For GOP, fracking is more important than your health and safety

12/1/2012 5:48pm by 22

Frack You

Some things never change. Just because the GOP lost in the elections last month doesn’t mean they’re going to suddenly support science and side with the dirty unwashed masses who voted for Obama and Democrats.

No, the GOP is sticking to what they know best, which is whatever Big Energy (or anyone with money) tells them to say or support.

So forget about the earthquakes (there’s a scary lot of info on earthquakes here and here), pollution, and my personal favorite for those snowy winter nights, flammable water:

Your house’s foundation may be cracking, you may get sick and be stuck with huge doctor bills, but think about the profits jobs for Big Energy (and the jobs created for your doctor and the undertaker). Thank the GOP for remembering (as they always do) what matters most in America: corporate “people.”

The Hill:

Actual tap water set aflame in fracking region.

Actual tap water set aflame in fracking region.

A group of GOP House energy leaders advised Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to exercise caution in a possible study on the health impacts of natural-gas drilling.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering examining a potential link between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and drinking water contamination.

The lawmakers sent a letter to Sebelius Friday stating that such a study could stymie job growth if not properly executed. They expressed concern in the letter that naturally occurring substances in groundwater could be improperly labeled as contaminants.

Yes, we wouldn’t the truth to about how harmful something is impact whether we move ahead with it.

This sounds an awful lot like that time the congressional Republicans forced the administration to bury a report on domestic terrorism that ended up being right.  The truth is never a good thing if it harms a powerful GOP constituency.

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An American in Paris, France. BA in History & Political Science from Ohio State. Provided consulting services to US software startups, launching new business overseas that have both IPO’d and sold to well-known global software companies. Currently launching a new cloud-based startup for the Microsoft market. Full bio here.

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  • Ford Prefect

    Now that the election is over and the Duopoly has been declared victorious, why on earth are Democrats still persisting in pointing fingers at the GOP for things that Dems do as well? I understand the purpose: it’s to distract people from realizing the Dems are far more buy-partisan and corrupt than party loyalists would ever care to admit.

    It’s remarkably cheesy propaganda technique to say the GOP doesn’t care about drinking water supplies when the incumbent POTUS, allegedly a Democrat, says natural gas is Fan-Franking-Tastic and his own EPA, USGS, DOI and Corps of Engineers are bending over backwards to allow all this pollution the minority party is supposed to take all the blame on.

    Did no party loyalists pay any attention during the campaign? Did they not hear Obama and others proudly declare that more drilling (Drill, Baby, Drill!) is taking place on public lands now than at any other time in history? No one? Did no one pay attention when Obama announced his entire energy policy revolves around oil drilling, fracking, coal and nuclear power and the deregulation of all that? Anyone?

    Next week, we’ll hear about the GOP’s evil drone program, that kills thousands of innocent people each year.

    This cognitive dissonance is getting way out of hand.

    • A reader in Colorado

      Did no party loyalists pay any attention during the campaign? Did they not hear Obama and others proudly declare that more drilling (Drill, Baby, Drill!) is taking place on public lands now than at any other time in history? No one? Did no one pay attention when Obama announced his entire energy policy revolves around oil drilling, fracking, coal and nuclear power and the deregulation of all that? Anyone?

      I’m not a party loyalist – heck I’m not even a party member. But I remember.

      The party loyalists were all too busy swooning, and repeating the b.s. talking points of Washington Village Idiots talking about Obama the Liberal Populist, both after the convention speech and after the town hall debate. I didn’t even hear most of them even talk about Obama the big oil lover, based on words out of his own mouth. It’s like the content of his speech, and Clinton’s, DIDN’T MATTER AT ALL.

      It’s like he didn’t even utter those words, so thoroughly were those words actively “disappeared”. Like a stone tossed into water with nary a ripple.

      I tried to point out, here, “Hey, Obama is explicitly pro fracking, and doesn’t think there’s enough of this .. little problem here?” And even many of the people here who say they aren’t Obamabots nodded their heads at me and went right on talking about Obama the Liberal Populist.

      What the hell is wrong here? Obama is as much a liberal populist, or even somehow anti- Big Oil, as my ass is the Queen of England. It’s like dealing with Stepford Wives.

      Obama flat out told the entire country that he intends to govern as a basically mostly right wing Republican without the bluster in many policy areas, among them, environmental and Big Oil policy. But it’s like his supporters, and people who say they aren’t supporters but feel compelled to praise him whenever he gives a speech, live in some alternate universe with Liberal Obama, and it is that universe their ears are tuned into and not the Obama from This Universe.

      • Ford Prefect

        I clearly remember losing my temper during that 20-minute opening duet in the second debate, when both candidates expressed their undying love for all things Big Carbon. So to see Democratic apparatchiks bemoaning GOP fracking policies is absurd in the extreme.

        To be a loyal Democrat these days, one must jettison every last tendency towards rational, Reality-Based thought.

        Bring back the Reality-Based Community! I miss it!

        • A reader in Colorado

          Heh. I don’t know if you read the article, but in my state, the town of Longmont had the temerity to ban fracking in their city.

          And now, you know, our governator is a Democrat. A petrogeologist Democrat, but still, a Democrat. The kind of Democrat who uses police to crush Occupy protesters. And he’s real, real unhappy that rural town Longmont had the chutzpah to take matters into their own hands, and, by popular vote, tell the oil companies to shut their fracking off.

          It’s like the oil companies are the government here and our “Democratic” governor wonders, how dare Longmont’s people try to tell the oil companies what they can’t do on city (or, sorry, oil company) land?

          • Ford Prefect

            Indeed. I lived in CO for six years and my brother still lives in Denver. So I’m following this issue there. The effort in Erie also is inspiring at times. It’s a shame the guy who gave us Wynkoop would be so craven, but he is a Neo-Liberal Democrat, which only proves just how buy-partisan this issue is. In PA, Ed Rendell was not a friend of those who wish to have clean drinking water also. Party ID matters little in all this.

            See too: Gov. Cuomo in NY

  • Hryflex

    If anyone is interested, there really is a play named “Frack You” You can view it here: http://www.wskg.org/episode/watch-online-frack-you

    • Hryflex

      And, yes, it is about fracking issues.

  • hollywoodstein

    Just converted the rentals to gas because it’s cheaper now. Factored into the decision was the fact that fracking is poisoning aquifers and causing earthquakes, and contributing to global warming. The consensus was the American people were stupid and the business interests involved were too strong so it would be ten years before the economics changed and we only needed three to make it economical. Hard to argue against the stupidity of red staters, but I gave it a try. I was outvoted.

  • Outspoken1

    Fracking has been done before -with nuclear bombs, really! Didn’t work then either! http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMABGY_Project_Rulison_Parachute_CO (I personally visited this location and took the photos)

  • boyfromkillan

    Democrats don’t think much of your health and safety, either. Or your life, for that matter. They have a long and dishonorable history of carrying water for corporations. They just snivle and blabber in a progressive-ish sounding way. And then do you with a hot poker.

  • A reader in Colorado

    Oh, and Republicans didn’t shut down domestic terrorism reports, or bury them. They bitched and demagogued and Democrats slunk away with fear in their eyes.

    Bedwetting Democrats did that out of fear of Republicans criticizing them. Saying Republicans buried the domestic terrorism reports would be like me saying I caused you to jump off the roof because I told you to, and you did it.

    • Sally

      I realize the logic escapes you, but in 2009, Democrats were trying to work WITH the GOP. Big mistake. The GOP will work with no one…they are bought and sold and absolutely heartless. Big oil needs to lose every dime of their subsidies, and be taxed like everyone else. The GOP snarks about subsidies for green business, but refuses to budge an inch on the oil ones, which have never been needed. And yes, the GOP DID bury intel frequently. They are a pack of liars.

      • A reader in Colorado

        Who was the head of the Department of Homeland Security during the time this report – this actual one under discussion – was issued? Who actually ordered this report buried, who was in a position to order it buried, and what was their party ID? Hmm?

        I’m getting pretty freaking tired of explanations like, “The Republicans bitched and whined about X, the Democrats did what Republicans said on X despite not having to, so the Republicans are responsible for X because they terrorized, bullied, or browbeat the Democrats into doing it”.

        THAT is the illogic here. If Democrats did X, they did X. It’s no use blaming Republicans when Democrats actually did something themselves.

        I’m not defending Republicans. I’m tired of Democratic weasels who do nasty Republican things and then blame everyone but themselves.

        • ezpz

          Bravo! and thank you!

      • ezpz

        “President Obama has quietly allowed hydraulic fracturing of shale oil and gas to proceed apace, reports Bloomberg’s Jim Snyder, creating economic growth in key states heading into November’s election.

        …Snyder writes that while Obama has turned the opening of renewable energy plants into high-profile events, he has purposefully not joined the anti-fracking movement emanating from the left.

        The EPA delayed new air emissions standards for natural gas operations by two years, drawing rare applause from the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based industry group whose members include Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips in Houston….”

        Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-fracking-reelection-2012-9#ixzz2Dr5lnpIc

        • A reader in Colorado

          Thank YOU.

          An honest article would have read, “For the U.S. Government, fracking is more important than your heath or safety”

          Did you notice the anonymous, no reply downrates?

          The hypocrisy about it being an only a Republican philosophy about editing facts out of preferred reality is beginning to STINK.

          In as many months, I have had liberal Democratic friends and discussion partners alike have their mouths turn as sour as rotten persimmons at the mention of inconvenient facts.

          You’re posting the freaking facts. To hell with partisan apparatchicks and their efforts to paint something that is not true with the stain of partisan fantasy.

          The fact is, the Democrats are in bed with the frackers. Your article points out the truth. It means, among other things, that efforts to lecture the Republicans have been DAMAGED by the Obama administration.

          Notice, the Democrats who hate facts?

          • ezpz

            I agree with every thing you said. Everything!

            “Did you notice the anonymous, no reply downrates?”

            Did I notice? Quite a few of my comments have been voted down – by a LOT, not because they were in any way abusive or suggesting violence or hate mongering. I don’t even like name calling! No, they were voted down because they contained unflattering FACTS about *their* guy, *their* team. Or my views of him BASED on my observations AND the facts – facts that can only be unknown to those living under rocks, or can only be ignored by sycophants. Oh, and the teabagger insult was hurled at me more than once, as well as other choice names.

            It’s a classic case of shoot-the-messenger-itis. Sad, Very, VERY sad.

            “Criticizing the Great Obama is traitorous, and a sign of Republicanness. Obama doing everything the Republicans would do, and worse, and kissing their asses, only a strategy.”

            Exactly!

            And it would be “hilarious” if it weren’t so tragic. Yes, tragic for all – even them.

            “Whatever these people say, from me, please keep posting the facts.”

            That’s just about the only reason I continue to comment. I have a problem allowing something so fact free and so loaded with hyper-partisan spin and lies of omission to stand unchallenged. Getting voted down doesn’t matter much to me, as I see it doesn’t stop you either. What matters is putting the truth out there.

            So thank you again, also, and at the risk of sounding trite, keep on keepin on….

        • ezpz

          To the person/s who voted this comment down: Was it the facts that you didn’t like, or the source, maybe? Or was it simply that these facts refute your fact-FREE talking points?

  • A reader in Colorado

    Darn those Republicans, those fracking supporters! If it weren’t for those Republicans, and their love of frackers, none of them would be given a free pass.

    Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

    Oh, and, when I’m done laughing, I’ll just say, by supporting Obama, you supported frackers, too and hydrocarbon drilling practically without limit. Oh, I forgot, Obama only supports drilling for methane if they actually perform the pollution for which they are drilling. And he really, really disapproves of any pollution. You could even say he “feels our pain”. While, embarassed by it, explaining to Romney why there hasn’t been more even drilling.

    Bad oil people! Bad! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha he feels bad there hasn’t been more drilling on his watch. LOL.

    • Sally

      So wait. Are you saying that “corporations are people” Mitt would have been very cautious about allowing more fracking?HHAHAHAHHAHAH yourself.

      • A reader in Colorado

        Do you REALLY think, as the author posits above, that this is some kind of team sports thing with Republicans in one corner and Obama and the Democrats in another?

        I never said Romney would be any good at all.

        This is a false comparison. Both parties are in favor of fracking, and making it a team sports thing with one party against another to rile up all the little supporters, is RIDICULOUS.

      • John

        You’re either extremely naive or extremely dumb. Maybe both.

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