I have real difficulty having any sympathy for legislation like this:
As hydraulic fracturing ramps up around the country, so do concerns about its health impacts. These concerns have led 20 states to require the disclosure of industrial chemicals used in the fracking process.
North Carolina isn’t on that list of states yet – and it may be hurtling in the opposite direction.
On Thursday, three Republican state senators introduced a bill that would slap a felony charge on individuals who disclosed confidential information about fracking chemicals. The bill, whose sponsors include a member of Republican party leadership, establishes procedures for fire chiefs and healthcare providers to obtain chemical information during emergencies. But as the trade publication Energywire noted Friday, individuals who leak information outside of emergency settings could be penalized with fines and several months in prison.
Why shouldn’t the public know what is being pumped into the Earth? How are legislatures supposed to oversee the industry and assure the public’s safety if these procedures are treated as proprietary?
What a legislature snorting Pope’s Koch will get you.
This is your government.
This is your government on GOP drugs.
Any questions?
Will we live?
The GOP will oppose any and all legislation that will effect the bottom line of any country. Why? FREEDOM an American citizens death is less important then the bottom line. Did you not know that??
Yes its the freedom to kill in the name of money. Its how the “job creators” create jobs. Always an opening the libertarian paradise.
Opps in my prior post “country” was suppose to be “company” sorry about that
Don’t worry. The GOP can’t tell the difference between the two.
Hey, self regulation by the participating industry is the true and constitutional American way, right? After all, look at how well it worked out for the financial industry. And that clusterfuck can be spread around on the hands of those on both sides of the aisle. And so it will be when it comes to fracking.
Never mind that, in addition to the long term contamination of the water, we can look forward to situations just like that this, similar to Oklahoma, all around the country. And this will happen to some degree almost anywhere they drive drill pipe and flood the deep earth with water and all sorts of chemicals.
Correlation, of course, does not equal causation. But only the most intellectually blindfolded denier could ignore this kind of data.
OT: Marriage equality in Oregon today.
you have earthquakes in Oklahoma.
fracking is evil.
Well, the ostensible reason is “protecting trade secrets”, but I think that is bull because surely all those geologists know what is used by their competitors.
They’re not. That’s the point.
When you hire legislators that don’t believe in government (and “belief,” as we know, trumps everything else with these people), this is the sort of legislation you get. Oddly, even though they rail against people sucking from government’s teat, they all continue to cash their government paychecks. Hypocrites.
If you don’t “believe” in government, don’t take a government job. Leave it to the adults. You know, the ones who don’t base public policy on conversations with their imaginary friends.
We don’t have to know what is in the fracking fluids.
We just have to spray them all over the GOP legislators, and let the “magic of the free market” do its work.
What our legislators least understand is that, it has been suggested if not already implemented, that the salty brine which comes back from the bowels earth containing not only the chemicals which the fracking company has added to the water, but also heavy metals such as barium, be used as rock salt on our Pennsylvania roads during the winter.
The minute I read this post, I detected the sulphurous smell and cloven hooves of ALEC and the Koch Brothers. And guess what … ?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-coleman/fracking-rules-in-north-c_b_5352907.html
Wow… government really is the problem.
“Why shouldn’t the public know what it being pumped into the Earth?”
It’s all about the money: If no one knows what chemicals are being used, they can’t be traced back to anyone when the chemicals inevitably show up in well waters.
Testing water is not a simple matter of scanning the water, i.e. the “Star Trek Method”. You have to know what chemical you are looking for in order to test for it. Otherwise you are forced to test for thousands of chemicals (or more), a cost prohibitive method of determining contaminants.
Even if fracking did not involve all the toxins added to water, even if it didn’t, all that water being pumped far underground essentially removes it from the available supply to uh…sustain life on this planet. Water, like oil and gas is a finite resource. We treat it as if it is an infinite resource. That will bite us in the ass at the end. Then there is the earthquake thing too. Did you ever notice we make things better and better till they are terrible?
Perhaps the GOP voters of that state should walk around with t-shirts that say, “Poison me. It’s totally ok.”
I keep asking the pro fracking folks to drink a little of the brew being pumped into our drinking water…and surprise…no takers…The “theory” I have is…where are all those nasty chemicals that are used in manufacturing being disposed of??? HUH??? Where??? in the ground as a “proprietary” brew….??? I just want to know that these companies have our best interest in mind…
Love Canal – the sequel.
Today’s GOoP makes satire impossible. What can even the genius of Colbert do with reality like this?
Congratulations NC GOoPers. Your self-retardation has hit uncharted levels. Your pigheaded hatred of the environment cannot be exceeded. Your eager ass wiping of your betters cannot be equaled.
When N!cholas speaks of the conservative movement as essentially feudal and (at bottom) the abject prostration of self-loathing helots and serfs before the lordly aristocrats (my words, not his), it would be hard to find a better example than this….
Frack your brains out, you imbeciles.
Perhaps real problem with fracking is that no one really understands and can predict the physics involved. When they start to drill a play they have no idea if it will require five wells or five thousand. They just have no idea how the rock will break or what it will take to break them. No one in the industry knows and billions of R&D dollars are being spent to learn that science. The company that figures that out will be light years ahead of its competitors. Don’t underestimate the importance of IP to the players in the industry.
Meanwhile, most companies are realizing they overpaid for leases during the last several years (given what it is taking to develop the plays) and about 4-6 months ago the big institutional investors decided they wanted to start seeing greater returns – putting a squeeze on the industry.
I am not suggesting we show any sympathy for I them, just pointing out there may be other greater forces on fracking than countless concerned citizens worried about water use and poisoning. 😉