Tumbled onto this fascinating read this morning on Mother Jones by way of Huffinton concerning the extensive involvement of Hillary Clinton through the State Department in facilitating and promoting natural gas extraction from shale, otherwise known as "fracking", around the world:
How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking To The World. The author is Mariah Blake. (I linked to the original article in Mother Jones because I understand some DK users have issues with all the scripts going to HP invoves)
The story opens with a descriptive passage of a trip HRC took to Bulgaria in order to sell fracking to a Bulgarian public who had protested in the streets by the thousands against an agreement reached the previous year between Bulgaria and Chevron. Those protests were successful in that they culminated in the Bulgarian government passed a fracking moratorium. The neighboring Romanian public was also fractious about fracking and a possible Romanian moratorium was also under consideration.
It was into this environment that Clinton endeavored to educate both the Bulgarian masses about the benefits of fracking as well as their leaders. In addition to her initial trip, Clinton followed up with more lobbying, envoys and education efforts for both countries and would be able to consider her mission a success as it resulted in the overturn of the Bulgarian moratorium and the Romanian one losing its vote and never being enacted.
The episode sheds light on a crucial but little-known dimension of Clinton's diplomatic legacy. Under her leadership, the State Department worked closely with energy companies to spread fracking around the globe—part of a broader push to fight climate change, boost global energy supply, and undercut the power of adversaries such as Russia that use their energy resources as a cudgel. But environmental groups fear that exporting fracking, which has been linked to drinking-water contamination and earthquakes at home, could wreak havoc in countries with scant environmental regulation. And according to interviews, diplomatic cables, and other documents obtained by Mother Jones, American officials—some with deep ties to industry—also helped US firms clinch potentially lucrative shale concessions overseas, raising troubling questions about whose interests the program actually serves.
There is an official arm of the State Department that was created in 2011 by Clinton, The Bureau of Energy Resources with 63 employees and a multi-million dollar budget per the MJ article.
I encourage everyone to read the entire article. Hillary's support of fracking is both broad and deep. She promotes it as being a beneficial component of fighting climate change, and as a way for countries to loosen their ties to the Russian oil industry. There is no equivocation in the following quote:
"I know that in some places [it] is controversial," she said, "but natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel available for power generation today."
It should be noted that according to the article, Clinton's successor at State, John Kerry, is continuing the policies and programs to promote fracking established under Clinton and is even planning on expanding it to 30 additional countries.
Joe Biden is also on board and is promoting shale gas development in the Ukraine where interestingly enough his son is on the board of a Ukrainian energy company-
From Time:
Ukrainian Employer of Joe Biden's Son Hire's a DC Lobbyist
The discussion points I would raise from reading this article are:
1.Are Hillary Clinton and John Kerry correct that promoting fracking around the globe is a good move both in terms of fighting climate change and eliminating the power of Russian oil?
2a.Is the deployment of tax dollars through the State Department to turn it into a lobbying and marketing arm for the gas industry an appropriate use of our collective monies?
2b. How do rank and file Americans benefit from this largesse of the State Department? What is our trickle down benefit?
3.Did you know that HRC was such a big promoter of fracking?
4.Do you think this rises to the level of becoming a campaign issue?
5.Do you agree or disagree with her position on fracking?
6.Do you have any reservations about a member of Joe Biden's immediate family potentially being a beneficiary of policies his father helps to craft? The Time article says there are no legal barriers.
Extra credit reading assigment:
This transcript of an address that Hillary Clinton gave in October of 2012 at Georgetown University on "Energy Diplomacy in the 21st Century" is a pretty thorough overview of her energy policies although after reading the entire thing I do not see one reference to shale or fracking. There are numerous references however to "natural gas" and "gas".