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YES! Judge Puts Hold on Fracking in CA
First California Fracking Challenge Is Defeat for U.S.
By Karen Gullo - Apr 8, 2013 11:46 AM PT
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated an environmental law by failing to take the necessary “hard look” at the impact of hydraulic fracturing when it sold oil and gas leases in California, a federal judge said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California, said the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act by relying on outdated reviews, conducted before the extraction process known as fracking spurred massive development of energy deposits, when the U.S. sold four leases in 2011 for 2,700 acres of federal land in Monterey and Fresno counties.
“BLM’s dismissal of any development scenario involving fracking as ‘outside of its jurisdiction’ simply did not provide the ‘hard look’ at the issue that NEPA requires,” Grewal said in a ruling yesterday.
The decision is the first federal court opinion to explicitly recognize the significant risks and controversies created by the spread of fracking across the U.S., said attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued in 2011 to invalidate the leases.
By Karen Gullo - Apr 8, 2013 11:46 AM PT
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated an environmental law by failing to take the necessary “hard look” at the impact of hydraulic fracturing when it sold oil and gas leases in California, a federal judge said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California, said the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act by relying on outdated reviews, conducted before the extraction process known as fracking spurred massive development of energy deposits, when the U.S. sold four leases in 2011 for 2,700 acres of federal land in Monterey and Fresno counties.
“BLM’s dismissal of any development scenario involving fracking as ‘outside of its jurisdiction’ simply did not provide the ‘hard look’ at the issue that NEPA requires,” Grewal said in a ruling yesterday.
The decision is the first federal court opinion to explicitly recognize the significant risks and controversies created by the spread of fracking across the U.S., said attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued in 2011 to invalidate the leases.
MORE:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-08/u-s-failed-to-take-hard-look-at-fracking-judge-rules.html
THIS is what they want:
The Judge did not cancel the leases, as the CBD had requested, but he made it clear that the BLM had not properly considered the potential risk of environmental damage that could be caused by the use of hydrofracking drilling technology in the Monterey Shale formation, a vast untapped reservoir of natural gas and oil that previously had been off limits to the fossil fuel extraction industry, a formation which that industry deeply covets as a future source of revenues.
MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/09/1200308/-Fed-Judge-Stops-Fracking-on-BLM-Leases-in-CA-Until-Feds-Address-Environmental-Impact
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