Report: Seven States Where Republicans Are Ruining The Environment

[cal04]

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/06/seven-states-ruining-environment/

As the budget standoff between the Republican controlled House of Representatives and the Democrats reaches a fever pitch, much of the media attention — and frustration — has been focused on reaching a solution to avert a government shutdown. But, under the radar, newly-elected Republicans across the country are proposing disastrous environmental legislation to achieve radical-right aims, such as opening state parks for fracking and exposing their citizens to industrial waste.

OHIO: At the behest of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, an exemption was inserted into a 2005 energy bill — dubbed the “Haliburton loophole” — which stripped the EPA of its power to regulate a natural gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing. This method, named fracking, entails drilling a L-shaped well deep into shale and pumping millions of gallons of water laced with industrial chemicals — chemicals which the energy companies are not legally bound to disclose. The poisonous fluid fractures the shale and releases natural gas deposits for collection. But the public health risk associated with fracking doesn’t seem to bother Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and state Republicans. The Ohio House introduced a bill early last month that would create a panel to open any state-owned land for oil and gas exploration to the highest bidder. Subsequently, in Kasich’s budget proposal, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources would be given authority to lease 200,000 acres of state park land for oil and gas exploration. Faced with a litany of problems related to fracking — even including a house exploding in Ohio — Kasich has fully endorsed drilling in Ohio state parks, saying, “Ohio is not going to walk away from a potential industry.” State Rep. John Adams (R), the House bill’s sponsor, said drilling in state parks can help erase a projected $8 billion budget deficit, and “keep our parks and our lakes up to the standards that the citizens of Ohio want.”

(other states at link)
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, Maine, Montana, Minnesota


(snip)
These assaults on the environment have very little to do with budget shortfalls, but they do conveniently provide a platform of austerity where state Republicans can justify their ideological attacks on behalf of corporate polluters — who are not just stripping states’ natural resources but also the health and the jobs of their citizens. The Republican attacks on the environment are just the tip of the iceberg, though. Koch’s ALEC is underwriting radical-right legislation across the country, having major influence in efforts to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, helped draft Arizona’s controversial anti-immigration law, and is the major driving force behind anti-union bills in many states. In short, state Republicans have fallen ill to a larger pattern — carefully orchestrated and implemented by Koch’s ALEC and AFP — where the environment and the safety of their citizens are sacrificed, in favor of lining the pockets of the wealthy.

[handmade34]

1. external costs

and the general populace pays all of them

[KT2000]

2. The thing that really gets me

is that they want the freedom to make people ill and they also want the freedom to cancel their access to health care when they get sick from pollution.
These really are horrid people.

[Exilednight]

3. New York is another. Hydrofraking is killing parts of the

Catskill mountains.

[truedelphi]

5. Isn't this the area that provides the reservoirs and thus the drinking

Water to most of the rest of the state?

I thought I had heard that in "Gaslands" but could be remembering it incorrectly.

[Exilednight]

7. You are correct, It provides drinking water for most of the upper part of NY state. n/t

[truedelphi]

9. Yikes!

Yet still the Cheney clause prevails...

Why?

[robinlynne]

4. only 7?

[Lorien]

6. I was thinking the same thing. Surely Florida is on that list. nt

[Exilednight]

8. Yeah, I was noticing a lack of western states. I drove through Wyoming

a few years ago and noticed a large amount of gas well pumps littering the mountainside. Salt Lake City, where nearly 90% of Utah's population lives, is a giant smog bowl.

[Mnemosyne]

10. I would have been shocked if PA was not on the list. It sucks here in red hell. n/t