Congress Introduces Anti-Fracking Legislation
Here in the Town of Ulysses, plans to drill for natural gas are provoking opposition, with concerns about the impact of hydraulic fracturing, a gas drilling procedure commonly referred to as fracking. Companies that produce the fluids used in the fracking process are currently protected by a special loophole that allows them to keep the contents of the fluids secret, even if they endanger public health. There have been cases of these fluids breaking out and contaminating ground water, and so many Ulysses residents are worried that gas wells on their neighbors’ properties could ruin their own well water, and perhaps even contaminate municipal water sources.
Yesterday, U.S. Representative Diana DeGette, from Colorado, introduced legislation that would close the loophole that keeps the toxic contents of fracking fluids a secret. The proposed law would also give the Environmental Protection Agency the power to regulate the fracking process.
A similar bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Bob Casey, from Pennsylvania, which shares the Marcellus Shale with our area. Congressman Maurice Hinchey, who represents Ithaca and other portions of the Southern Tier, has cosponsored the legislation. “It’s time to fix an unfortunate chapter in the Bush administration’s energy policy and close the ‘Halliburton loophole’ that has enabled energy companies to pump enormous amounts of toxins, such as benzene and toluene, into the ground that then jeopardize the quality of our drinking water,” Hinchey said.
Senator Chuck Schumer has also cosponsored the legislation. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and our own district’s U.S. Representative, Michael Arcuri, are not yet officially supporting the bills.
[...] the House and Senate, the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 seeks to close this loophole, requiring the disclosure of the toxic chemicals in fracking fluid to [...]
Yes, by all means, shut it down and regulate it …… we would not want the US to have a cheap,abundant and relatively clean source of energy……that tactic worked to kill nuclear development in the US.
Ok…go ahead and do that…kill what is left of American energy production and put thousands upon thousands of people out of work…instead of shutting it down, derive different fluids used and keep America working….don’t be stupid and kill the working American more!!!!
you’re fooling yourself if you think letting this go on is a good idea…what’s the point of having natural gas if your dead! The stuff they used to frack is dangerous…it will either kill you or leave you sterile or invalid. The money we (our government) waste on subsidizing oil and gas companies could have been used to move us into a new era an energy independence, if we had had the foresight and desire to forsake greed for health and security.
We need to get a grip on reality and start thinking more that 2 days into the future!!
Yes, that’s a great idea…let’s keep fishing till there are no more fish left, after all we don’t eant to deny fishermen jobs. And while we’re at it, let’s keep on drilling using fracking until the 500 or so toxic chemicals & massive water use leave the enitre Catskills & Delaware watersheds a dead zone. Of course, it would be downright un-American to invest in clean green energy instead because there is nobody/nothing to kill!
Perhaps J. Hawkins and A. Daily don’t mind flammable tap water; their logic suggests they are already victims of neuro-toxins.
For further information, try to see “Gasland.” Here’s a link to the trailer:
Yes,Yes,Yes shut them down and move the jobs to solar energy.What good are jobs if people are dead due to unsafe drinking water and death at there jobs due to contamination effects of all the toxins?
The HBO film “Gasland” was a real eye opener. How very stupid and short sighted is it to assume pumping toxic chemical into the ground, pooling them on the surface and evaporating them into the air won’t result in pollution of the ground water. Our political system has sold out to big oil at a tremendous cost. It is a known fact that when shale is “Fractured” the drill hole is not the only place where “wet gas” escapes. It comes up through the ground polluting every rock, well, water source along the way. When the planet is destroyed where will we live? – American we
It is about time! It is sick to think that any industry has gone unregulated for so long…. pumping toxic chemicals into the ground! Has everyone gone insane!!!!! This should be a criminal investigation allowing this poison to pollute our land and our drinking water…. I say again, Has the Government gone insane by allowing this !!!!!!!!!!! Please pass this legislation and empower the environmental protection Agency to follow up!!!! Perhaps we should be looking at clean energy not energy that pollutes worse then anything imaginable…..
I spent 20 years in the Air force defending this country and it pains me to see that big business is so money driven and greedy that they would sell our kids to pad their checking accounts. for all of you that say that this is good for the economy and we need to keep people working, I say that you should buy some land and plant some fruit trees, buy a couple cows and get on with life. I hate that this government simply wants to collect taxes and denies us the most important protection and that is protection of the land. It is not our land we are just borrowing it from our kids and I have developed a deep respect for the european countries, especially Germany for the simple reason that no persons rights are more important than the protection of the land. In my opinion, no one has the right to do whatever they want to with a piece of property that they choose to call theirs, because it is NOT theirs, It belongs to all of us. If my neighbor is doing something with his land that affects me or my children then that has gone too far. those people that have sold the mineral rights to the gas and oil companies are not the people that are going to get brain cancer and tumers. They aren’t the ones that are going to have multiple miscarriages and still births or have handicap children. It is all the rest of us that didn’t have a choice. This country is my backyard and I refuse to watch it be destroyed by big business and greedy landowners that think that they have won the lottery. I want this fracking stopped and I want the ones that gave the gas companies a get out of jail free card behind bars.