A Fracking Travesty
Betty (aka Sluggo), our ambassador to Ohio, is a force of nature and a tireless activist in Democratic politics – exactly what Ohio needs most.
Lately she’s turned her attention to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) now used by gas drillers and to the wholesale disposal of toxic effluents resulting from that – which, aside from its dangers to the water table, is now causing earthquakes around Youngstown and Cleveland.
The following is an abbreviated version of her letter to editors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Youngstown Vindicator. (Some of the links she provided are included in the first comment after the post)
Dear Editor,
As you publish Associated Press or other news service articles regarding the occurrence of earthquakes in the area of an injection well in Youngstown, you may have noticed that in all articles Gov. Kasich’s spokespeople contend that this well and others in Ohio meet US EPA guidelines.
What they do not say is that since 2005 there are few if any US EPA guidelines on fracking or injection wells.
For those with a short memory, in 2005 VP Dick Cheney (ex-CEO of Halliburton) personally pushed through Congress an exemption to hydraulic fracturing from federal regulation via specific language tucked into the Energy Policy Act.
Cheney’s Energy Policy Act should be top-of-the-mind to any good reporter.
It is the legislation often referred to as the ‘Halliburton Loophole.’
It is also the document that loosened deep-water drilling regulations and provided a legal shield for BP and Halliburton following the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Thanks to Cheney, their criminal negligence was no longer criminal.
(Here, Betty gives the editors verbatim citations of the fracking exemption in Cheney’s gas/oil industry giveaway.)
So, any article that unquestioningly allows claims that fracking and injection wells in Ohio meet Federal EPA guidelines is not only incomplete but also grossly misleading.
/s/