Fueled by Academic Studies and an Oscar-nominated Film, Democracy For America Comes Out Against “Fracking” for Natural Gas
"Fracking," the process of drilling for natural gas using toxic chemicals that poison our air and water in the process that is currently exempted from EPA regulation by a loophole, would be covered by the Safe Water Act under legislation currently pending in Congress.
Democracy For America, the grassroots Democratic PAC founded by former Vermont Gov. and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has come out strong against “fracking” — the process of drilling for natural gas by injecting millions of gallons of toxic chemicals deep underground to break up shale rock formations and release natural gas deposits trapped within.
Democracy for America has started a campaign against "fracking," the process of using toxic chemicals to drill for natural gas, poisoning our water and air in the process.
DFA, which boasts more than 1 million members, has begun an online campaign in support of the Fracturing Awareness and Responsibility to Chemical Act and DFA members are gathering signatures in support of the bill, which is sponsored in the U.S. Senate (S 587) by Sen. William Casey (D-PA) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (HR 1084) by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO). The legislation would repeal the exemption for fracking in the Safe Drinking Water Act. Neither version of the bill has been scheduled for a hearing yet.
“It’s time to hold the oil and gas production industry to the same standards as any other industry to ensure the safe protection of America’s drinking water,” the DFA site says, adding that “hydraulic fracturing is a controversial drilling technique which injects millions of tons of highly toxic chemical fluids into the ground to break apart shale and release natural gas. Even while scientists believe these chemicals may already be poisoning America’s drinking water, the natural gas industry has unleashed a massive 34-state drilling campaign.”
The exemption for fracking in the Safe Drinking Water Act was reportedly negotiated by then-Vice President Dick Cheney on behalf of Halliburton,in 2005. Halliburton.
Natural gas, and fracking in particular, has become a favorite target for a growing number of individuals concerned about the environment because of the damage it does to both the water and the air.
Indeed, the New York Times yesterday published a piece headlined, “Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Environmental Problems,” based on a pair of studies that purport to show that natural gas obtained by fracking is actually worse for the environment than mining for and burning coal.
“The problem” the New York Times story states, “is that planet-warming methane, the chief component of natural gas, is escaping into the atmosphere in far larger quantities than previously thought, with as much as 7.9 percent of it puffing out from shale gas wells, intentionally vented or flared, or seeping from loose pipe fittings along gas distribution lines. This offsets natural gas’s most important advantage as an energy source: it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels and releases lower carbon dioxide emissions.”
Methane is exponentially worse for the atmosphere than carbon dioxide; studies show that methane is up to 72 time more damaging to our atmosphere than CO2.
Also from the New York Times story: “The old dogma of natural gas being better than coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions gets stated over and over without qualification,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University and the lead author of one of the studies. Mr. Howarth said his analysis, which looked specifically at methane leakage rates in unconventional shale gas development, was among the first of its kind and that much more research was needed.
You can read a pre-publication version of the Cornell study, which was obtained by The Hill, a Beltway Insider publication, here.
A lot of the opposition has been driven by an Oscar-nominated documentary film called “Gasland,” which naturalgaswatch.org wrote about several weeks ago, along with the growing opposition to fracking ; you can see that piece here: “Natural Gas May Not Be All It’s Fracked Up to Be.”
Ain’t that the truth.