Friday, February 28, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Fracking Chemical Disclosure Bills are Really Nondisclosure Bills; Contains "Halliburton Loophole"
Back when the ALEC model bill was debated in the Texas legislature in spring 2011 (and before it was endorsed by ExxonMobil and eventually adopted as a model by ALEC), the bill was touted as an antidote to the lack of transparency provided at the federal level on fracking chemicals by both industry and environmental groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Texas League of Conservation Voters (LCV).
"[T]his is proof positive that the public, environmental groups, and the state’s energy industry can work together to ensure the health and safety of Texans," the Texas LCV said in May 2011.
Rep. Rodrigues said he was impressed by these dynamics when researching the bill online in comments provided by email to DeSmogBlog.
"I was pleased to see the Environmental community and the Energy community jointly draft this legislation," he said.
The lack of federal level transparency is mandated by law via the Energy Policy Act of 2005, as outlined in a sub-section of the bill best known as the "Halliburton Loophole.
The "Halliburton Loophole" — named such because Halliburton is an oil services company that provides fracking services and because when it was written, the company's former CEO, Dick Cheney, was vice president of the United States and oversaw the industry-friendly Energy Task Force — gives the oil and gas industry a free pass on fracking chemical disclosure, deeming the chemicals injected into the ground during the process a trade secret.
Yet, far from an antidote to the "Halliburton Loophole," a new loophole has been created in its stead at the state level — the "ExxonMobil Loophole" — which now has the backing of ALEC. The results haven't been pretty.
An August 2012 Bloomberg News investigation revealed FracFocus merely offers the façade of disclosure, or a "fig leaf" of it, as U.S. Rep. Diane DiGette (D-CO) put it in the piece.
"Energy companies failed to list more than two out of every five fracked wells in eight U.S. states from April 11, 2011, when FracFocus began operating, through the end of last year," wrote Bloomberg. "The gaps reveal shortcomings in the voluntary approach to transparency on the site."
As we reported on DeSmogBlog in December 2012, FracFocus is a public relations front for the oil and gas industry:
Perhaps it shouldn't be shocking, then, that one of the bill's original co-introducers, Texas Rep. Lon Burnam (D), told Bloomberg, "This disclosure bill has a hole big enough to drive a Mack truck through.”
Texas' track record on fracking chemical fluid disclosure speaks for itself.
"Drilling companies in Texas, the biggest oil-and-natural gas producing state, claimed similar exemptions about 19,000 times this year through August,"explained Bloomberg. "Trade-secret exemptions block information on more than five ingredients for every well in Texas, undermining the statute’s purpose of informing people about chemicals that are hauled through their communities and injected thousands of feet beneath their homes and farms."
Or, as the Harvard University Law School study put it:
"HB 157 was introduced because there are existing exemptions for trade secrets in both state and federal statutes," he said. "Therefore HB 71 must be made compliant with existing law. Otherwise, HB 71 could be challenged in court and thus not enforced
"[T]his is proof positive that the public, environmental groups, and the state’s energy industry can work together to ensure the health and safety of Texans," the Texas LCV said in May 2011.
Rep. Rodrigues said he was impressed by these dynamics when researching the bill online in comments provided by email to DeSmogBlog.
"I was pleased to see the Environmental community and the Energy community jointly draft this legislation," he said.
The lack of federal level transparency is mandated by law via the Energy Policy Act of 2005, as outlined in a sub-section of the bill best known as the "Halliburton Loophole.
The "Halliburton Loophole" — named such because Halliburton is an oil services company that provides fracking services and because when it was written, the company's former CEO, Dick Cheney, was vice president of the United States and oversaw the industry-friendly Energy Task Force — gives the oil and gas industry a free pass on fracking chemical disclosure, deeming the chemicals injected into the ground during the process a trade secret.
Yet, far from an antidote to the "Halliburton Loophole," a new loophole has been created in its stead at the state level — the "ExxonMobil Loophole" — which now has the backing of ALEC. The results haven't been pretty.
An August 2012 Bloomberg News investigation revealed FracFocus merely offers the façade of disclosure, or a "fig leaf" of it, as U.S. Rep. Diane DiGette (D-CO) put it in the piece.
"Energy companies failed to list more than two out of every five fracked wells in eight U.S. states from April 11, 2011, when FracFocus began operating, through the end of last year," wrote Bloomberg. "The gaps reveal shortcomings in the voluntary approach to transparency on the site."
As we reported on DeSmogBlog in December 2012, FracFocus is a public relations front for the oil and gas industry:
FracFocus' domain is registered by Brothers & Company, a public relations firm whose clients include America’s Natural Gas Alliance, Chesapeake Energy, and American Clean Skies Foundation, a front group for Chesapeake Energy.FracFocus was listed as an industry "ally" in the recently revealed scandalous Ohio Department of Natural Resources memo from 2012 — now part of an Ohio House of Representatives investigation — which discussed how to push through fracking on public lands and divide Ohio's environmental community. It also received an initial $1.5 million in seed money in the aftermath the meetings between members of the industry-stacked 2011 Obama Administration Department of Energy Fracking Subcommittee.
Perhaps it shouldn't be shocking, then, that one of the bill's original co-introducers, Texas Rep. Lon Burnam (D), told Bloomberg, "This disclosure bill has a hole big enough to drive a Mack truck through.”
Texas' track record on fracking chemical fluid disclosure speaks for itself.
"Drilling companies in Texas, the biggest oil-and-natural gas producing state, claimed similar exemptions about 19,000 times this year through August,"explained Bloomberg. "Trade-secret exemptions block information on more than five ingredients for every well in Texas, undermining the statute’s purpose of informing people about chemicals that are hauled through their communities and injected thousands of feet beneath their homes and farms."
Or, as the Harvard University Law School study put it:
FracFocus prevents states from enforcing timely disclosure requirements, creates obstacles for compliance for reporting companies, and allows inconsistent trade secret assertions. Furthermore, the reliance on FracFocus by numerous states as a de facto regulatory mechanism sends a strong signal to industry that careful reporting and compliance is not a top priority.Asked why HB 157 was introduced as a companion to HB 71 to begin with, Rep. Rodrigues cited the "Halliburton Loophole."
"HB 157 was introduced because there are existing exemptions for trade secrets in both state and federal statutes," he said. "Therefore HB 71 must be made compliant with existing law. Otherwise, HB 71 could be challenged in court and thus not enforced
Friday, February 21, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
The Problem with Hillary for President
Ready for Hillary? I Don't Think So!
I first heard of Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton when her husband Bill was first running for President of the US. As the months and years passed, I learned more and more about her. And I must say, the more I learned about her the more I was impressed. I learned that she was an activist during the Viet Nam War years and participated during hearings on the war in congress, I learned that she participated in the Watergate hearings in the senate and I learned that she was an out spoken advocate for children's welfare, along with Mrs. Marion Wright Edelman. To my way of thinking, she could have answered to no higher calling to serve her country. I have developed a great love for her. And when she stood by her husband as the right wingers were trying to impeach him over a consensual sexual relationship with a young woman, I came to love her even more. Some of those young women are not as innocent as we are sometimes led to believe. Now I'm not saying that Ms. Lewinsky was on the prowl herself, but none of us really know. And Bill's enemies were out to hang him for any reason, no matter how trivial, they could find. The republican congress had already spent $40 million turning over every rock and had found nothing else to prosecute so they decided to persecute him until they found this as a reason to impeach.But since that time Hillary is no longer that Mrs. Clinton. She has evolved into a person hardly recognizable from the Hillary of those old bygone days. Though I still have a great love for her, I don't think I could or would vote for her to be the democratic nominee for president, and I'll tell you why.
Once she began to run for president she took a turn to the right. She no longer stood on principle. When it came time to vote to go to war in Iraq, she "went along to get along", as we say. I believe that she really was against the war, but in order to further her political aims, she voted in favor. She wanted to please the corporate PACS who contribute so much to each political party so that they can control the political process. That also includes the military industrial complex as well as AIPAC, the Jewish Lobbyists and last but not least Wall Street. They have already lined up behind her and she has not even declared her intention to run yet. The "Ready for Hillary" movement seems to be about electing the first female president, but I am not so sure of that. Even though it is run by women, that could be just a facade. It could possibly also be a corporate front set up especially for the purpose of electing another president they could control. I say this because even though we loved and trusted her husband Bill Clinton, it was really he who began the downward spiral of our economy. Mr. Ross Perot, a presidential candidate, warned us during the presidential debates in the runup to Bill being elected president, that if a NAFTA agreement was signed, America would hear a giant sucking sound of our jobs leaving this country and going to other countries. He turned out to be a prophet because once President signed NAFTA a great deal of American manufacturing jobs disappeared. Mr. Clinton also allowed congress to pass and signed a law de-regulating banks. They did this by repealing the Glass-Stegall Act, a law that was designed to keep investment banks separate from depositor's banks funds. preventing them from using depositor's funds to play the stock market. Once Bill Clinton signed this bill into law, banks began mingling all the funds and using them in any way they wished. With banks using depositor's cash to gamble with, it could only be a matter of time before a mistake would be made that would bring all of the banks, and the world economy crashing down. President Clinton is still well thought of today, but for those of us in the steadily shrinking middle, he definitely did NOT help us. On the contrary, he almost dealt us a death blow. We were deceived and we loved it.
And now we find ourselves about to repeat history, Will we be mesmerized and deceived by another President Clinton? Even if Mrs. Clinton takes a turn to the left again, can we trust her? I don't think so. And here's why I doubt that she can truly be a populist, or liberal or progressive. She and Bill have a political organization called the Democratic leadership Council (DLCC). It's a centrist democrat organization, which means they collaborate with corporations to pass agendas that are acceptable to the corporations. Unfortunately most of the time those agendas are not for the benefit of the rest of us. For instance, this organization will "go along with" the idea that social security benefits need to be cut back so that the super rich and corporations can maintain all their obscene tax breaks and tax cuts. Social security has never contributed to the budget deficit. Our SS benefits money has been used to cover shortages in other areas of the federal budget and has never been paid back. It's the people who come from this kind of organization that will "go along with" corporations to privatize the US Postal Service so that they can steal the postal worker's pensions. It's this kind of organization that will "go along with" spending half of the US treasury fighting wars while telling us that we don't have any money to spend on domestic programs. Its the kind of organization that will "go along with" a sequester and then say I didn't think they would actually want to cut the budget, when that is what they were arguing for all the time. There, I said it! Though Barack Obama made us believe he would bring about change, he also has done very little to change the policies of the Bush administration. So the argument can be made that he has a hidden connection with said organization. Not that Mr. Obama hasn't done anything worth doing. He has managed to hold off the Israeli (AIPAC) lobby from coercing him into another war that America does not need. But I feel he could have done more if he had chose the right battles to fight. And for Hillary's service to his administration, she now has his full support. Will Hillary be able to say "no!" to AIPAC? I don't think so. Can she stand up to corporations or the military-industrial complex? I think the answer is a resounding "NO!"
So, no I don't think that Hillary is the best candidate for the democratic nomination. Maybe I would like to see a woman president, but not that woman. Maybe Mrs. Elizabeth Warren or even Mrs. Nancy Pelosi. There are also a few men's names worth mentioning. First, Mr. Joe Biden, our currently sitting vice-president, Mr. Brian Sweitzer, or even Senator Bernie Sanders. I believe that all of the names on this list, whether man or woman, would fight extremely hard on behalf of the working people of this country. I still love and admire Mrs. Clinton for all those things that she has done in the past. But I'm sorry, I just don't feel that she would fight that hard on our behalf anymore, and she would have one helluva job convincing me otherwise..
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
rFriday, February 7, 2014
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