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So first off, thank you for reccing my previous Louisiana Senate diary yesterday. I normally don't like to do two diaries about the same race back to back but this is pretty newsworthy. Senator Mary Landrieu (D. LA) made some very interesting statements about drilling:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/...
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Senator Landrieu discussed community concerns about water use and wastewater from fracking, and she said that "there will be cities and there will be places that don’t want drilling rigs in the center of town.......Now this is just common sense…..the industry has to understand that, just like there are industrial zones in some places, and there are commercial zones in other places in our country and there are residential zones, there should be drilling zones and non-drilling zones."
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She mentioned the recent fracking ban that passed in Longmont, Colorado, and said: "I would not be so quick to condemn that town for making that decision..…I think that we do have to be sensitive to local land use issues. And if we all find that balance, there’s plenty of land, trust me, in the United States of America there are plenty places that you can drill, you don’t have to drill on every square inch of land in every situation and I think that we have to be a lot smarter about where we drill and how we drill." - Natural Resources Defense Council, 11/29/12
Now here's Landrieu speaking at a forum sponsored by America’s Natural Gas Alliance via Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/...
There should be drilling zones and non-drilling zones. Just because, you know, if there was gold in the National Mall, the largest gold mine in the world, we would not allow mining in the Mall. So sometimes I think the industry—as much as I’m an advocate for it—can get a little over its heels on this.
I don’t know what, again, the issues are, but I would not be so quick to condemn that town for making that decision. Although I realize the governor’s made a statement, and this and that. But I think we do have to be sensitive to local land use issues. And if we all find that balance—there’s plenty of land, trust me, in the United States of America. There are plenty of places that you can drill, you don’t have to drill on every square inch of land in every situation. And I think we have to be a lot smarter about where we drill, how we drill. - U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D. LA), 12/4/12
Think Progress also points out that Landrieu has taken $940,174 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry since 1996. Landrieu's words make sense. The gas industry needs to know it's bounds and respect local communities. Of course try telling that to the oil and gas industry. I am shocked though to hear such words come from Landrieu. It's not as shocking as when Senator Jay Rockefeller (D. WV) called out the coal industry's campaign of fear back in June and and has since then been urging coal mining supporters to face reality about climate change. Still, I hope to hear more of this from Landrieu.