Rubio, Michael rep

<p style=" margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(36, 36, 36); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ocean 'guardian' leads charge for fracking

The drive by the oil and natural gas industry to frack California is highlighted by recent disturbing developments that reveal the enormous power of Big Oil in the state.

In yet one more example of the revolving door between government and huge corporations that defines politics in California now, State Senator Michael Rubio (D-Bakersfield) on February 22 suddenly announced his resignation from office in order to take a “government affairs” position at Chevron.

Rubio went to work for Chevron just two months after alleged “marine protected areas,” overseen by the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, a coastal real estate developer, a marina corporation executive and other corporate interests, went into effect on California’s North Coast.

These “marine protected areas,” created under the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling, pollution, wind and wave energy projects, military testing and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.

In a big scandal largely ignored by the mainstream media, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, not only chaired the Marine Life Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called “marine protected areas” on the South Coast, but also served on the task forces to create “marine reserves” on the North Coast, North Central Coast and South Coast.

“It’s clear that government and petroleum officials want to ‘frack’ in the very same areas Reheis-Boyd was appointed to oversee as a ‘guardian’ of marine habitat protection for the MLPA ‘Initiative,’” said David Gurney, independent journalist and co-chair of the Ocean Protection Coalition, in his report on the opening of new lease-sales for fracking. (<a href="http://noyonews.net/?p=8215" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; color: rgb(124, 71, 12); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">http://noyonews.net/...</a>)

“What’s becoming obvious is that Reheis-Boyd’s expedient presence on the ‘Blue Ribbon Task Force’ for the MLPAI was a ploy for the oil industry to make sure no restrictions applied against drilling or fracking in or around so-called marine protected areas,” Gurney emphasized.

The oil industry claims fracking is environmentally sound and already regulated. In an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle on May 12, Reheis-Boyd claimed, “In truth, hydraulic fracturing has been used in California for 60-plus years, is not destructive and has never been linked to any environmental harm here. The process is and has been closely regulated. California's well construction and testing regulations that protect our groundwater are the strictest in the nation." (<a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/...)">http://www.sfchronicle.com/...)</a>

On the other hand, fracking opponents say hydraulic fracturing is environmentally destructive, since it uses huge volumes of water mixed with sand and dangerous chemicals to blast open rock formations and extract oil and gas, as exposed in the film documentaries Gasland and Gasland II. They note that the controversial technique has been used in hundreds and perhaps thousands of California oil and gas wells, but it's currently unregulated and unmonitored by state officials.