March 10, 2011

Former Bush official unnerved by unregulated fracking

As they push across the U.S. buying up land rights from underneath the feet of unknowing victims, energy giants continue to hope you haven’t heard the term “hydraulic fracking.” They hope you haven’t heard about how residents of some areas where they have injected their explosive chemical cocktail into the ground to release natural gases have ended up sick from their own water, which is often so toxic they can take a match and light it on fire. Now, they probably hope you will not hear about the revelations of a former Bush EPA official Benjamin Grumbles who says an initial investigative report done on the fracking process was taken out of context and the issue needs to be revisited.

Today Daily Kos reported,

Grumbles said he was disappointed at losing both the authority to regulate fracking and to revisit the issue in the future. Once the exemption was passed, the message to EPA was ‘focus on some other priorities,’ he said.

Congress used the report issued by Grumbles and other EPA officials to grant fracking permanent Clean Water Act exemption. On Tuesday, the EPA finally announced that it is suing Halliburton to once and for all disclose the secret cocktail of chemicals it injects into the ground to spur the release of liquid natural gas.

Check out another blog post by Public Citizen energy expert Allison Fisher entitled, “Unnatural Gas” to learn more about fracking and why Public Citizen sees this as one of the most important energy and health issues of 2011. Then,  please tell your representatives to keep KEEP TOXIC CHEMICALS OUT OF OUR DRINKING WATER today!