Vermont Banned Fracking: 49 States to Go

[Donkees]

Published on May 31, 2016
The state of Vermont was the first state to end fracking and if I have anything to say about it, we're gonna end it in the other 49 as well.

[Glassunion]

1. I have a question on this. Is this merely a symbolic gesture?

From my understanding there are no natural gas deposits under the entire state. In fact, there are only about 24 states that have the resource to be fracked in the first place. The only state to ban fracking where it is actually viable is in NY state. So you only really need to get another 23 states on board. Please start with PA.

[Donkees]

2. I found these quotes...

I have a question on this. Is this merely a symbolic gesture?

"A ban on this process makes sense, if for no other reason than it will keep the oil industry from pumping lobbying dollars into the state," said McKibben. (Bill McKibben, who is a scholar in residence in environmental studies at Vermont's Middlebury College.)

In Washington, DC, The American Petroleum Institute called the Vermont legislature's move "irresponsible."

Rolf Hanson, API's senior director of state government relations, said that the decision by the Vermont legislature to issue a statewide ban on the use of hydraulic fracturing is "shortsighted and uninformed."

"The decision by the Vermont legislature to pass a statewide ban on hydraulic fracturing follows an irresponsible path that ignores three major needs: jobs, government revenue and energy security," said Hanson.

"An uninformed ban on a proven technology used for over 60 years is short-sighted and irresponsible, particularly when Vermont benefits year-round from natural gas safely produced in neighboring states and provinces," said Hanson.

"The Vermont Legislature deserves tremendous praise for having the courage to stand up to all of the lobbying, the full page ads and the legal threats of the oil and gas industry," said Paul Burns, executive director of the nonprofit Vermont Public Interest Research Group. "This is a shot that will be heard, if not around the world then at least around the country."

"Vermonters were able to see through the smokescreen put out by the gas industry," said VPIRG organizer Leah Marsters. "They understand the threat that fracking poses to public health, as well as our air, land and water."

From my understanding there are no natural gas deposits under the entire state.

"Geologists have said Vermont lacks the abundant natural gas underlying New York and Pennsylvania. But the same shale formation that has supported commercial fracking operations in Quebec extends south along Lake Champlain in Vermont."

http://www.alternet.org/story/155360/vermont_will_be_first_u.s._state_to_ban_fracking

[Donkees]

3. Then there's this: Vermont Governor Who Banned Fracking Supports Fracked Gas Pipeline

Shumlin’s support of the pipeline project is unusual, since his signature was responsible for Vermont becoming the first state to officially ban the practice of fracking in 2012. However, a closer look at campaign finance records may suggest motivation for Shumlin’s green-lighting of the projects. In August of 2014, Federal Express donated $3,500 to Shumlin’s ongoing re-election campaign. FedEx CEO David Bronczek is a member of International Paper’s board of directors, who could directly benefit from the phase 2 pipeline. And according to page 3 of Vermont Gas’s official request for the phase 1 pipeline, it is revealed that Casella Waste Systems — Shumlin’s top campaign contributor from the energy/natural resources industry — operates 11 natural gas-powered trash and recycling trucks in Vermont, and fuels them at a facility in Williston, directly in the path of the phase 1 pipeline.

https://thinkprogress.org/vermont-governor-who-banned-fracking-supports-fracked-gas-pipeline-9e938e0bd71c#.olzg70ipb

[Donkees]

4. EPA's Fracking Finding Misled on Threat to Drinking Water, Scientists Conclude

The EPA water study, launched five years ago at the behest of Congress, was supposed to provide critical information about fracking's safety "so that the American people can be confident that their drinking water is pure and uncontaminated," a top EPA official said at a 2011 hearing.

But the report was delayed repeatedly, largely because the EPA failed to get any prospective (or baseline) samples of water before, during and after fracking. Such data would have allowed EPA researchers to gauge whether fracking had affected water quality over time.

EPA had planned to conduct such research, but its efforts were stymied by oil and gas companies' unwillingness to allow EPA scientists to monitor their activities, and by an Obama White House unwilling to expend political capital to push the industry, an InsideClimate News report showed.

Still, the EPA's draft report confirmed for the first time that there were "specific instances" when fracking "led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells."

The finding was a notable reversal for the Obama administration, which, like its predecessors, had long insisted that fracking did not pose a threat to drinking water.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12082016/epa-mislead-public-fracking-water-conclusion-its-own-scientists-conclude