a quick diary on a clear violation of the First Amendment. Josh Fox who made the documentary "Gasland" was ordered arrested by House Republicans for attempting to film and report on a hearing concerning fracking in natural gas drilling.
From Huffpo's Zach Carter:
In a stunning break with First Amendment policy on Capitol Hill, House Republicans directed Capitol Hill police to detain a highly regarded documentary crew that was attempting to film a Wednesday hearing on a controversial natural gas procurement practice. Republicans also denied the entrance of a credentialed ABC News news team that was attempting to film the event....
Approximately 16 officers entered the hearing room and handcuffed Fox amid audible discussions of "disorderly conduct" charges, according to Democratic sources present at the arrest.
Suncor Energy Inc., Canada's largest energy company, said second-quarter profit rose 4.1% as higher oil prices countered a decline in output.
Net income climbed to $562 million, or 36 cents a share, from $540 million, or 35 cents, a year earlier, Calgary-based Suncor said Thursday in a statement.
The Free Market, as defined by Republicans, let's you extract energy at low cost with minimal safety requirements. It gives free license to take the profits of your efforts without taxation and with no further responsibilities to anyone but your shareholders and Board, nevermind the Benzene at 48 times its normal accumulation in you and your family's drinking water.
Suncor Energy said on Wednesday it has contained a leak of an oily substance near its Commerce City refinery in Colorado that was running into Sand Creek, which joins a river that supplies Denver with water.
The Canadian energy firm said it had not yet identified the source of the leak, but acknowledged it was likely coming from its 93,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in the area. It said plant operations were unaffected.
The leak comes a month after Colorado's Department of Public Health warned Suncor that it needed to take stricter measures to mitigate contamination that an investigation found was coming from the site and could threaten local water supplies.
Even with regulators breathing down their necks, it took them a month to take corrective action.
Republicans like Doug Lamborn would take the regulators away and let oil refineries deal with problems however they saw fit. This proves the fallacy of their free market mantra and that those like Lamborn, who are constantly agitating for fracking and against the EPA, do it for one reason: not to prevent the flow of hazardous materials into our drinking water, but to ensure the flow of campaign money from their Big Energy donors.
Last week, concerned citizens gathered outside an EPA hearing in Denver to demand a change in the EPA's 'Haliburton' loophole.
Testifying with them, was
former EPA official Wes Wilson who filed a Whistleblower lawsuit against the EPA.
Mr. Wilson was there specifically to testify about the EPA allowing Oil and Gas companies to inject toxic chemicals into the ground for the purpose of Hydraulic Fracturing, without disclosing those chemicals for public review as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act. This is known as the 'Haliburton loophole' passed in 2005.
Wes Wilson, who was featured in Josh Fox's 'Gasland', had a lot of community groups with him including What the Frack and Food and Watch as well as families - many of whom have suffered directly from fracking fluid contamination on their land.
The recent budget resolution has brought forth criticism and debate from a number of different angles. One area that has continually brought forth high criticism is the explored reduction of resources of the Environmental Protection Agency. The constant criticism to the environmental agency is rather dangerous considering the possible health risks that may come hand in hand with cutting down their resources in the future.
When the budget resolution came through a few weeks ago, it levied a 16 percent cut to the EPA's 2010 resources. Many supporters are looking at this resolution as a positive, mainly because the GOP had been fighting for nearly a 30 percent cut to the EPA. While the 16 percent cut is certainly the lesser of two evils, the continued pressure from the GOP and response are rather disturbing. In the original 2011 proposal, President Obama called for only a 10 percent cut to the EPA's slate. With the constant pushing and criticism from GOP officials, the cut was then pushed to 16 percent. Certainly the resolution has come through and was not as bad as it could've been, but this push towards the EPA is likely to continue on from the GOP side.
With a continued push from the GOP, the possible end effects to the EPA are frightening. Considering a major hit to the EPA's budget could turn into the removal of programs, the thought that some of the EPA's initiatives that fight environmentally related health issues could be cut are unfortunate. Every year, the EPA works on a number of programs that have a direct effect on cutting environmentally related health problems such as mesothelioma, asthma, and a number of others.
The GOP has set out for a major attack on the Clean Air Act, because it will regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The ability to regulate these emissions is vital in keeping pollution and smog to a minimum. With damage to the Clean Air Act and unlimited use of emissions, the risk of asthma and respiratory issues would certainly ensue. Some other programs that could find themselves on the chopping block are also important to the health of citizens. Asbestos abatement is carried out by the EPA in areas all over the country in an effort to keep older buildings and structures safe for inhabitance and clear of cases of mesothelioma and asbestosis. Without this type of programs some could be exposed to life threatening health risks. For example, mesothelioma life expectancy is extremely severe. Of course there are a number of other programs in the EPA that have a direct effect on the health of US citizens every year and a cut to these resources could be disastrous.
Given the combination of different effects that a major reduction to the EPA could have, it's not something that looks very good, in general. The continued action of the GOP towards the EPA sets a rather disturbing possible outlook for the environmental agency. It's important that the public remain aware of positive impact that the EPA has on health every year in America, otherwise their initiatives could be in jeopardy in the near future.
Eighteen Republican members of the Colorado State Legislature Monday sent a letter (pdf) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding the federal agency refrain from regulating the natural gas drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," no matter what a two-year EPA study of the process reveals.
Landowners and environmentalists around the country are increasingly concerned about instances in which they claim fracking has contaminated streams and drinking water sources. Oil and gas industry officials mostly resist attempts to further regulate the process, which was granted an exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act during the Bush administration.
"The EPA shouldn't stick its nose into the regulation of fracking or other oil and gas industry practices in states," state Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, said in a release. "Once the EPA completes its study, states should maintain jurisdiction over oil and gas operations."
While the letter was addressed to the EPA, the matter is actually up to Congress, where U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, and Jared Polis, D-Boulder, introduced the FRAC (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals) Act in 2009. The bill requires full public disclosure of the chemicals used in the fracking process, which industry officials say amount to trade secrets.
Still, a growing number of companies are offering up some form of disclosure in order to head off looming federal regulation.
"Oil and gas employers have already been barraged by new regulations in Colorado, making it harder for them to do business in the state, particularly during these tough economic times," Renfroe added, referring to amended drilling rules that went into effect last year and provide higher levels of public safety and environmental protection. "The last thing we need are further industry-crushing regulations out of Washington, D.C., that will cause even more lost jobs in Colorado."
Proponents of those new regulations say the industry has actually gained greater regulatory certainty through the new drilling regs and that other states are all moving toward models similar to Colorado's.
Republican state Rep. Randy Baumgardner, whose House District 57 includes heavily drilled Garfield County, also signed Monday's letter.
My Mom is where I learned about public service. For 17 years she was a County Commissioner in the second largest county in Michigan by population. During that time she had opportunities to run for higher office, but stayed where she was because she though it was the highest level of public office where one could see the affect of the work one was doing.
It wasn't always an easy row to hoe. Being that it was Michigan there was always a problem with finding enough money in the budgets to fill all the priorities. There were times when she did what she thought was right, even though people complained. When she set up two health clinic where teens could get condoms without shame or hassle (in the '80's) there was a lot of out cry. Still Mom knew that with the 17% teen pregnancy rate in her district something had to be done.
Oil is nasty stuff. It is full of various toxic chemicals which you really don't want to have on you, your wild life or your beaches. The question is, what do you do with it when you spill an estimated 5.16 million barrels (based on a 60K barrels per day) into an area where there are lots and lots of beaches for it was up on?
Sadly the main concept for dealing with spilled oil is to let it "weather" which means it breaks down into small droplets, gets eaten by bacteria and is generally sent to the bottom of the sea where we can't see it so we don't worry about it. This does nothing in terms of getting the toxic chemicals out of the water, but there is a hell of a lot of water in the oceans and there is toxic crap from other sources, so we don't sweat it as much as we should.
Is it time for the United States to break British Petroleum? It is within the power of the government to do so in a lot of ways, but with all big moves there are going to be serious consequences. The case against the world's fourth largest corporation (the other three are Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobile and Wal-Mart) is pretty strong. They have flouted the law time and again. There have been criminal environmental charges which BP plead guilty to; there are the deaths associated with the explosions at both Deepwater Horizon and the Texas City refinery; then there is the apparent ass-covering moves in reporting the amount of oil which is spewing from the broken well in the Gulf.
One of my fathers axioms was "Greed knows no boundaries". When greed is involved the only thing that can limit the actions of a huge corporation is the law. This is what led him to spend much of his life taking cases for clients that sued insurance companies and automakers for their callus actions in pursuit of a few dollars more profit. The law is what needs to be deployed against BP.
