Lining Up the Ducks

Now that the House and Senate have introduced bills that will at last restore universally applicable protections to water, arguably our most vital and finite resource of all, the oil and gas industry has begun to step up efforts to defeat these measures, in order to protect it's 'vital' interest in profits.
It wasn't all that long ago that the tobacco industry did the same thing. They flooded us with studies that showed that smoking was benign, and plenty of people who didn't want to give up lifestyle chose to believe those skewed and biased studies.
And so, here we go again...
Notice the dire predictions regarding energy production. Safeguarding our water would be 'catastrophic' to the oil and gas industry. It would threaten our economy!


There's the argument.
No mention is made of the threat to Life Itself if we continue to allow gas and oil exemptions that are poisoning our water... as if there were no other viable solutions... HA!
Doesn't money always follow a good bet? Isn't that how the market works? Let's all be naive together!
Ready?
Read this with a grain of salt:

Study finds US production would dip under hydraulic fracturing bill
Nick Snow Oil & Gas Journal, Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, June 9 -- US oil and gas production would drop 20.5% over 5 years if federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing becomes law, the American Petroleum Institute said on June 9 as it released a new study.

By 2014, gas production could fall by 4.4 tcf, or 22%, and oil production by 400,000 b/d, or 8%, according to the study by IHS Global Insight, “Measuring the Economics and Energy Impacts of Proposals to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing.”

API released the study as US Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said he would sponsor companion legislation to the bill which Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo), Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY), and Jared Polis (D-Colo) introduced on June 9 to bring hydraulic fracturing back under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

The well completion process, which producers say is essential to produce oil from the Bakken shale and gas from the Marcellus and other US shale formations, was exempted from SDWA enforcement under the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

“Drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale across much of Pennsylvania is part of our future. I believe that we have an obligation to develop that gas responsibly to safeguard the drinking water wells used by 3 million Pennsylvanians,” Casey said.

“We already have private wells contaminated by gas and fluids used in hydraulic fracturing. We need to make sure that this doesn’t become a statewide problem over the next few decades as we extract natural gas,” he continued.

Eliminating hydraulic fracturing would be catastrophic to US oil and gas development, resulting in 79% fewer well completions and drops of 45% in US gas production and 17% in oil production by 2014, the IHS Global Insight study found, according to API.

“More than 1 million wells have been completed using this technology. Unnecessary regulation of this practice would only hurt the nation’s energy security and threaten our economy,” API Pres. Jack N. Gerard said.

Needless to say, House and Senate bill sponsors are getting alot of heat!
Here's what you can do...

Letters of thanks written to Reps. Hinchey, Polis, DeGette, and Sens. Schumer and Casey are an important indication of broad public support for their position. Letters on paper, whether sent via USPS or faxed provide tangible proof they can produce as evidence, but of course phone calls and emails are good too. And, don't forget, letters to the editor of your newspaper will not only draw attention to the bills, but may motivate others to write letters of appreciation and support for their passage as well.
Click HERE to find out how to contact Congressional Representatives.
Click HERE to find out how to contact the Senators.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!