency immediately questioned the validity of the findings. Against common scientific practice, the EPA urged Cadmus to include an oil industry study that had not been peer-reviewed. When Cadmus staff resisted, the EPA manager asked a Cadmus scientist, "'Can't you say something positive about it?'" the scientist recalled.
The industry study fell by the wayside. But the EPA changed parts of the working draft that suggested fracking for coalbed methane could pose risks to drinking water, according to the documents and Cadmus scientists.
A March 3, 2004, EPA agenda entitled "Hydraulic Fracturing Project Status" listed among the tasks "Soften conclusions and ES [executive summary]."  
EPA notes on the study. In drafts of the executive summary, typically a report's most widely read section, the authors referred to potential threats to public health as the reason for the study. "The goal of this Phase I study was to determine if a threat to public health exists as a result of USDW [Underground Sources of Drinking Water] contamination from hydraulic fracturing fluid injection into CBM [coalbed methane] wells, and if it does, whether the threat is great enough to warrant further study," the authors wrote.
The final version of the report omits mention of public health except in the discussion of methodology and in paraphrasing public comments deep into the 463-page study.EPA documents show Cadmus recommended revisions to reflect complaints by some Virginia residents about possible contamination of their water from fracking. The contractor raised the question of an investigation to see if the complaints were warranted. The final version did not include the changes Cadmus recommended, and EPA did not launch an inquiry into the complaints.The Cadmus scientists said they realized over time that their findings about risks to underground drinking water diverged from what the EPA wanted. The scientists determined that fracking does pose some risk to drinking water. They concluded that monitoring of fracking activities and more information from industry would be needed to quantify the risk. The EPA decided the study's conclusion should be that fracking did not pose a threat to groundwater and therefore did not require further study or federal oversight.The Cadmus scientists came to believe that abiding by the EPA's conclusion violated their standards of integrity. "If you say there is no risk associated with hydraulic fracturing, and we see risk, you either didn't do a good job or you're lying," Sham said. "The data and analyses tell us there is risk associated with it, and we were asked to report there is no risk, and we can't say that."The EPA routinely hires contractors to conduct studies, and the firms' names are generally tucked away in appendices or acknowledgements. Contractors appreciate a mention because if the studies are well-regarded, they serve as a form of marketing. The 2004 coalbed methane study notes the use of a contractor but does not identify Cadmus.  "We had no power over the final report. The only power we had was to take our names off it," said a Cadmus team scientist who declined to be identified because of concerns about job security.
Hydraulic Fracturing at a GlanceInside the EPA, some scientists were also troubled by the study. "What I found objectionable was that it was written to have a good P.R. effect on people," said Mario Salazar, an engineer who was an internal reviewer of the report and worked as a technical expert at the EPA's underground injection office. "So that people would read the report and say there was no problem with hydraulic fracturing and water."After the EPA published the final coalbed methane report in June 2004, Weston Wilson, an environmental engineer in the EPA's Denver office, filed a formal whistleblower complaint about it.  Wilson alleged in his complaint that the study's conclusions were "unsupportable" and based on "limited research."The EPA's inspector general launched an investigation into Wilson's complaint. But the inquiry was closed after the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Energy Policy Act in 2005, codifying in law the conclusion of the coalbed methane study and exempting fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Back in Pennsylvania, A Boy's Health Problems Grow
In mid-2012, Chevron Appalachia hydraulically fractured two wells on a hill about 400 feet behind Latkanich's house. They produced gas by winter, and Latkanich got royalty checks that at first were as high as $11,000 a month. He paid off legal bills and his mortgage.But problems soon cropped up that grew increasingly alarming.The company carved out a two-acre well pad from the hillside for three large impoundments to hold water from other gas sites that was trucked in to frack the two Latkanich wells. During a hard rain or snow melt, runoff from the well pad flowed down the hill, over the site of Latkanich's well, and into his garage and basement.
Latkanich's drinking water developed a metallic taste over the course of the year. He started to get frequent diarrhea. In early 2013, Ryan, then 3, came out of the tub covered in open sores. Latkanich called the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to test the water. Chevron Appalachia declined to hook up Latkanich's home to the nearby municipal water system and provided him with a large outdoor tank instead. The DEP tests did not show anything wrong with the drinking water, and the company took the tank away.Still worried even after the 2013 tests, Latkanich began to have bottled water delivered. Because he's on a fixed income, Latkanich and Ryan use it only for drinking. They still cook, brush their teeth, bathe and wash dishes and clothes in well water. Ryan's mother left in August 2013.In December 2016, Ryan started to soil himself almost daily. He was 6, a chubby precocious redhead with perpetually askew glasses. One day, he soiled himself at school. "Charlie was the smartest kid in the class. He was making fun of me in front of the whole class. He said I stink," Ryan recalled. He doesn't have many friends at school now. "I'll never forget that."Medical tests found nothing wrong with Ryan. Peer-reviewed science has been mixed so far about the links between fracking and incontinence or gastrointestinal problems among residents who use nearby well water. Latkanich called the state DEP to test his water. He also contacted John Stolz, director of Duquesne University's Center for Environmental Research and Education.
Pennsylvania Fracking SitesThe results have been ambiguous. Unlike most people, Latkanich had an independent lab test his water in 2011 before fracking began, giving him a baseline. In its February 2017 test, the state found increased turbidity, or cloudiness, and the presence of coliform bacteria. DEP officials returned in early November to take more samples. Stolz's test found higher levels of iron, calcium and strontium. The amount of sodium had more than doubled to 510.38 milligrams per liter of water from 238.38 in 2011, before fracking began.The elevated levels of sodium pose a high risk to Latkanich, who suffers from kidney disease. "The test results prove I can't drink this water," he said.
Well Water Not Very Well at AllThe ambiguity is typical of water tested near fracking sites. If water quality has worsened, there is seldom a bright line to the fracking. That's partly because under the Halliburton loophole, companies do not reveal everything they inject underground, so labs do not know all the substances they should test for. And in many cases, homeowners enter into settlements with energy companies that prohibit them from revealing what happened.Chevron Appalachia has not seen Latkanich's 2017 water test results, but a spokeswoman said that past water testing didn't support his claim that fracking affected his water. "Based on a review of the 2011 pre-drill and 2013 post-drill water samples, both Chevron and the DEP concluded that Chevron Appalachia's operations did not affect Mr. Latkanich's water," Veronica Flores-Paniagua said in an email.  "We understand that Mr. Latkanich has recently raised the same concerns again regarding his well water. As always, Chevron Appalachia will continue to fully cooperate with the DEP in this matter."
The Legacy of the Now-Disputed EPA StudyWhen the Energy Policy Act passed, the industry celebrated the exemption of fracking from safe drinking water scrutiny and cited the now-disputed EPA study whenever complaints about pollution arose. In a September 2005 newsletter, the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission said the study had found "no confirmed cases that drinking water wells had been contaminated by hydraulic fracturing fluid injection into coal bed methane wells."
"It was the one big study. You heard it quoted for a decade or more after: that fracking never harmed water," said Greg Dotson, a law professor at the University of Oregon and former lead energy policy staffer for Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce committee during the Bush era. For members of Congress, "if you wanted to do the right thing, you needed to have data on your side, and this study deprived you of an analytical basis. ... The oil and gas guys always used it. It was instrumental to their winning the debate."
The Trump EPA does not try to hide its intention to roll back rules to help oil and gas. Before taking the reins at EPA, Pruitt built a career based on deep ties to industry. He led a political non-profit funded in part by the petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch. He sued the EPA more than a dozen times as Oklahoma attorney general over new pollution standards. As EPA administrator, he has halted or slowed several rules affecting oil and gas.
He has moved to undermine the scientific underpinnings of major rules in part by removing independent academics from the agency's scientific advisory panels that review studies on issues such as fracking. In their place, the Pruitt team has put forth the names of corporate representatives, many drawn from the oil and gas industry, who deny prevailing science on public health hazards such as climate change and ozone.
EPA Issues New Report, but Change Is Unlikely  
In December 2016, as the Obama administration was about to leave office, the EPA issued a new report, which stated for the first time that fracking in some cases had contaminated drinking water. It identified possible risks to groundwater unless certain safeguards are implemented. Cadmus was the government contractor who helped conduct the study, and this time, its name is repeatedly mentioned in it.The new study won't change anything on the ground unless Congress acts to repeal the Halliburton loophole, which is unlikely for the present.Latkanich expects no help from the government. It allowed all he sees around him to happen, he figures.  He has a reputation with Chevron as a troublemaker because he monitors and criticizes its practices. Early on, he grew suspicious of the company when he learned from a neighbor that a Chevron contractor had dumped wastewater into a stream on the other side of his property. The company was cited by the state, but Chevron and state regulators did not tell Latkanich about the violation, he said.Latkanich would like to stay in his house, which he poured thousands of dollars into because he thought he would grow old in it. Now, his fears about the well water nudge him to go, but he worries he can't find a buyer. "I can't sell the house now: It has foundation issues and pollution. The value of the house has dropped like a rock," he said.The most likely buyer would be Chevron, and Latkanich is determined to wrest accountability for the damage he believes the company has done. But he can't afford a lawyer to help him negotiate a settlement. One non-profit told him his case was too big and complex for it to handle. He gets a disability check and about $550 monthly now in royalties for his two gas wells, so he doesn't have the money to hire private firms."This farm is ruined," he said."Forever," said Ryan, who had come into the kitchen from running around outside."Buy me out and I'll move somewhere where there isn't fracking," Latkanich said."Japan?" Ryan offered. "Because I don't think there's fracking there."<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-chemicals-secret-2511076831.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-chemicals-secret-2511076831.html</a>
<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/african-americans-air-pollution-2509714660.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/african-americans-air-pollution-2509714660.html</a></div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px;"><h1 class="headline h1" style="text-align: left; margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">African Americans Disproportionately Suffer Health Effects of Oil and Gas Facilities</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2509714660" data-authors="David Leestma" data-headline="African Americans Disproportionately Suffer Health Effects of Oil and Gas Facilities" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">African American communities face a disproportionate risk of health issues caused by gas and oil pollution, according to a <a href="http://www.naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Fumes-Across-the-Fence-Line_NAACP_CATF.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> issued Tuesday by two advocacy groups.
The report from the <a href="http://www.naacp.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">National Association for the Advancement of Colored People</a> and the <a href="http://www.catf.us/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Clean Air Task Force</a> noted the importance of Obama-era U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) regulations that finalized standard for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane" style="text-decoration-line: none;">methane</a> and ozone smog-forming volatile organic compound (VOCs). The report states that if the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> administration's dismantling of environmental regulations continues, the situation for African Americans will worsen.The study found oil and natural gas facilities were built or currently exist within a half-mile of more than one million African Americans, exposing these communities to higher risks of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cancer" style="text-decoration-line: none;">cancer</a> due to toxic emissions. "African-Americans are exposed to 38 percent more polluted air than Caucasian Americans, and they are 75 percent more likely to live in fence-line communities than the average American," the report said, referring to neighborhoods near to gas and oil facilities.Counties located in the Gulf Coast Basin are home to the most counties with oil refineries and higher percentages of African Americans. Michigan, Louisiana and Tennessee, the report found, have the highest percentage of African American residents living in oil refinery counties. Texas and Louisiana, both in the Gulf Coast Basin, were home to the largest African American individuals at risk for cancer, with nearly 900,000 living in areas above the EPA's level of concern."The effects of oil and gas pollution are disproportionately afflicting African Americans, particularly cancer and respiratory issues, and the trend is only increasing," said Dr. Doris Browne, the National Medical Association President.The report also found that oil and natural gas industries violate the EPA's air quality standards from natural gas emissions-related ozone smog in numerous African communities, causing more than 130,000 asthma attacks among school children. This results in more than 100,000 missed school days each year.Defending the environmental protections finalized during the Obama administration and advocating for additional protections against pollution from the oil and gas industry will help improve the health of many African American communities, the study noted.But the Trump administration has already begun to dismantle Obama-era EPA steps taken in 2016 that aimed to clean up toxic air pollutants such as benzene, formaldehyde and sulfur dioxide. It is also taking aim at 2016 EPA actions that address the 1.2 million existing sources of methane pollution and other airborne pollution. The White House claims these regulations are unnecessary industry burdens. The Trump administration's moves are being challenged in courts around the country."What this administration is discovering as it attempts to undo vital health and environmental protections is that these sensible standards cannot simply be wished away, only to the benefit of the oil and gas industry," said Sarah Uhl, program director of short-lived climate pollutants for Clean Air Task Force....</div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">=</div>CA<a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/fracking-02-11-2015.html">https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/fracking-02-11-2015.html</a>For Immediate Release, February 11, 2015Contact: Hollin Kretzmann, (415) 436-9682 x 333, <a href="mailto:hkretzmann@biologicaldiversity.org">hkretzmann@biologicaldiversity.org</a> Cancer-causing Chemicals Found in Fracking Flowback From California Oil WellsAnalysis of State Documents Reveals High Levels of Benzene, Chromium-6SAN FRANCISCO— Flowback fluid from fracked oil wells in California commonly contains dangerous levels of cancer-causing chemicals, a new analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity has found.Flowback fluid is a key component of oil-industry wastewater from fracked wells, which is commonly disposed of in injection wells, which often feed into aquifers, including some that could be used for drinking water and irrigation. Oil wastewater is also dumped into open pits.Benzene levels over 1,500 times the federal limits for drinking water were found in fracking flowback fluid tests dating back to April 2014 obtained and analyzed by the Center. Benzene in excess of federal limits was found in 320 tests, and chromium-6 was detected 118 times. Both chemicals can cause cancer.“Cancer-causing chemicals are surfacing in fracking flowback fluid just as we learn that the California oil industry is disposing of wastewater in hundreds of illegal disposal wells and open pits,” said Hollin Kretzmann, the Center lawyer who conducted the analysis. “Gov. Brown needs to shut down all the illegal wells immediately and ban fracking to fight this devastating threat to California’s water supply.”Hundreds of injection wells were recently revealed to be illegally dumping oil industry wastewater into scores of California aquifers, including some that supply water for drinking and farming irrigation. Central Valley water officials also recently revealed that at least 383 oil industry wastewater pits are operating without permits or oversight. Most wastewater pits are unlined and don’t have covers.Among the concerns revealed by the Center’s analysis of fracking flowback testing:<ul><li style="text-align: left;">High chromium-6 levels: Chromium-6 was found in fracking flowback at levels up to 2,700 times the recommended level set by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.</li><li style="text-align: left;">Missing reports: At least 100 fracking flowback tests are missing from the reporting website managed by California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, in violation of state law.</li><li style="text-align: left;">Missing benzene data: Only 329 of the 479 fracking fluid chemical tests on the state oil agency’s website measured for benzene.</li><li style="text-align: left;">Benzene common: Of those 329 chemical tests that measured for benzene, 323 detected benzene while only six did not.</li><li style="text-align: left;">Dangerous toluene levels: Toluene, a toxin that can affect the central nervous system and harm developing fetuses, was found to exceed federal-mandated limits for drinking water 118 times.</li></ul>The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 800,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.school twinkie<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/big-oil-propaganda-2471023637.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/big-oil-propaganda-2471023637.html</a><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/trump-administration-proposes-repeal-fracking-protections">http://www.alternet.org/environment/trump-administration-proposes-repeal-fracking-protections</a>Three days before oral arguments are scheduled in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Bureau of Land Management safety measures to regulate fracking operations on public lands, the U.S. Department of Interior is moving ahead with its <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2017-15696.pdf%EF%BB%BF" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">plan to rescind</a> the 2015 rule.The rule, which was the product of nearly five years of agency work, expert input, public comments and hearings, never went into effect after it was challenged immediately by oil and gas industry trade associations. After a district court judge set aside the rule in 2016, BLM and citizen groups appealed to the 10th Circuit in late 2016.The Trump administration, however, reversed course in March 2017 and announced that it would propose repealing the rule. On Monday, the administration formalized that reversal with a proposal to be published Tuesday for public notice and comment. “This is another cynical move by the Trump administration that sacrifices our public lands and public safety as a favor to the oil and gas industry,” said Michael Freeman, the attorney for Earthjustice who is representing environmental groups who support the safety rules in the legal action.Despite a request by the administration to stay the appeal, the 10th Circuit scheduled oral argument for July 27.“The timing of this proposal is obviously linked to this week’s oral argument. It is part of the administration’s effort to circumvent the law by asking to stay this appeal while leaving the lower court ruling in effect. We oppose that request, and we’ll see the agency in court Thursday morning,” Freeman said.The rule calls for drillers to disclose what chemicals are used in fracking fluids and to perform tests on the integrity of the wells before drilling can begin. It was the first time the rules had been updated since the 1980s.In its proposal to rescind the rule, the Interior Department said, “BLM believes that the 2015 final rule unnecessarily burdens industry with compliance costs and information requirements that are duplicative of regulatory programs of many states and some tribes.”BLM staff members in New Mexico have reported, however, that they do not perform onsite inspections of hydraulic fracturing operations because “the work is too dangerous” under existing rules.Earthjustice is representing Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Western Resource Advocates, Earthworks and Conservation Colorado Education Fund.<a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2017-15696.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Read the proposal.</a><div style="text-align: left;">The hearing on the challenge is set for:</div><div style="text-align: left;">9 a.m. Thursday</div><div style="text-align: left;">Byron White U.S. Courthouse</div><div style="text-align: left;">1823 Stout Street, Denver, CO 80202</div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-uk-2459312819.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-uk-2459312819.html</a><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px;"><h1 class="headline h1" style="text-align: left; margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">Fracking Companies to Government: We Are 'Suffering' as Financing Dries Up</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="article-body body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url selectionShareable" data-url="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-uk-2459312819.html" data-headline="Fracking Companies to Government: We Are 'Suffering' as Financing Dries Up" data-elid="2459312819" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="article-description body-description" style="margin-bottom: 10px;">By Richard Anderson<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Fracking</a> companies in Britain privately admit they are "suffering" and struggling to secure finance, according to government documents obtained via freedom of information.In a meeting last May with then-business minister Anna Soubry, the Onshore Energy Services Group (OESG) said raising the money needed to develop a wide-scale fracking infrastructure was proving difficult....</div></div>
<a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/rex-tillerson-has-been-misleading-public-about-dangers-fracking-years">http://www.alternet.org/environment/rex-tillerson-has-been-misleading-public-about-dangers-fracking-years</a>.... It worked. With help from sympathetic (and largely conservative) media outlets and a barrage of propaganda from industry front groups like “Energy in Depth,” the industry was able to brand the victims as liars and charlatans. “Their water was always like that” became a meme—a “sciencey” explanation that let the industry off the hook and blamed the victims. Each new case got the same treatment, and with oil industry PR money behind it, much of the nation believed it.  Central to the oil industry’s branding of fracking as a clean source of energy is the claim that “there’s never been one case of water pollution from fracking.” Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exon (and now Secretary of State) looked straight into the camera and proclaimed in an interview with Charlie Rose in 2013 that after “a million data points,” there had “never been a verifiable case of fracking polluting drinking water.”  The claim was patently false. At that point we knew aquifers had been polluted in Dimock Pa, Pavilion Wyoming and Parker Country Texas.  Texas, Colorado, Wyoming resulting in dozens of water wells being polluted. Testing in all three cases pointed to gas extraction.In fact, there are documented cases of fracking contaminating drinking water as early as the 1980s. An EPA report from 1987 showed that “fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr. James Parson’s property, fractures were created allowing migration of fracture fluid from the gas well to Mr. Parson’s water well.” Industry itself admitted that fracking polluted the well.  During the 1990s when modern fracking technologies were being pioneered in Texas, widespread instances of pollution were acknowledged by Texas regulators.But with enough people in positions of power and influence repeating it, the claim that there had never been a single case of fracking polluting drinking water became a “fact.” Media figures, oil industry officials, politicians, state regulators and gas and oil PR teams repeated the same story line: Fracking has been around for seventy years and there’s never been one documented case of pollution.There were numerous problems with this story. First, modern slick-water fracking combined with horizontal drilling is a relatively new technology.  Comparing the “stimulation” of old vertical wells to modern fracks with pressures up to 15,000 PSI and hundreds of chemicals is like comparing a 1960s rotary phone to today's iPhone.  Also left out of the not-one-case story is a clever sleight of hand with the definition of fracking. The oil industry defines “fracking” as only what happens in the horizontal section of pipe thousands of feet underground. According to this reasoning, the only way fracking can pollute drinking water is by migrating through thousands of feet of solid rock. Pollution from the vertical part of the well—where most leaks occur—or surface activity is not in this technical definition pollution from fracking.Of course, most people understand fracking as the whole process of transporting equipment and chemicals to the site, drilling the well, extracting the gas and transporting it to market. Oil industry PR people are perfectly willing to use this confusion to their advantage. They can cite scientific papers claiming that “there has never been a case of fracking polluting drinking water,” and let the public believe they are referring to the common-sense definition of fracking as the entire industrial process.Industry leaders like Tillerson know all this, of course. But they just keep repeating the same misleading claim. If enough “experts,” authority figures and media personalities keep repeating it, the big lie becomes a fact in people’s minds. And once it’s embedded, these everyone-knows-it facts are very difficult to dislodge.An important part of the oil industry drive to control perceptions of fracking is demonizing its critics. Victims are portrayed as greedy fraudsters. Environmentalists are portrayed as hysterical, hypocritical busy bodies inventing scandals about a clean energy technology they should be celebrating. Filmmakers like Josh Fox, whose film “Gasland” shined a spotlight on cases of pollution associated with fracking, were subjected to withering character assassination campaigns.The IPAA, the oldest petroleum industry association in the nation, funded a film a film to discredit “Gasland” called “Truthland.” It was a shiny spin piece that painted any case of water contamination as naturally occurring. The best known of these fracking-denial films is “FrackNation” by Phelim McAleer. McAleer has made a career out of making films depicting environments as hypocritical elitists and pollution victims as frauds and liars. A darling of conservative news outlets, McAleer has been one of the most effective proponents of fracking-has-never-contaminated-drinking-water meme. Other media figures like Alex Epstein and Ezra Levant have cashed in by writing Ann Coulter-style books popularizing oil industry talking points. Levant is famous in Canada for his shouting-head attacks on oil industry critics.IPAA also fired up their own PR “news” outlet, Energy In Depth. In a memo announcing the new media group, IPAA stated the group’s goal; “EnergyInDepth.org: a state of the art online resource center to combat new environmental regulations,”. The venture was funded by major gas and oil interests including; BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, Halliburton and Schlumberger and Energy in Depth remains one of the main purveyors of the gas industry’s talking points regarding water, fracking and pollution.When a reporter or member of the public asks if fracking pollutes drinking water, they’re likely asking if any part of the entire process contaminates drinking water. That’s logical since the entire process will be used as the nation moves forward with the planned fracked gas revolution. When the question is answered with a resounding, seemingly convincing ‘NO’, the reporter or citizen thinks no water has ever been contaminated by any part of the fracking process.While industry has gotten away with this ruse for a decade, hundreds of cases of water contamination have become known. After a long fight, The Scranton Times got Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection to count the number of letters it sent to residents confirming incidence of water contamination during their fracked gas boom. That number was 243. The Associated Press found at least four states had recorded water contamination also. One troubling fact keeps us from knowing how many cases have actually occurred. When a homeowner settles their case with the operator, they are required to sign a silence agreement that disallows them from sharing any facts about their case. Not only do we know hundreds of cases of water contamination related to the fracking boom have occurred, as it is today, we can never know how many cases there really have been.= trump XO methane BO rule gone plus other horrors
<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/maryland-bans-fracking-2333222930.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/maryland-bans-fracking-2333222930.html</a> frack kid leukemia<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/leukemia-oil-gas-wells-2280665249.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.ecowatch.com/leukemia-oil-gas-wells-2280665249.html</a>no link
With the rise of new technologies like fracking and horizontal drilling, oil and gas development in the U.S. has exploded over the last 15 years. As development expands, it's also pushing ever closer into areas where people live. It's been estimated that today more than 15 million Americans live within one mile of oil and gas development.
The drilling process, of course, has the potential to emit toxic substances, including the carcinogen benzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and diesel exhaust, into the surrounding air and waterways. But researchers have long been trying to determine to what extent oil and gas drilling operations may threaten public health, particularly around cancer risk.
However, new research suggests that children living in areas of high-density oil and gas development may face increased risk of health impacts, namely a certain type of leukemia, as a result of their exposure to pollutants associated with this activity.
In some parts of Colorado where oil and gas development is especially concentrated, hundreds of oil and gas wells reportedly lie within one mile of residential areas. And according to a recent study, children and young adults who were diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia were 4.3 times more likely to live within 10 miles of an active oil and gas well than kids with other types of cancer.

This finding, published in the scientific journal PLOS One, applied to youth between 5 and 24 years old. The study did not find a connection between other types of cancer, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma and proximity to oil and gas wells.
"Over 378,000 Coloradans and millions of Americans currently live within a mile of at least one oil and gas well and petroleum development continues to expand into residential areas," Dr. Lisa McKenzie, professor with the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz and the lead author of the study, said in a statement.
"The findings from our registry-based case control study indicate that young Coloradans diagnosed with one type of childhood leukemia are more likely to live in the densest areas of oil and gas sites. More comprehensive research that can address our study's limitations is needed to understand and explain these results."
While oil and gas development can and does happen in urban areas (see: Los Angeles), McKenzie's team limited their research to Colorado's small towns and rural areas with populations under 50,000 people. They used data collected by the Colorado Central Cancer Registry to find more than 740 young Coloradans under 24 years old who were diagnosed with cancer between 2001 and 2013.

In order to analyze these children's proximity to oil and gas development at diagnosis, the researchers then employed information from the Colorado Oil and Gas Information System to determine both the coordinates of all oil and gas wells in rural Colorado and timing when each well was active. 
The study team notes in the PLOS One paper that environmental factors such as pollution from oil and gas wells are unlikely to fully explain incidence of cancer on their own, but that they are a significant influence:
A number of factors, including genetic predisposition and susceptibility, as well as environmental factors, come together in the development of childhood cancers through a two step process, the first of which likely occurs in utero. Environmental factors that may be associated with [acute lymphocytic leukemia] include in-utero and postnatal exposures to vehicle exhaust fumes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and chemicals including benzene and other hydrocarbons.
McKenzie and her co-authors called for more research to confirm their findings, recommending that those studies take into account nuances such the type and level of oil and gas development and production, the amounts of benzene and other pollutants and pollutant levels at locations such as schools and childcare facilities.
But a key takeaway of the study seems to be that fracking and horizontal drilling have enabled oil and gas development to encroach more and more into places where people live (something the city of Greeley, Colorado, is grappling with firsthand) and as the researchers noted, "This has the potential to expose a large population to oil and gas development related pollutants."
Reposted with permission from our media associate DeSmogBlog.=interceptText Describing Federal Fracking Rule Disappears From Interior Department Website<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/02/15/text-describing-federal-fracking-rule-disappears-from-interior-department-website/">https://theintercept.com/2017/02/15/text-describing-federal-fracking-rule-disappears-from-interior-department-website/</a>Alleen Brown — Feb. 15Text describing two rules regulating the oil and gas industry was removed from the Interior Department website.=trump roll back methane=<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/11/13178/frackers-knew-fossil-fuel-industry-has-known-1967-injection-wells-cause">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/11/13178/frackers-knew-fossil-fuel-industry-has-known-1967-injection-wells-cause</a>
On August 9, 1967, a 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck Northglenn, a northern suburb of Denver, Colorado.The Associated Press wrote that it was "the severest earthquake ever recorded" in the city's history. Building foundations cracked, windows broke, bricks flew off of downtown rooftops.A year later in the prominent academic journal "Science," geophysicist J.H. Healy and his associates proposed that humans, not nature, were responsible for the quake."We attempt here to present the statistical evidence for correlating the two events -- fluid injection and earthquakes -- and to develop a hypothesis relating the two as cause and effect," Healy wrote.The "fluid injection" Healy was referencing had been taking place two miles from Northglenn at the U.S. Army's Rocky Mountain Arsenal manufacturing plant. In 1961, the army drilled a "disposal waste well" through 2.2 miles of sedimentary rock, and had begun injecting it with contaminated industrial wastewater.Seismic activity increased immediately, and then slowed after the army enacted an injection hiatus between October 1963 and August 1964. When the army started the injections back up again, the earthquakes followed.Healy presented the following chart as evidence:...epa sci advis bd did right?https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/fracking-can-harm-drinking-water-in-some-circumstances-epa-says<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/23/trump-touts-drilling-potential-botches-facts-shale-industry-conference</div><div style="text-align: left;">....</div><div style="text-align: left;">...</div><div><h3 open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Rally, Protest Outside Shale Insight 2016</h3>Outside the convention center, about 150 protesters gathered for a rally and march.“It's not really about jobs, it's about money,” said Erin Kramer, a protester and organizer with OnePittsburgh. “Trump illustrates that to a T — with the package of that mass capitalism you also get a whole bunch of hate, a whole bunch of racial unrest and human rights violations.”Conference organizers indicated that Hillary Clinton was invited to attend, but <a href="http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/policy-powersource/2016/09/21/Trump-s-speech-puts-unions-involved-in-shale-industry-in-uncomfortable-spot/stories/201609210195" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that she declined, citing scheduling conflicts.While Trump repeatedly called on the shale gas industry to help him get out the vote in November, before the event, it seemed he still had work to do to gain their enthusiastic support.Within the Republican party, Trump has been an extraordinarily divisive figure, with many prominent Republicans refusing to endorse him. And when it comes to contributions from oilfield workers, Trump's reception from them has been notably muted.“As of last week, Republican nominee Donald Trump raised a paltry $245,000 from individuals working in the oil and gas industry, according to figures provided by the nonpartisan <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/select-industries.php?ind=E01" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Responsive Politics</a>,” NPR's State Impact <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/09/20/why-the-oil-and-gas-industry-is-not-giving-to-trump/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recently reported</a>. (By contrast, Mitt Romney raised <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/09/20/why-the-oil-and-gas-industry-is-not-giving-to-trump/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$5.9 million</a> from the oil and gas industry in 2012.)In Pittsburgh, Trump arrived for his speech late, then kept the executives, who included top officials at major oil and gas companies, waiting as conference organizers informed the crowd that Trump was pausing to spend another several minutes giving an interview, rather than speaking to the hundreds of businesspeople and journalists there to hear him speak.But once he arrived on stage, Trump tried hard to make his own support for the fossil fuel industry quite clear.“Producing more American energy is a central part of my plan to make America wealthy again, especially for the poorest Americans,” he said. “I knew I'd have to make that statement in order to get you guys a little bit enlivened. Oh well, you'll like the rest of what I've got to say even more.”Trump also used a significant portion of his time at the podium to comment on <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/22/racial-economic-divide-underpins-charlotte-protests.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">protests</a> over the police killings of black Americans, and it was those remarks that drew the most attention from the national media. He decried recent protests in Charlotte, North Carolina, which were sparked by the police killing of Keith Lamont Scott, father of seven, who neighbors say was waiting for his son to arrive on a school bus.Even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/09/22/state-of-emergency-in-charlotte-after-man-shot-during-second-night-of-protests/?utm_term=.ae5507c2a65a" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">before</a> the police released video of that death, whose circumstances they've disputed, Trump had made up his mind about who he was behind. “The men and women in blue need your support,” Trump told the crowd. “They need your thanks and they need your gratitude.”He seemed to suggest that Black Lives Matter protests were fueled not by anger over the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">police killings</a> of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.d3eb16ece829" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">black Americans</a>, but by drugs. “And if you're not aware, drugs are a very, very big factor in what you're watching on television at night,” Trump told the crowd.Clinton supporters quickly seized on Trump's remarks, especially his comments disparaging the protests over police violence.“Today, in a room full of oil executives, Trump blamed the Charlotte protests on 'drugs' and insinuated that his administration would have no 'compassion' when it comes to criminal justice,” Brad Woodhouse, president of Correct The Record, which <a href="http://correctrecord.org/about-us/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">describes</a> itself as “a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC,” said in a <a href="http://correctrecord.org/ctr-statement-on-donald-trumps-speech-at-the-shale-insight-conference/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a>. “Despite weeks of so-called outreach to communities of color, Trump today showed us who he really stands with: wealthy fossil fuel special interests.”To be sure, Trump was in Pittsburgh primarily to discuss another conflict — the fight over the fate of the fossil fuel industry.“It's war,” Trump said. “And you people know it's war.”The <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/21/nations-embrace-paris-agreement-world-s-existing-fossil-fuels-set-exceed-its-goals" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stakes are indeed high</a>. Climate scientists warn that if the world's remaining oil, gas, and coal are burned, the climate consequences would be extraordinarily catastrophic.In an <a href="http://time.com/4502561/donald-trump-stephen-hawking-climate-change/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">open letter</a> this week, 375 members of the National Academy of Scientists, including <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/the-media-is-ignoring-the-most-important-part-of-stephen-hawkings-comments-on-trump-d97a5fdbf55#.a14t1xw0t" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Steven Hawking</a>, issued a grave warning. “It is of great concern that the Republican nominee for President has advocated U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord,” the scientists wrote. “The consequences of opting out of the global community would be severe and long-lasting — for our planet's climate and for the international credibility of the United States.”Trump made it clear that if he was elected, his administration would go further, repealing several measures aimed at curbing climate change. “We will eliminate the highly invasive 'waters of the U.S.' [Clean Water Act] rule and scrap the $5 trillion Obama-Clinton climate action plan and the Clean Power Plan,” he told the crowd.Then he left the room to a standing ovation.</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">=</div>A California judge struck down a bid Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to expropriate more than 1 million acres in central California for oil drilling.Judge Michael Fitzgerald <a href="http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/28-Order-on-XMSJs%209-6-16.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">found</a> that the BLM failed to consider the dangers of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fracking</a>, which is part of the formal application process. Two environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and Los Padres ForestWatch, brought the lawsuit against the BLM.<div class="share-tab-img share-buttons share-trigger" style="max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; overflow: hidden;"><div class="share-media-panel">"The bureau failed to take a 'hard look' at the environmental impact of the resource management plan, when, under the RMP, 25 percent of new wells are expected to use hydraulic fracturing," Judge Fitzgerald said in his ruling.
"The bureau is therefore obligated to prepare a substantial EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] to analyze the environmental consequences flowing from the use of hydraulic fracturing."The bureau's 1,073-page impact statement only mentioned fracking three times, SFGate <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Judge-blocks-oil-development-in-Central-9206391.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>. BLM had commissioned a report from the California Council on Science and Technology two years ago, the judge noted. However, commissioning the study does not absolve the BLM from further analyzing the impact of fracking on the area for its current permit, Fitzgerald added.The area in question involves the following counties: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura.The agency has until Sept. 21 to present arguments as to why the judge should not issue an injunction to stop the plan.The contested land area provides shelter to more than one-third of the federally listed threatened and endangered species, as well as groundwater systems that provide water for agricultural and residential purposes, <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/oil-and-gas-09-06-2016.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a> the Center for Biological Diversity.Environmentalists lauded the ruling."The Obama administration must get the message and end this reckless rush to auction off our public land to oil companies," Brendan Cummings, Center for Biological Diversity's conservation director, said. "As California struggles against drought and climate change, we've got to end fracking and leave this dirty oil in the ground."ForestWatch executive director Jeff Kuyper also praised the ruling: "This ruling will protect public lands from the crest of the Sierra Nevada to the Central Coast from an influx of oil development and fracking. These treasured landscapes provide many benefits to our local communities and are too valuable to sacrifice for a few days' supply of oil."But, the petroleum industry wasn't as happy with the ruling."Hydraulic fracturing and other well stimulation treatments in California have undergone rigorous analysis and review, culminating in the most stringent environmental standards nationwide," Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, said. "Countless independent, state and federal science-based studies all agree. Hydraulic fracturing, when regulated, remains a safe technology that provides enormous benefits to American businesses and customers."This latest ruling is not the first time a federal judge has blocked BLM from developing California land because of its failure to consider the environmental implications of fracking.
In 2013, a different judge ruled that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act by issuing oil leases on Monterey County land without doing necessary studies on the impact of fracking. BLM is still completing an environmental review on fracking, and has not been able to issue any leases in that area.California has been a battleground state between companies eager to frack for oil and gas, and anti-fracking campaigns. So far, five California counties have banned the industrial practice, with Alameda County becoming the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/alameda-county-becomes-fifth-in-california-to-ban-fracking-1933900702.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">latest to do so</a>.<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/health-dangers-fracking-1986527671.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/health-dangers-fracking-1986527671.html</a>
<div style="text-align: left;">=</div><div style="text-align: left;">http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/12/scathing-review-epa-s-science-advisors-tell-agency-not-downplay-fracking-related-water-contamination</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div>On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific advisors finished their review of EPA's national study on fracking and sternly rebuked the EPA for claiming that its draft study had found no evidence of “widespread, systemic” impacts to drinking water.The EPA had not provided the evidence to support that claim, the Science Advisory Board (SAB) peer review panel <a href="https://yosemite.epa.gov/sab/sabproduct.nsf/LookupWebReportsLastMonthBOARD/BB6910FEC10C01A18525800C00647104/$File/EPA-SAB-16-005+Unsigned.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">found</a>. The phrase was widely quoted in the press, but appeared only in a press release and the Executive Summary of EPA's draft study of the impacts of fracking on drinking water.Environmentalists challenged EPA's summary of the data, arguing that the agency's conclusion wrongly ignored the thousands of spills, leaks, and other problems described in the body of the draft report.The science advisory panel, in a letter signed by 26 of the 30 panelists, agreed. “The SAB is concerned that these major findings as presented within the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-07/documents/hf_es_erd_jun2015.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Executive Summary</a> are ambiguous and appear inconsistent with the observations, data, and levels of uncertainty presented and discussed in the body of the draft Assessment Report,” the SAB wrote. “The SAB finds that the EPA did not support quantitatively its conclusion about lack of evidence for widespread, systemic impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources,” the SAB wrote, “and did not clearly describe the system(s) of interest (e.g., groundwater, surface water), the scale of impacts (i.e., local or regional), nor the definitions of 'systemic' and 'widespread.'”The SAB's 180-page letter makes clear that if the Obama administration claims that fracking has not led to “widespread, systemic impacts” to water, it bears the burden of proving that their assessment is actually supported by evidence.“The SAB concludes that if the EPA retains this conclusion, the EPA should provide quantitative analysis that supports its conclusion that hydraulic fracturing has not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources,” the reviewers <a href="https://yosemite.epa.gov/sab/sabproduct.nsf/LookupWebReportsLastMonthBOARD/BB6910FEC10C01A18525800C00647104/$File/EPA-SAB-16-005+Unsigned.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a>.Environmental advocates welcomed the science panel's findings as vindication.“EPA didn’t provide/have a scientific basis for its controversial line, and today EPA SAB is calling them out for that,” Dr. Hugh MacMillan, a senior researcher for Food and Water Watch, told DeSmog in an email.The controversial language from EPA's <a href="https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=244651" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">998-page draft fracking study</a>'s Executive Summary had said: “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms [which included wastewater spills or treatment problems as well as underground water contamination] have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”The EPA was asked by Congress to investigate fracking's impacts on drinking water back in 2009.....</div> =http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/24/pa-oil-gas-regulations/Thanks to a bill passed this June by the state legislature, Pennsylvania now has the dubious distinction of being the only state in the nation to abandon oil and gas regulations after they’ve been fully developed and publicly reviewed. While other states have modernized oil and gas oversight in the wake of the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/">shale boom</a>, no other state has exempted a major part of the oil and gas industry in the process.<figure id="attachment_385933" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 760px;"><div style="text-align: left;">map:</div><figcaption id="figcaption_attachment_385933" class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: left;">The Oil and Gas Threat Map shows where all areas across the country within 1/2 mile of an active oil and gas well, and counties with elevated cancer risk due to oil and gas air toxics.</figcaption></figure>But that’s exactly what SB 279 does. Called the <a href="http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfm?sYear=2015&sInd=0&body=S&type=B&bn=279" target="blank">Penn Grade Crude Development Advisory Council bill</a>, it <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/oil_and_gas_rules_wolf.html" target="blank">wipes out</a> updated environmental protection requirements for conventional oil and gas operations (known as Chapter 78). In effect, 178 state representatives and senators just overturned what it took five years, 12 public hearings, 30,000 public comments and affirmative votes by public regulatory commissions and the legislature to accomplish.Unfortunately,DEM Gov. Wolf just signed SB 279 into law, sounding the death knell for Chapter 78 in the process. Equally unfortunate, official statements from his administration have completely <a href="https://www.governor.pa.gov/governor-wolf-signs-bill-allowing-new-fracking-rules-to-be-finalized/" target="blank">ignored</a> the negative impact SB 279 will have on Pennsylvanians—even as the Governor declares victory for new rules that will go into effect only for unconventional oil and gas operations.Such political spin may be Harrisburg’s status quo, but in this case it’s a dangerous affront to Pennsylvanians whose air, water and health is damaged by oil and gas development..On the same day as the SB 279 vote, the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), Earthworks and the FracTracker Alliance released <a href="http://oilandgasthreatmap.com/" target="blank">OilandGasThreatMap.com</a>. Using state well location data and U.S. Census Bureau data, it shows that nearly 25 percent of Pennsylvania’s population <a href="http://oilandgasthreatmap.com/threat-map/pennsylvania/" target="blank">lives within a half-mile of oil and gas wells and facilities</a>—a distance at which serious health impacts are most clearly linked, according to the majority of peer-reviewed science.Threatened residents include large proportions of several Pennsylvania counties including Warren (86 percent); McKean (72 percent); Venango (58 percent); and Forest (30 percent). Data from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) show that in 2014, those four counties comprised more than 90 percent of all the conventional oil and gas wells drilled statewide.According to the accompanying report, <a href="http://oilandgasthreatmap.com/fossil-fumes/" target="blank">Fossil Fumes</a> (by CATF with support from the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment and Earthworks), eight Pennsylvania counties have an elevated cancer risk directly attributable to toxic emissions from oil and gas operations (Armstrong, Clarion, Fayette, Forest, Greene, Indiana, Jefferson and Washington). DEP data indicate that 60-99 percent of all active oil and gas wells in these counties are conventional ones.Throughout the long debate over Chapter 78, the oil and gas industry and its legislative champions propagated the fantasy that conventional operations have limited, if any, environmental and health impacts. Yet just like their shale-drilling cousins, modern-day conventional activities rely on hydraulic fracturing and chemicals, generate toxic waste, and cause hazardous spills and air pollution.<div style="text-align: left;">In fact, between 2008-2014, conventional operators were responsible for 60 percent of the cases in which oil and gas activities contaminated the private water supplies of Pennsylvanians. In 2014, conventional drillers were responsible for three-quarters of regulatory violations issued by DEP. Conventional operations are clearly a big problem with which a vastly understaffed DEP will have to continue to contend, though now without the benefit of stronger regulations</div>
<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/07/wenonah-hauter-frackopoly/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/07/wenonah-hauter-frackopoly/</a><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/10/epa-fracking-methane-emissions/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/10/epa-fracking-methane-emissions/</a>
whistleblower...An environmental watchdog alleges that the answer may be a years-long, systematic cover-up of the true data surrounding these toxic emissions. That cover-up, the group says, was at the hands of at least one EPA researcher who accepted payments from the oil and gas industry.In an incendiary federal <a href="http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/EPA-OIG_NCWARN_Complaint_6-8-16.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">complaint</a> filed on Wednesday with the EPA’s Inspector General, the 28-year-old North Carolina-based group NC WARN wrote that “there has been a persistent and deliberate cover-up that has prevented the agency from requiring the natural gas industry to make widespread, urgently needed and achievable reductions in methane venting and leakage (’emissions’) across the nation’s expanding natural gas infrastructure.”“Studies relied upon by EPA to develop policy and regulations were scientifically invalid,” the organization charged.Specifically, wrote NC WARN in a <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2016/06/09/whistleblower-epa-official-covered-methane-leakage-problems-across-us-natural" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">press statement</a>, “Dr. David Allen, then-head of EPA’s Science Advisory Board, has led an ongoing, three-year effort to cover up underreporting of the primary device, the Bacharach Hi-Flow Sampler and a second device used to measure gas releases from equipment across the natural gas industry. Allen is also on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, where he has been funded by the oil and gas industries for years.”“The EPA’s failure to order feasible reductions of <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=methane" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">methane</a> leaks and venting has robbed humanity of crucial years to slow the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">climate crisis</a>,” said Jim Warren, director of NC WARN. “The cover-up by Allen’s team has allowed the industry to dig in for years of delay in cutting emissions—at the worst possible time.”The cover-up was discovered by NC WARN, the group wrote in its complaint, when it became aware that the very inventor of the Bacharach Hi-Flow Sampler, an engineer named Touché Howard, had been attempting to blow the whistle for years on the crucial instrument’s malfunctioning. The critical failure causes the instrument to under-report methane emissions “up to 100-fold,” the organization wrote.Studies have shown the EPA <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/04/15/study-fracking-emissions-1000x-higher-epa-estimates" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">underestimating</a> methane leaks from fracked gas production for years and Howard’s own research <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/04/bombshell-study-reveals-methane-emissions-hugely-underestimated" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">found</a> that the agency has been “hugely underestimating” methane emissions specifically as a result of the faulty instrument, asCommon Dreams reported.“In the extreme, that kind of failure could lead to catastrophic explosions,” Howard <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-methane-leaks-20160607-snap-story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">told</a> the Los Angeles Times.The complaint describes Howard’s repeated attempts to warn the EPA and Allen about the instrument and the silence he received in response.“It appears that the goal of the [University of Texas] team was not to critically examine the problems but to convince [Environmental Defense Fund, who co-authored the study] and its production committee members that no problems existed,” NC WARN added.“We believe Mr. Howard was specifically prevented from providing input because the [University of Texas] team knew that he would be able to show that their counterarguments were faulty and the resulting studies scientifically invalid,” the group concluded.Howard’s concerns and the specific mechanical problems of the measurement instrument he has repeatedly pointed out have to this date never been addressed, “resulting in the failure of the EPA to accurately report methane emissions for more than two years, much less require reductions,” the complaint noted. “Meanwhile, the faulty data and measuring equipment are still being used extensively throughout the natural gas industry worldwide.”Indeed, a graphic included in the complaint demonstrates that the malfunctioning Bacharach Hi-Flow Sampler is relied upon to measure methane emissions at nearly every point in the fracked gas production process:<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/02/offshore-fracking-pacific/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/02/offshore-fracking-pacific/</a>...Under a <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=clinton" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Hillary Clinton</a> presidency, California and the rest of the country would get even more fracking and fracked gas infrastructure. Her campaign took nearly $7 million from oil and gas lobbyists. Her State Department created the Global Shale Gas Initiative to promote fracking in 30 countries. <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/hillary-clinton-fracking/" target="blank" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Newly unearthed State Department emails</a> show how aggressive that initiative was, working closely with oil and gas companies and enlisting help from 13 federal agencies to expand fracking into Europe, even where governments opposed it.As president Bernie Sanders would <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/02/sanders-clinton-california/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">support state fracking bans</a>, ban fossil fuel extraction on federal lands, end government subsidies for oil and gas companies and bar their lobbyists from the White House. He’d change the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, so it would require reducing methane as well as CO2 emissions and favor building renewables instead of more gas plants.The choice between these two futures is an existential one. Here’s why:Fracked oil and gas operations leak natural gas, which is mostly methane, a warming agent 86 times more potent than CO2 over 20 years. Industry statistics indicate onshore operations annually emit over four times more natural gas than the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=porter+ranch" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">massive blowout</a> at the Aliso Canyon storage facility. Just weeks after it was capped, Gov. Brown signed a bill allowing SoCalGas to resume operating there, provided the wells pass safety tests. But they aren’t “safe;” they leak. SoCal’s Aliso Canyon facility was only the best known leak; CPUC found hundreds of others last year, including a different Aliso Canyon operator caught deliberately venting natural gas in January, in the middle of the blowout.Meanwhile the industry is pushing more fracked gas pipelines, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sierra-club-environmental-law-program/bridge-to-nowhere-califor_b_9629488.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">gas plants</a> and injection wells, which means more leaks. California is green-lighting and enabling the expansion. Over the past year the state even approved fracking wastewater injection wells near fault lines, raising earthquake risks.If it stays on this path, it will lock in fracked oil and gas for the next 40 years. Then we can forget about California’s environmental leader image or meeting <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=paris+agreement" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">Paris climate agreement</a> goals of keeping warming under 2 degrees centigrade (we’ve already locked in 1.5 degrees, at 2 degrees sea levels rise 5 to 9 meters).Even as it struggles with Biblical droughts and wildfires, California continues to frack oil wells and expand fracked gas infrastructure, further damaging the climate. This sets a hypocritical example for the rest of the world. As the world’s eighth largest economy, California’s choices influence others’. As the world’s third largest consumer of gasoline and diesel, with the fourth highest per capita GHG emissions, it should make better ones.California could set a very different example by choosing the only candidate who opposes fracking. Clinton and Brown both worked against concerned citizens trying to ban fracking; Sanders invited us into his office to talk policy. He and we understand we need nothing less than a political revolution to say “no” to big oil and gas and start scaling up <a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">renewables</a> now.So there’s more at stake in Tuesday’s primary than California’s 475 delegates. Whether or not the outcome clinches the nomination, it will send an influential global signal about what Californians are prepared to do about <a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">climate change</a>. And as California goes, so goes the planet.Josh Fox’s final film in his GASLAND trilogy How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change opens in the <a href="https://www.laemmle.com/theaters/purchase/4/4281218?replace=" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">Los Angeles area</a> on June 3 and airs on HBO June 27.CF Correction: epa blew frack call b/c bound by superfund regs? nb desmog roleBack in 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a startling announcement, shaking up the battle over <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">fracking</a> in one of the nation’s highest-profile cases where drillers were suspected to have caused water contamination.Water testing results were in for homeowners along Carter Road in <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=Dimock" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Dimock</a>, Pennsylvania, where for years, homeowners reported their water had turned brown, became flammable or started clogging their well with “black greasy feeling sediment” after Cabot Oil and Gas began drilling in the area. The EPA seemed to conclude the water wasn’t so bad after all.“The sampling and an evaluation of the particular circumstances at each home did not indicate levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take further action,” EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin said in a press release.The drilling industry crowed. “The data released today once again confirms the EPA’s and DEP’s [Department of Environmental Protection] findings that levels of contaminants found do not possess a threat to human health and the environment,” Cabot said in a statement.“It’s obviously very good news for the folks who actually live there and pretty squarely in line with what we’ve known up there for a while now,” Energy in Depth <a href="http://energyindepth.org/national/more-data-from-dimock-epa-confirms-water-is-safe-again/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">told</a> POLITICOPro. “It’s not very good news for the out-of-state folks who have sought to use Dimock as a talking point in their efforts to prevent development elsewhere, but I’m sure they’ll be working hard over the weekend to spin it differently, notwithstanding the pretty clear statement made by EPA today.”Now, a <a href="http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/DimockGroundwaterSite/Dimock_Groundwater_Site_HC_05-24-2016_508.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">newly published report</a> by the <a href="http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry</a>(ATSDR), part of the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">Centers for Disease Control</a> (CDC), puts EPA’s testing results into an entirely new light.The water was not safe to drink after all, the ATSDR concluded, after a lengthy review of the same water testing results that EPA used back in 2012.“ATSDR found some of the chemicals in the private water wells at this site at levels high enough to affect health (27 private water wells), pose a physical hazard (17 private water wells) or affect general water quality so that it may be unsuitable for drinking,” the ATSDR’s <a href="http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/DimockGroundwaterSite/Dimock_Groundwater_Site_HC_05-24-2016_508.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">health consultation</a>—launched in 2011 and published May 24—concludes.The new report lists 10 contaminants, including arsenic, lithium and 4-chlorophenyl phenyl ether, that are “chemicals of health concern,” at the levels found in Carter Road wells, found that five homes were at “immediate risk of fire or explosion” because of <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=methane" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">methane</a> in their water and another dozen showed lower, but still worrisome, levels of methane and found that the water was laced with elevated levels of metals, salts and total dissolved solids.The underlying data isn’t new to the residents of Carter Road. The EPA provided it to them individually back in 2012, which is why the EPA’s announcement that the water was safe was so baffling at the time.“I’m sitting here looking at the values I have on my sheet—I’m over the thresholds—and yet they are telling me my water is drinkable,” Nolan Scott Ely, one of the Carter Road homeowners, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/so-is-dimocks-water-really-safe-to-drink" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">told ProPublica</a> when EPA made its announcement. “I’m confused about the whole thing … I’m flabbergasted.”Opposite Conclusions?So how could two different agencies look at the exact same data and come to opposite conclusions?“Although the same data set was used, the EPA as a regulatory agency specifically looked at whether or not it was required to take action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, more commonly known as Superfund, which governs responses to environmental emergencies,” StateImpact, a National Public Radio project, <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/05/25/federal-public-health-report-highlights-contaminants-in-dimocks-water/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">explained</a>. “The ‘health consultation’ looked at the entire data set from a public health standpoint, assessing whether or not it was safe to drink the water.”In other words, EPA’s findings, which seemed to show that the water was “safe” and which were promoted by drillers as proof that nothing was wrong in Dimock, instead represented a very carefully parsed legal finding that the water did not reach Superfund levels of contamination for the specific substances EPA focused on.And the EPA’s 2012 findings had left out some of the very contaminants that had caused locals the most concern—including the natural gas or methane, itself. “EPA’s investigation does not include an evaluation of the risk posed by elevated levels of methane—which continue to exist in some homes in Dimock—and which, at extreme levels and if unaddressed, can lead to explosions,” Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Attorney Kate Sinding <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/kate-sinding/epas-water-testing-results-dimock-do-not-let-gas-industry-hook" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">wrote</a> in a blog post at the time.The EPA’s strained official interpretation of the data perhaps shows why EPA staff remained concerned even after the agency dropped its Dimock investigation in July 2012, just months after its testing results had been announced in March and April.In 2013, a Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/29/obama-epa-censored-fracking-water-contamination-study-dimock-pennsylvania" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">investigation</a> revealed that EPA’s own staff had disagreed with the agency’s public statements that the water shouldn’t be considered hazardous. An internal EPA Powerpoint <a href="http://desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Dimock%20Powerpoint.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">presentation</a>, later obtained and <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/29/obama-epa-censored-fracking-water-contamination-study-dimock-pennsylvania" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">published</a> by DeSmog, showed that agency scientists had concluded that the drilling and fracking process “apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.”The ATSDR’s new report very specifically notes that it does not look at whether the water hazards stem from drilling or pre-date Cabot’s arrival in the area. In part, that’s because of a lack of pre-drilling testing for gas and other common fracking-related chemicals in the water. “It is important to note that methane was not assessed in residential water wells prior to the initiation of natural gas drilling activities in the Dimock area,” the ATSDR wrote.Cabot Oil and Gas emphasized their belief that methane in the water was “naturally occurring” and pre-dated their arrival in a statement provided to StateImpact. “This data is consistent with thousands of pages of water data collected by both Cabot and the Pennsylvania DEP and does not indicate that those contaminants detected have any relationship to oil and gas development in Dimock,” Cabot said.The ATSDR report does often note when substances discovered in the Carter Road water are known to be associated with hydraulic fracturing or drilling industry activities, but does not reach any conclusions about whether the chemicals came from Cabot’s operations.“It’s not their job to look at who caused whatever contamination there is,” Bryce Payne, a Pennsylvania environmental scientist, <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060037920" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">told</a> E&E News. “It’s their job to see if there are health implications. They did that and concluded there are health implications.”The new report is also limited to data from four years ago—and conditions have changed, the ATSDR noted, in part because a state moratorium on fracking along Carter Road was briefly lifted after the EPA dropped its investigation and locals quickly reported more changes to their water, including higher levels of methane.Cabot Oil SettlesIn August 2012—right around the time that EPA abandoned its investigation—Cabot Oil and Gas <a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/370268/cabot-settles-fracking-pollution-claims-from-pa-residents" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">announced</a> it had settled the vast majority of lawsuits against it by Carter Road residents for an undisclosed amount of money and under terms that barred the plaintiffs from speaking negatively about their experiences with the company.This March, a federal jury handed down a $4.24 million verdict to the remaining two Carter Road families, concluding that the water was in fact contaminated because of the negligence of the drilling company. Cabot has begun the process of appealing that verdict.But while the legal filings and agency reports continue to stack up, the problem on Carter Road remains the same as it has for many years now.While those who settled with Cabot had water treatment systems installed by the company, locals familiar with those systems say that even the treated water seems too contaminated to drink and the water treatment systems break down frequently.The ATSDR’s report provides recommendations that water should have been treated to address dangerous contamination levels—but those recommendations are not binding and the agency noted that while the state government collected samples more recently, the ATSDR did not have access to the newer data.Community organizers are still calling for the federal government to resume an active role, arguing that the groundwater remains undrinkable.“We’re demanding that they reopen the investigation,” Craig Stevens, a local organizer, <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/03/16/dimock-water-contamination-verdict-leads-renewed-calls-federal-action-fracking" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">told</a>DeSmog after the March verdict was announced, “and also get water to these people.”<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/03/dimock-water-unsafe-fracking/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/03/dimock-water-unsafe-fracking/</a>=<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/05/11/california-regulators-are-approving-fracking-permits-near-fault-lines">http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/05/11/california-regulators-are-approving-fracking-permits-near-fault-lines</a>

Since April 2014, 10 <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/">fracking</a> infrastructure projects have been canceled or delayed.Here’s the list:April 2014: The Bluegrass Pipeline in Kentucky was stopped by a court decision upholding landowners’ rights against the use of eminent domain to take their land for private profit.November 2015: The Port Ambrose liquified natural gas (LNG) project was <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/12/cuomo-vetoes-port-ambrose/">vetoed</a> by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The project was proposed by Liberty Natural Gas off the shores of New York and New Jersey.<div class="rve" data-content-width=""><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500"><div style="text-align: left;">BREAKING: <a href="https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo">@NYGovCuomo</a> Vetoes Port Ambrose LNG Project <a href="https://t.co/MVIn17Km9C">https://t.co/MVIn17Km9C</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoLNG?src=hash">#NoLNG</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo">@MarkRuffalo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/riverkeeper">@riverkeeper</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/350">@350</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">⊕<a href="https://t.co/GSzm3ADeA9">https://t.co/GSzm3ADeA9</a></div>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/664886085692997632">November 12, 2015</a></blockquote></div>March 2016: The Jordan Cove LNG export terminal and 223-mile Pacific Connector pipeline in Oregon were <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/12/ferc-denies-jordan-cove-lng/">rejected</a> by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), signifying FERC’s first gas infrastructure rejection in 30 years.<div class="rve" data-content-width=""><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">HUGE VICTORY! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FERC?src=hash">#FERC</a> Denies <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JordanCove?src=hash">#JordanCove</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LNG?src=hash">#LNG</a> Export Terminal & Pacific Connector <a href="https://t.co/g0DH8JY3Zm">https://t.co/g0DH8JY3Zm</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/sierraclub">@sierraclub</a><a href="https://t.co/XYsPkartYZ">pic.twitter.com/XYsPkartYZ</a>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/708669652096970753">March 12, 2016</a></blockquote></div>March 2016: The Republican-dominated Georgia legislature voted overwhelming for a one-year moratorium on any new gas pipelines, setting back efforts to build thePalmetto Pipeline.March 2016: FERC announced a seven month delay on making a decision about the Penn East pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and a 10 month delay for the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline in Pennsylvania and Maryland.April 2016: The Oregon LNG company announced that it’s ending its years-long effort to build an export terminal and pipeline.April 2016:  Kinder Morgan announced it is suspending its efforts to build the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, which would have run from Pennsylvania through New York into Massachusetts and New Hampshire.April 2016: Dominion Resources announces that the start time for beginning construction on the Atlantic Coast pipeline, going from West Virginia through Virginia into North Carolina, is being moved back from this fall to summer 2017.April 2016: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/04/22/cuomo-rejects-constitution-pipeline/">rejected</a> the application of the Constitution Pipeline company for a water quality permit, a permit it must have in order to begin construction.<div class="rve" data-content-width=""><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">Gov. Cuomo Rejects the Constitution Pipeline, Huge Win for the Anti-Fracking Movement <a href="https://t.co/kArrW17d0h">https://t.co/kArrW17d0h</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch">@ecowatch</a>— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/723840168323592192">April 23, 2016</a></blockquote></div>“We are actually experiencing the clean energy revolution, it’s really happening right now,” I said to my wife when I heard the news about the Constitution Pipeline.It’s very significant that the movement against fracking and fracking infrastructure projects is winning these victories, but it does not mean we can take a break. As of March 24, FERC’s <a href="http://www.ferc.gov/industries/gas/indus-act/pipelines/pending-projects.asp" target="blank">lists</a> 58 interstate gas pipelines on their website.<div class="rve" data-content-width=""><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">New <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/pipelines?src=hash">#pipelines</a> in a decarbonizing world: like new buggy whip factories to celebrate the car. <a href="https://t.co/e4RvBCX0Ww">https://t.co/e4RvBCX0Ww</a> <a href="https://t.co/VvtxUUMUhi">pic.twitter.com/VvtxUUMUhi</a>— Environment Hamilton (@EnvHamilton) <a href="https://twitter.com/EnvHamilton/status/720999805900693504">April 15, 2016</a></blockquote></div>We need to gain strength from these victories and, with the wind shifting from a headwind to being more at our back, step up our pressure on FERC, and the gas and pipeline industry. Join <a href="https://beyondextremeenergy.org/">Beyond Extreme Energy</a> from May 15 to May 22 in Washington, DC for the Rubber Stamp Rebellion.Ted Glick is a co-founder of <a href="https://beyondextremeenergy.org/" target="blank">Beyond Extreme Energy</a> and a climate activist since 2003. Past writings and other information can be found <a href="https://tedglick.com/" target="blank">here</a>, and you can follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/jtglick" target="blank">Twitter</a>.
<h3 id="yui_3_16_0_1_1459528118768_2717" class="yiv6346651408null" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 26.325px; letter-spacing: -0.5px; text-align: left;"><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1459528118768_2719" rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=4d3a4454b4&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Stanford Scientists Show Fracking Linked to Groundwater Contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming</a></h3><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">A new study by scientists from Stanford University has found that fracking operations near Pavillion, Wyoming “have had...</div>
4 mill<h3 id="yui_3_16_0_1_1457723188448_2679" class="yiv7876328647null" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 26.325px; letter-spacing: -0.5px; text-align: left;"><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1457723188448_2678" rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=207cac7327&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Jury Awards Two Dimock Couples $4.2 Million After Finding Cabot Oil & Gas Negligent in Fracking Contamination Case</a></h3><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/10/cabot-dimock-fracking-case/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/10/cabot-dimock-fracking-case/</a></div>
http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/07/people-win-over-shell/
steingraber NY<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/12/06/heat-epa-environmentalists-homeowners-challenge-fracking-study">http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/12/06/heat-epa-environmentalists-homeowners-challenge-fracking-study</a>==Lauren Kuby, Councilmember from the City of Tempe, ArizonaMuch like plastic debris makes its way into the innocent stomachs of our wildlife, I recently found myself in the belly of the proverbial beast—the<a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> American Legislative Exchange Council </a>(ALEC). ALEC held its annual meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, the first week in December. And, as a recently elected Councilmember from Tempe, Arizona, I attended on my own dime.In a new twist of the ALEC playbook, policymakers and lobbyists have formed a mini-ALEC called "ACCE," the <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-alecs-little-brother-acce/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American </a><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-alecs-little-brother-acce/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">City and County</a><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-alecs-little-brother-acce/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Exchange</a>. Its director, John Russell, has proclaimed that ACCE will do for cities what ALEC has done for states—which he described as serving as a "nonpartisan free market forum" for local elected officials to learn from "industry experts and policy analysts." Translation: while Congress is gridlocked, cities are driving progressive change, so let's use our fossil-fueled cash to put an end to such change.The ACCE meeting was tiny (25 participants) compared to its behemoth brother (nearly 700 attendees) and—surprise—diversity was lacking. Three women and no minorities in the group of 25 mostly older city and county officials.I had run for Tempe City Council as a sustainability champion, eager to make a difference in my community. Early in my term, I gained Council approval to study the efficacy of a single-use plastic bag ban (PBB) for our university town. The State of Arizona glanced at our meeting agenda and banned bag bans outright, choking back hypocrisy as they claimed that the State trumps local decision-making on waste management and recycling.Not happy about state interference in local concerns, I signed on as plaintiff in a <a href="http://aclpi.org/case/kuby-v-arizona" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: 1.6em;">lawsuit</a> brought by attorney Tim Hogan of the <a href="http://aclpi.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest</a>. Our case argues that the ban on bag bans takes away local control and thus violates the home-rule provision of the Arizona Constitution.I was curious to tiptoe into the den of corporate influence and quietly observe the right-wing's righteous anger towards cities who were innovating and saving taxpayer money.<h2 style="text-align: left; line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">ALEC/ACCE Pay-to-Play Example: the Plastic Bag Industry</h2>First up, <a href="http://www.spcadvance.com/speaker/philip-r-rozenski-mba/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philip Rozenski</a>, director of "sustainability" and marketing for Novolex, the leading manufacturer of grocery bags that went by the name of Helix Poly until recently.Arguably the most-traveled plastic-bag advocate in the country, Rozenski lives to deride advocates who are taking local action against the environmental, social, and economic impacts of plastic pollution to our waterways, public health, and supply chain.Rozenski washed the room green with his claim that Novolex bags are good for the environment, as they use 30% recycled content. He failed to mention that, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, only 13% of plastic bags are recycled properly and that bags improperly recycled pollute marine environments, clog recycling sorters, litter roadways, and saddle cities with cleanup costs.Another elephant in the room? Novolex was the single largest contributor to a campaign sponsored by the "American Progressive Bag Alliance"—the trade group for plastic bag manufacturers—to sidetrack California's Plastic Bag Ban. The Alliance spent over $3.2 million to repeal California's recently enacted law.Rozenski warned the room's elected officials of the growing trend of city PBBs, which he described as "feel-good legislation" that serves as "stepping stones to the regulation of all packaging." He argued that, just as environmentalists play on emotion with visuals of bags littering the landscape, his alliance should likewise dramatize the "dangers of E. coli contamination" in reusable bags to win over the public. (Never mind that the study he references found that 99.99% of said bacteria is eliminated simply upon washing reusable bags.) With scant evidence, he also claimed that 5–10% of consumers living in cities with bag bans "flee" their cities' grocery stores to shop elsewhere.<div id="block-inject-1" class="block-inject block-inject-1" style="line-height: 24px;"><div id="block-block-40" class="block block-block first odd" style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><div class="adv" style="text-align: left;">
</div></div></div><div class="clearfix" style="line-height: 24px;">He also was hoisted with his own petard when he argued that bag bans increase a retailer's costs. In reality, a five-fold cost increase for a grocer—from a penny per plastic bag to a nickel per paper bag—actually equates to a six-cent profit given that grocers can charge 10 cents for a paper bag should a consumer forget their reusable bag. Under this business-friendly equation, a penny saved from not buying plastic and a nickel earned from charging for paper equals a six-cent profit!Under Rozenski's conjuring, cities considering PBBs go to untold lengths to avoid public discussion and offer only a three-day notice for the vote. In another of Rozenski's imagined scenarios, PBB advocates employ "crowd shaming" tactics to twist the arms of councilmembers to force their pro-bag-ban vote. I'm not sure what universe he comes from (where do paid shills originate?) but, in my city of Tempe, staff, business associations, and the public vet every policy proposal thoroughly—a sometimes a long and difficult process.<h2 style="text-align: left; line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Fracking: "Preemption" or Bust</h2>The next topic at ACCE's "Trending Regulations in Local Government Hurting Economic Growth" session was the supposed "epidemic" of "draconian" local restrictions against fracking.The presenter <a href="http://www.ncpa.org/about/jacki-pick" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Jacki Pick</a> is the Vice-President of an operation called the "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Policy_Analysis" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">National Center for Policy Analysis</a>," another "free-market" think tank funded by foundations established by right-wing business families and billionaires including—you guessed it—the Koch brothers. She is also a talk show host from Glen Beck's The Blaze Radio Network.She offered up the case study of a fracking ban passed deep in the heart of Texas and compared the process to a "frog gradually boiling in the pot and not realizing what is going on."She claimed that in Denton, Texas, like other cities, activists come to town and "attach" themselves to a professor who, in turn, pressures "unemployed college kids with lots of time on their hands" to take on the fracking fight. She suggested that professors were violating the law and that the process "needs to be shut down." She decried the influence of the 6,000 college kids who voted for the fracking ban: "They don't live there, don't pay taxes there. Yet they're deciding these issues."I barely restrained myself from jumping to the microphone and educating the slack-jawed audience that: 1) the college kids I mentor hold multiple jobs to afford the high cost of tuition; 2) the U.S. Census counts college students where they attend school, not where their parents live, and democracy allows American adults to vote where they live; and 3) the Denton Fracking Ban passed by an overwhelming margin. The students' votes were merely the frosting on the cake.This Cassandra of the Right continued to warn that "the oil and gas industry will be destroyed unless conservatives act." She complained that anti-fracking activists were turning conservatives' talking points—such as those that argue for decentralizing power and local rule—against them: "Get out in front of these activists who are ginning up discontent. That is how they make money...science is on our side."While municipal plastic bag and fracking bans are on the rise, so is state interference with our local decision-making and corporate worries over the impacts of local action.After three hours in the belly of the ALEC/ACCE beast, I felt sullied by their deceitful claims and defeated.What could be a better antidote than a meeting of councilmembers on the front line of the preemption fight?I boarded a plane to Washington, DC, to cleanse my spirit and refresh my belief that local actions make a difference and that the progress of cities is unstoppable--despite the efforts of ALEC and ACCE.- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/12/12998/alec-and-acce-pay-play-meeting-belly-beast-scottsdale#sthash.JGxKMwtV.dpufhttp://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/12/12998/alec-and-acce-pay-play-meeting-belly-beast-scottsdale RAGA=...And the input poured forth. The states worked to detail major federal environmental action, like efforts to curb fish kills, reduce ozone pollution, slow climate change and tighten regulation of coal ash. Then they identified which attorney general’s office was best positioned to try to monitor it and, if necessary, attempt to block it.
Follow-up by Mr. Pruitt’s federalism office often came after coordination with industry representatives, especially from Devon Energy. The company, one of the most important financial supporters for the Republican Attorneys General Association, is guarded about its public profile. But it readily turned to Mr. Pruitt and his staff for help, setting up meetings for the attorney general with its chief executive, its chief lobbyist and other important players.
“We have a clear obligation to our shareholders and others to be involved in these discussions,” John Porretto, a Devon spokesman, said in a statement.
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While some of the exchanges were general in character, others were quite explicit, especially the communication about the E.P.A.’s methane regulations that had prompted Mr. Whitsitt, the Devon official, to propose that Mr. Pruitt send a letter to the agency.
“Just a note to pass along the electronic version of the draft letter to Lisa Jackson at E.P.A.,” said one September 2011 letter to Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff from Mr. Whitsitt. “We have no pride of authorship, so whatever you do on this is fine.”
Mr. Pruitt took the letter and, after changing just 37 words in the 1,016-word draft, copied it onto his state government letterhead and sent it to Ms. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator.
That was just one of his challenges to Washington. Devon officials also turned to Mr. Pruitt to enlist other Republican attorneys general and Republican governors to oppose a rule proposed by the Bureau of Land Management that would regulate hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on federal land.
“As promised, we are sending you the attached draft of the R.G.A./RAGA follow-up letter to President Obama opposing B.L.M.’s proposed rule,” Brent Rockwood, Devon’s director of government affairs, wrote to Mr. Pruitt’s staff in late 2012, in an email marked “confidential.”
Weeks later, that letter was sent to Mr. Obama without only a few word changes, signed by Mr. Pruitt and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who was the head of the Republican Governors Association at the time.
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ANDREW P. MILLER A version of the lobbyist’s bill was approved by the West Virginia Legislature. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesCompany officials again expressed their pleasure to Mr. Pruitt.
“I’ve learned that we’re having an effect — and may be able to have more, perhaps even to having the rule withdrawn or shifted to almost a reporting-only one,” Mr. Whitsitt wrote, in another email marked “confidential.”
Continue reading the main storyRECENT COMMENTS
David Nice December 8, 2014I am not very surprised by this article. Disappointed but not surprised.mannyv December 8, 2014Don't environmental groups and other liberal causes get into secretive alliances with government officials and the press all the time?What...Armando December 8, 2014This is because we are in the list of corrupted countries. But the voters are not informed, the media do not educate the people and it is...SEE ALL COMMENTSThe rule — which the industry claims would cost $346 million a year to comply with — has still not been issued.
Coordination between the corporations and teams of attorneys general involved in the Rule of Law effort also involves actual litigation to try to clear roadblocks to energy projects, documents show.
Energy producers, for instance, wanted to sue the Interior Department as it considered adding animals such as the sage grouse — which nests near sites of oil and gas drilling — to a list of endangered species, a move that could put tens of thousands of acres off limits to new drilling.
The energy companies could have sued on their own, but their executives believed that the case would be more potent by bringing in Mr. Pruitt and the weight of the State of Oklahoma.
“We just came to the conclusion he would be the best person to be the lead attorney on this,” said Mike McDonald, an owner of Triad Energy, a small oil and gas exploration company, and the president of a group that calls itself the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance. “He has exceeded our expectations.”
For the industry, the state is an extremely valued partner because states are granted “special solicitude” from the federal courts, a critical advantage to private companies that helps confer legal standing and means that a matter is less likely to be dismissed.Continue reading the main story
Mr. Pruitt’s office, in a statement to The Times, rejected any suggestion that the attorney general has been wrong to send to Washington comment letters written by industry lobbyists, or to take up their side in litigation.
“The A.G.’s office seeks input from the energy industry to determine real-life harm stemming from proposed federal regulations or actions,” the statement said. “It is the content of the request not the source of the request that is relevant.”
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HAROLD G. HAMM The oil drilling executive was the chairman of Mr. Pruitt’s re-election campaign. Persuading lawmakers to offer legislation has been another effective lobbying tool. In West Virginia, Mr. Miller handed Attorney General Patrick Morrisey a draft of legislation that he argued would put West Virginia in a better position to sue the Obama administration over proposed regulations to tighten pollution controls on power plants, emails show.
“I trust you will find the legislation acceptable in its present form,” Mr. Miller wrote to Mr. Morrisey in February, referring to a private meeting the two had had in the law library of Mr. Morrisey’s office in Charleston. “If so, I would appreciate your having it introduced by your friends in both the Senate and the House.”
A version of the bill was introduced and passed by the West Virginia Legislature in March. Delegate Rupert Phillips Jr., the chief sponsor of a second bill that also contained language identical to what Mr. Miller had requested, said in an interview that he had acted with Mr. Morrisey’s support, an account supported by William B. Raney, the president of the West Virginia Coal Association.
“It is nice to have everybody singing from the same sheet of music,” Mr. Raney said.
A spokesman for Mr. Morrisey disputed this account, saying that while he supported the effort to challenge the rule, he did not play a role in promoting the legislation.
Blurred Lines
The work in Mr. Pruitt’s office has sometimes seemed to blur the distinction between his official duties and the advancement of his political career.
Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff, Crystal Drwenski, served as gatekeeper to his office, arranging meetings and helping companies get Mr. Pruitt and his staff to intervene with the federal authorities. But Ms. Drwenski also played an important supplemental role for the attorney general: fund-raising aide.
“A.G. Pruitt is working with the Republican Attorneys General Association on their national meeting in Washington,” Ms. Drwenski wrote to Mr. Whitsitt. “The benefit of membership and participation is having 25 Republican A.G.s in a room to discuss policy issues.”
Ms. Drwenski wanted Devon Energy’s help in enlisting the American Petroleum Institute, and Mr. Whitsitt agreed....<div class="print-content"><article class="node-9682 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-print clearfix"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">This DeSmog UK epic history post reveals the identity of the man behind Lord Monckton’s eccentric climate denial.<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/christopher-monckton">Lord Monckton</a> [3] hoisted himself into centre stage of the denier circus in November 2006 with a double-page feature in the then respectable Sunday Telegraph, in which he claimed <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/christopher-monckton">climate science was “a Sci-Fi panic”</a>[4].<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533912/Wrong-problem-wrong-solution.html">The eccentric Scottish peer would boast</a> [5]: “In the climate change debate, one figure is real. The Sunday Telegraph’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533912/Wrong-problem-wrong-solution.html">website registered more than 127,000 hits</a> [5] in response to last week’s article revealing that the UNhad minimised the sun’s role in changing past and present climate, persisted in proven errors and used unsound data, questionable graphs and meretricious maths to exaggerate future warming.”The newspaper article represented a remarkable return after illness to the media spotlight for a man apparently addicted to publicity and the adoration of the crowd. As the satirical magazine Private Eye reported at the time, the article was <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/611859-monckton-peye.html">“largely incomprehensible”</a> [6].Untidy FactoidsTim Lambert, of the Deltoid science blog, was even more dismissive. “The main problem with his article is that he doesn’t know what he’s writing about it. He offers up an <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/11/05/chinese-navy-disproves-global/">untidy pile of factoids</a> [7], some of which are true but out of context, some of which are not at all true, and some of which he seems to have conjured up out of thin air.”Prior to this news splash, the Viscount had appeared in the press in 2000 as the inventor of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/953316.stm">Eternity puzzle</a> [8] and the man who promised £1m to the first person to find its solution. Two Cambridge mathematicians were quick to claim the prize. Monckton at first claimed the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/953316.stm">payout forced him to sell his 67-room mansion</a> [8] - and then later that he had<a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/aristocrat-admits-tale-of-lost-home-was-stunt-to-boost-puzzle-sales-1-679237"> lied to get more publicity for the puzzle</a> [9].Many years earlier, Monckton had worked as a junior advisor in Margaret Thatcher’s highly politicised Number 10 Policy Unit, although he failed to get a mention in her autobiography years later. He claimed to have introduced the first computer to government.And, he also claimed to have been the first to persuade the PM to take the issue of climate change seriously. It may have been this <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/835827/monckton-foia-release.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI5WMXH27O6KH3ALA&Expires=1436881118&Signature=vyllUu%2FfzjEpCrCZmoPyLwLNv34%3D">remarkable and totally unsubstantiated claim</a> [10] that persuaded <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/nov/16/patience-wheatcroft-interview">Patience Wheatcroft, the then editor of the Sunday Telegraph</a> [11], to take his rambling feature seriously.As it would happen, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/07/rosa-monckton-unlikely-disability-activist">Monckton’s sister Rose is married to Lord Lawson’s eldest son Dominic</a> [12]. But both men deny that it was Lawson who had persuaded his in-law to adopt the well-worn and tragic claims that scientists had <a href="http://adju.st/2006/11/christopher_monckton_in_the_te.html">conspired to construct an international conspiracy</a> [13] in order to support the case for a Communist global government.Monckton’s DenialSo how exactly did it come to be that Lord Monckton should become the spokesperson for the more eclectic climate deniers – flown around the world by ExxonMobil-funded think tanks like the ominous sounding<a href="http://www.cfact.org/">Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow</a> [14] (CFACT) – to attack scientists?This is how Monckton himself takes up the story: “Well, I didn’t decide. It was all accidentally; I was rung up by the chief executive of a boutique finance house.”According to Monckton, the mystery chief executive said: “Look, all our investors want to pile in on this green investment stuff but I want to know: is there a problem with the climate?”Monckton replied: “Oh yes, I advised Margaret Thatcher on it 25 years ago and it was quite clear then that the scientists were worried and I recommended to find out more.”CEO: “[We] would like you to find out more.”Monckton “spent a month on his dime” investigating the science and sent the investor a 40-page report. It concluded that climate change did not represent a serious threat.The man called a few days later and demanded: “Why should I pay any attention to this?”Monckton: “Well, you asked me to do this, I gave it my best shot, you’ve got all my evidence there.”CEO: “I’ve consulted a dozen people, all of them more eminent than you…”Monckton: “Well, thank you very much.”CEO: “And they all tell me that this is a real problem, this is the worst problem humanity has ever faced and we have to do everything we can to stop this and you’ve said: ‘no problem at all’.”Monckton: ‘Well I don’t say there is no problem at all, I say it’s not likely that there is much of a problem and even if it were it would be cheaper to let it happen.”CEO: “Well, we are going to go with you and not the other 11.”Monckton: “Why is that?”CEO: “You’re the only one who provided any evidence, and you’ve provided 40 pages of it. The others all told me that I had to believe: I didn’t get where I am today by believing stuff.”Generous FinancierMonckton has always refused to give up the name of the financier who paid him generously to investigate climate science who and set him on the path of attacking scientists in talks in the United States and Australia ever since.However, an investigation by DeSmog UK has established that the mystery man is Edgar Miller, a right-wing American who claims to have significant influence in the Conservative Party and who boasts of having made a fortune from <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2014/09/30/lawson-climate-denial-backer-boasts-shale-gas-investment">early investments in shale gas development</a> [15].<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/759755-texas-record-edgar-miller-birth.html">Miller was born in Bailey County, Texas</a> [16], but moved to Britain almost 40 years ago. He is a serial investor and entrepreneur, having directed companies with names like Palladian Software Limited, Maxwell Espinosa and UK Israel Business.The climate denier is a political animal, claiming to have met Margaret Thatcher “on several occasions.” He is also close to Peter Lilley MP and Andrew Tyrie – the unsung hero of Tory climate denial.“I used to be more connected to the Conservative Party. I used to work up in there with policy but I quickly learnt that it’s a mug’s game because most politicians are not interested in anyone’s help,” he told a female journalist over dinner.Moderately Wealthy“When you are talking to these people, they are either so ignorant that they didn’t understand what you were saying or they were just so ego driven, or both, that they figured they know all the answers.”Miller is moderately wealthy, having bought a London townhouse in Notting Hill for £725,000 in 2000. He used to drive an E-Type Jag until he had an accident, apparently attempting to impress a female passenger.Miller will become significant again in our history of climate denial – supporting Lord Lawson at the Global Warming Policy Foundation and speaking candidly about his falling out with the new Conservative leadership.Up next in the DeSmog UK epic history series, we detail how a Channel 4 programme on climate change was edited to promote climate denial.<hr style="text-align: left; border-style: solid; border-color: gray; height: 1px;" />READ THE EXTENDED EXTRACTS FROM MONCKTON’S INTERVIEWSo, both then you wrote an article in 2006 – in November, you say? So, when did you decide to get really involved in the debate?Well, I didn’t decide. It was all accidentally; I was rung up by the chief executive of a boutique finance house, who said: ‘Look, all our investors want to pile in on this green investment stuff, but I want to know: is there a problem with the climate?’And I said, ‘Oh yes, I advised Margaret Thatcher on it 25 years ago and it was quite clear then that the scientists were worried, and I recommended to find out more.’ And he said, ‘I would like you to find out more.’And I spent a month on his dime and had a look, and sent him a 40-page report, and he rang up a few days later and said, ‘Why should I pay any attention to this?’ I said, ‘Well, you asked me to do this: I gave it my best shot; you’ve got all my evidence there.’And he said, ‘I’ve consulted a dozen people, all of them more eminent than you’ – and I said, ‘Well thank you very much.’ He said, ‘And they all tell me that this is a real problem, this is the worst problem humanity has ever faced and we have to do everything we can to stop this, and you’ve said: “no problem at all”.’I said, ‘Well, I don’t say there is no problem at all; I say it’s not likely that there is much of a problem and, even if it were, it would be cheaper to let it happen.’ And he said, ‘Well, we are going to go with you and not the other 11.’ I said, ‘Why is that?’ He said, ‘You’re the only one who provided any evidence, and you’ve provided 40 pages of it,’ he said, ‘the others all told me that I had to believe,’ he said, ‘I didn’t get where I am today by believing stuff.’So, do you remember the name of this guy who contacted you?Ah, I think I ought not tell you that because it was confidential. Although, he did at the end say, ‘Can I send this paper to the editor of the Sunday Times?’ She then rang up and rather tested it and said, ‘How can I print 40 pages of equations in a paper?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think that was the idea; I think he wanted to suggest to your mind that there might be another side to this story and suggested I might write it for her (sic). I can do plain English as well; I don’t just write in equations.’ ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘Well, could you send me over 1,000 words?’ So, I sent her a 1,000 words sample…<div style="text-align: left;"> </div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label" style="text-align: left; font-weight: bold;">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.desmog.uk/directory/vocabulary/8474">lord Monckton</a> [17]</div><div class="field-item odd" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.desmog.uk/directory/vocabulary/700">CFACT</a> [18]</div><div class="field-item even" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.desmog.uk/directory/vocabulary/17814">Edgar Miller</a> [19]</div></div></div><div id="whatsnext"><div id="customlinks" class="clearfix" style="line-height: 1em;"><div id="fblike"><fb:like href="http://www.desmog.uk/2015/08/06/mystery-man-behind-monckton-s-conversion-climate-denial" layout="button" action="recommend" width="55" xmlns:fb="fb" /></div><div id="tweetbutton" style="text-align: left;"> [20]</div><div class="customlinkslast" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.desmog.uk/printmail/9682">EMAIL</a> [21] <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/print/9682">PRINT</a> [22] <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/subscribe-newsletter">SUBSCRIBE</a> [23]</div></div></div></article></div><div class="print-footer"><hr class="print-hr" style="text-align: left; border: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1551px; background-color: rgb(158, 158, 158);" /><div class="print-source_url" style="text-align: left;">Source URL: <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2015/08/06/mystery-man-behind-monckton-s-conversion-climate-denial">http://www.desmog.uk/2015/08/06/mystery-man-behind-monckton-s-conversion-climate-denial</a></div><div class="print-links"><div style="text-align: left;">Links:</div><div style="text-align: left;">[1] http://www.desmog.uk/2015/08/06/mystery-man-behind-monckton-s-conversion-climate-denial</div><div style="text-align: left;">[2] http://www.desmog.uk/user/25731</div><div style="text-align: left;">[3] http://www.desmogblog.com/christopher-monckton</div><div style="text-align: left;">[4] http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/christopher-monckton</div><div style="text-align: left;">[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533912/Wrong-problem-wrong-solution.html</div><div style="text-align: left;">[6] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/611859-monckton-peye.html</div><div style="text-align: left;">[7] http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/11/05/chinese-navy-disproves-global/</div><div style="text-align: left;">[8] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/953316.stm</div><div style="text-align: left;">[9] http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/aristocrat-admits-tale-of-lost-home-was-stunt-to-boost-puzzle-sales-1-679237</div><div style="text-align: left;">[10] https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/835827/monckton-foia-release.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI5WMXH27O6KH3ALA&Expires=1436881118&Signature=vyllUu%2FfzjEpCrCZmoPyLwLNv34%3D</div><div style="text-align: left;">[11] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/nov/16/patience-wheatcroft-interview</div><div style="text-align: left;">[12] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/07/rosa-monckton-unlikely-disability-activist</div><div style="text-align: left;">[13] http://adju.st/2006/11/christopher_monckton_in_the_te.html</div><div style="text-align: left;">[14] http://www.cfact.org</div><div style="text-align: left;">[15] http://www.desmog.uk/2014/09/30/lawson-climate-denial-backer-boasts-shale-gas-investment</div><div style="text-align: left;">[16] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/759755-texas-record-edgar-miller-birth.html</div><div style="text-align: left;">[17] http://www.desmog.uk/directory/vocabulary/8474</div><div style="text-align: left;">[18] http://www.desmog.uk/directory/vocabulary/700</div><div style="text-align: left;">[19] http://www.desmog.uk/directory/vocabulary/17814</div><div style="text-align: left;">[20] http://twitter.com/share</div><div style="text-align: left;">[21] http://www.desmog.uk/printmail/9682</div><div style="text-align: left;">[22] http://www.desmog.uk/print/9682</div><div style="text-align: left;">[23] http://www.desmog.uk/subscribe-newsletter</div></div><table class="yiv2267139501mcnTextBlock" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7742" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; word-break: break-word;"><tbody class="yiv2267139501mcnTextBlockOuter" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7741" style="width: 600px;"><tr id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7740"><td class="yiv2267139501mcnTextBlockInner" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7739" valign="top" style="border-spacing: 2px;"><table class="yiv2267139501mcnTextContentContainer" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7738" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="599" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; word-break: break-word;"><tbody id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7737" style="width: 599px;"><tr id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7736"><td class="yiv2267139501mcnTextContent" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7735" valign="top" style="border-spacing: 2px; line-height: 22.5px; padding: 9px 18px;"><h2 class="yiv2267139501null" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 32.5px; letter-spacing: -0.75px;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=c12762e474&e=06876ede6b" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-weight: normal; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Drillers Fracking at Much Shallower Depths Than Widely Believed</a></h2>The nation's first survey of fracking well depths shows shallow fracking is more widespread than previously thought, occurring at 16 percent of publicly recorded sites in 27 states, posing a potential threat to underground sources of drinking water.<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=dbc5f8e9d9&e=06876ede6b" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Read more</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="yiv2267139501mcnDividerBlock" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; word-break: break-word;"><tbody class="yiv2267139501mcnDividerBlockOuter" style="width: 600px;"><tr><td class="yiv2267139501mcnDividerBlockInner" style="border-spacing: 2px; padding: 18px;"><table class="yiv2267139501mcnDividerContent" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; word-break: break-word; border-top: 1px solid rgb(153, 153, 153);"><tbody style="width: 564px;"><tr><td style="border-spacing: 2px;">
</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="yiv2267139501mcnTextBlock" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7725" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; word-break: break-word;"><tbody class="yiv2267139501mcnTextBlockOuter" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7724" style="width: 600px;"><tr id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7723"><td class="yiv2267139501mcnTextBlockInner" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7722" valign="top" style="border-spacing: 2px;"><table class="yiv2267139501mcnTextContentContainer" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7721" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="599" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; word-break: break-word;"><tbody id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7720" style="width: 599px;"><tr id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7719"><td class="yiv2267139501mcnTextContent" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7718" valign="top" style="border-spacing: 2px; line-height: 22.5px; padding: 9px 18px;"><h2 class="yiv2267139501null" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1437847208833_7731" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 32.5px; letter-spacing: -0.75px;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=720f97ff2e&e=06876ede6b" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-weight: normal; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Study Gets a Handle on Gas Leaks: 80 Billion Cubic Feet</a></h2>About 80 billion cubic feet of the potent greenhouse gas methane escapes into the air each year from the complex U.S. system for carrying natural gas to power stations and other consumers, according to new research published this week.

<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=ff1b4e1ea0&e=06876ede6b" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Read more</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>--related to rw bs attack?
<a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/fracking-linked-increased-infant-mortality-alarming-new-study">http://www.alternet.org/environment/fracking-linked-increased-infant-mortality-alarming-new-study</a><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">For protestors and activists unhappy with a particular company or industry, driving up the cost of doing business is a tried and true way to apply pressure. Think about the grape boycott in the late '60s for farmworkers rights. Or more recently, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/social-movements-fight-for-15-occupy-civil-rights/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">protests over worker wages at fast food restaurants</a>.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">But now some corporations are fighting back by putting financial pressure on activists.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">Duncan Tarr is a 20-year-old junior at Michigan State University. He is also an activist.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">One of the things he cares deeply about is a pipeline, called line 6B. It moves tar sands oil from Canada through Michigan and has an imperfect safety record.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">Last summer, while the pipeline was being replaced, Tarr was part of a group determined to get some attention.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">"We were picketing in front of where they parked all their construction vehicles, and then my co-defendant and I stopped a truck and we locked our necks to the truck with U-locks that you use like for a bicycle," he says.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">Firefighters came and cut the locks. Both the protest and the detaching took about 90 minutes. Tarr and one other young man were arrested and charged with trespass — they expected that.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">What they didn't expect was that the company, Precision Pipeline, would use Michigan's crime victim restitution laws to assess charges to make up for the value of equipment and workers idled during their protest.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">Tarr now owes more than $39,000. That's twice as much in restitution as he owes in student loans.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">Bankruptcy won't get rid of a restitution order in Michigan. Precision Pipeline repeatedly declined to comment for this story.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">Rashad Robinson heads up Color of Change, a civil rights group that successfully pressured the Mall of America to <a href="http://www.startribune.com/mall-of-america-won-t-seek-40-000-restitution-in-black-lives-matter-protest-case/299982321/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">drop a restitution claim</a> against a group of protesters that disrupted business with an action tied to the Black Lives Matter movement.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">He says he's seen restitution used this way in California, Minnesota and Michigan.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">"It's a tactic that we're seeing especially as corporations continue to gain more and more power in our democracy," Robinson says.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">In some ways, what's going on between activists and their targets is a steady escalation on both sides.<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">Roger Pilon, vice president of legal affairs at the Cato Institute thinks it's only fair that protestors begin to bear some financial costs as well, particularly when they trespass to try to make a point.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;" /><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"We've established rules for protest. If you violate them, you can't expect to get away scot-free," Pilon says. "After all, you can't impose the cost of your moral virtue on the backs of people who are just trying to run their own business."</div><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.17647em; padding: 0px 15px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.70588; vertical-align: baseline; position: static; float: none; width: auto; max-width: 680px;">=http://www.democracynow.org/2015/6/3/fracking_protests_continue_in_texas_asAMY GOODMAN: It was just this past November that nearly 60 percent of Denton, Texas, residents supported the ban at the ballot box. But they were immediately threatened with lawsuits by the Texas Oil and Gas Association and the Texas General Land Office. Those same interests worked with lawmakers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, to pass this new ban on fracking bans known as House Bill 40. Now residents could consider their own legal tactics. They are represented by the same lawyer who successfully defended a constitutional challenge to a fracking ban in Dryden, New York. All of this comes as Oklahoma became the second state to ban fracking bans on Friday. Meanwhile, Maryland became the second state, after New York, to ban fracking.energy transfer sleaze6/15The movement by states to block local citizen input into <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: 25.2px; text-align: left; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">fracking</a> operations in their backyards has spread from Texas to Oklahoma. With concerns rising after a dramatic <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/04/23/oklahoma-earthquakes-caused-by-fracking/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: 25.2px; text-align: left; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">increase in earthquakes</a> tied to fracking injection wells, Gov. Mary Fallin signed into law Monday a bill that would block cities and counties from enacting any restrictions on drilling, fracking, pipeline construction or the disposal of the wastewater byproduct of drilling—the injection wells that have been linked to the Oklahoma earthquakes.</div><div><div id="pf-src" style="height: auto; width: 779px; border-bottom: 2px dashed rgb(221, 221, 221); padding-bottom: 6px; line-height: 16px;"><a class="pf-src-name" href="http://ecowatch.com/" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 12px; font-weight: bold; display: block; float: left; cursor: default; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">ecowatch.com</a><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/19/texas-prohibits-local-fracking-bans/?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=4f7022ec41-Top_News_5_19_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-4f7022ec41-85920373" class="pf-src-url" style="text-align: left; overflow-wrap: break-word; display: block; float: right; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: default;">http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/19/texas-prohibits-local-fracking-bans/?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=4f7022ec41-Top_News_5_19_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-4f7022ec41-85920373</a><div style="text-align: left;">
</div></div><h1 id="pf-title" style="text-align: left; margin: 1em 0px; clear: both; direction: ltr; break-inside: avoid !important;">It’s Official: Texas Prohibits Local Fracking Bans</h1>Earthworks, Denton Drilling Awareness Group, Earthjustice and Natural Resources Defense Council<div id="pf-content" style="clear: both; line-height: 19.04px; direction: ltr;"><div class="pf-content" data-twttr-id="twttr-sandbox-0">Yesterday Texas Gov. Abbott <a href="ftp://ftp.legis.state.tx.us/bills/84R/billtext/html/house_bills/HB00001_HB00099/HB00040I.htm" target="blank" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">signed HB 40</a> into law. Written by former ExxonMobil lawyer Shannon Ratliff, the statute forces every Texas municipality wanting common sense limits on oil and gas development to demonstrate its rules are “commercially reasonable.” It effectively <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/05/texas-ban-on-fracking-bans/" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">overturns a Denton ballot initiative banning fracking</a> that passed last November.“HB 40 was written by the oil and gas industry, for the oil and gas industry, to prevent voters from holding the oil and gas industry accountable for its impacts,” said Earthworks’ Texas organizer Sharon Wilson. Wilson, who played a key role in the Denton ballot initiative, continued, “It was the oil and gas industry’s contempt for impacted residents that pushed <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=denton" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Denton</a>voters to <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/05/fracking-ban-passes/" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">ban fracking in the first place</a>. And now the oil and gas industry, through state lawmakers, has doubled down by showing every city in Texas that same contempt.”By a 59-41 percent vote, including 70 percent of straight ticket Republican voters, the residents of Denton banned <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">hydraulic fracturing</a> within city limits. The ban was a last resort after more than five years of fruitlessly petitioning oil and gas companies, the city and the state for help. “By signing HB40 into law, Governor Abbott just declared that industry profits are more important than our health, our homes and our kids,” said Adam Briggle, president of the Denton Drilling Awareness Group and a leader in the Frack Free Denton effort. He continued, “The letter of Texas law now says no city can ‘effectively prevent an oil and gas operation from occurring,’ no matter the threat to families’ health and safety or damage to private property.” The City of Denton is fighting a lawsuit brought against it by the oil and gas industry over its ordinance. Until HB40, attorneys for the city felt fairly confident their ordinance would stand. The Denton Drilling Awareness Group and Earthworks have intervened in the case in support of the city. They are represented by Earthjustice, attorneys from the Natural Resources Defense Counsel and the Texas law firm Brown & Hofmeister, LLP.“The Texas courts have upheld a long tradition of local control, so the Governor and the Legislature took matters into their own hands.  Now, they have capitulated to the greedy but powerful oil and gas industry at the expense of their own constituents’ health, well-being, and property rights,” said Earthjustice attorney Deborah Goldberg, who is co-counsel for the citizen groups and successfully defended the town of Dryden, New York, in a similar court case. “We have been proud to represent the proponents of Denton’s ban, and we know they will regroup and fight back against this legislative over-reach.”“The people of Denton exercised their democratic right to keep a nasty industrial process out of their community–and now big oil and their friends in high places are steamrolling them, along with everyone else in Texas,” said NRDC attorney Dan Raichel, co-counsel for the citizen’s groups. “The interests of a powerful industry should never take priority over the health and safety of American families. Texans should be able to keep dangerous activities and chemicals away from their homes, schools, and hospitals—just as hundreds of other communities across the country have already done.”YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE<a class="black-to-green" href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/14/fracking-ruin-your-vacation/" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Could Fracking Ruin Your Vacation?</a><a class="black-to-green" href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/05/texas-ban-on-fracking-bans/" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Texas Passes Ban on Fracking Bans (Yes, You Read that Right)</a><a class="black-to-green" href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/05/fracking-chemicals-drinking-water/" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Fracking Chemicals Found in Drinking Water, New Study Says</a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">princeton finds well contamination</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/05/fracking-chemicals-drinking-water/</div><div>=<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/05/texas-ban-on-fracking-bans/">http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/05/texas-ban-on-fracking-bans/</a> TX outlaws local frack regsTexas <a href="http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/senate-approves-denton-fracking-bill.html/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">state legislature voted yesterday</a> to ban <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">fracking</a> bans. Ever since the people of Denton, Texas voted to ban fracking last November, state lawmakers <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/12/carl-pope-denton-fracking-ban/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">in cahoots with the oil and gas industry</a> and the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=ALEC" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>, or ALEC, have attempted to strip municipalities like Denton of <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/17/home-rule-fracking-pipelines/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">home rule authority</a> to override the city’s ban.=</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>