June, 19 2019, 12:00am EDT
New Analysis of Fracking Science (~1,500 Studies) Finds Serious Harms to Public Health, Environment, and Climate
Major new report gives a uniquely comprehensive picture of the effects of over a decade of natural gas and fracking build-out
NEW YORK
As the country grapples with climate change, the policy choices made about natural gas and fracking in the near future are enormously consequential. A major new report compiles, tracks, and analyzes key trends about drilling, fracking, and its infrastructure, and demonstrates that there are pervasive, grave misunderstandings about the effects of natural gas and fracking. It finds that drilling, fracking, and reliance on natural gas can lead to serious harm to public health and the environment, and are incompatible with climate solutions.
Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York released the Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking, sixth edition, written by scientists, doctors, and experts who have extensive experience with the issue. The Compendium draws on nearly 1,500 studies (355 of which were published in 2018) and important government reports and investigative reports by journalists. Several experts are available, upon request, for interviews about the new report and the issue more broadly.
Ten years ago, there were a handful of peer-reviewed, scientific studies of drilling and fracking. Today there is a substantial body of evidence, making the Compendium's scope and analysis of trends crucial. The analysis finds that the vast majority of evidence points to serious risks and harms from drilling, fracking, and related infrastructure like pipelines and compressor stations. The implications for public health are increasingly serious, given that today at least six percent of the U.S. population--17.6 million Americans--live within a mile of an active oil or gas well, making them particularly vulnerable to fracking-related health impacts.
Sandra Steingraber, PhD, co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, said, "With each edition of the Compendium, the case against fracking becomes more damning. As the science continues to come in, early inklings of harm have converged into a wide river of corroborating evidence. All together, the data show that fracking impairs the health of people who live nearby, especially pregnant women, and swings a wrecking ball at the climate. We urgently call on political leaders to act on the knowledge we've compiled."
"Despite efforts by the gas industry to suppress all health data on fracking, the Compendium documents the serious harm fracking holds for pregnant women, children and those with respiratory disease," said Walter Tsou, MD, MPH, interim executive director of Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility and a former Philadelphia Health Commissioner. He added, "We need to ban fracking."
The Compendium compiles and presents the evidence behind environment and health-related trends, detailing more than a dozen trends from the emerging science, including:
- Regulations are simply not capable of preventing harm.
- Fracking and natural gas are incompatible with climate solutions.
- Fracking and the disposal of fracking waste threaten drinking water.
- Public health effects associated with drilling and fracking include poor birth outcomes, cardiovascular and respiratory impacts, and cancer risks.
- Fracking infrastructure--including gas-fired power plants, pipelines, sand mining, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities--poses serious exposure risks to those living nearby.
- Drilling and fracking contribute to toxic air pollution and smog (ground-level ozone) at levels known to have health impacts. Workers are at special risk.
- Fracking raises human rights and environmental justice issues.
These trends underscore how continued support for fracking and natural gas--and its ancillary infrastructure--rests on outdated assumptions and dangerous misconceptions about their impacts. The notion that natural gas can serve as an intermediate "bridge fuel" between coal and renewable energy is fallacious and now disproven by new scientific evidence showing that methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than formerly appreciated and escapes in larger amounts from all parts of the extraction and distribution process than previously presumed, including from inactive, long-abandoned wells. Grossly underestimating methane emissions threatens to undermine the efficacy of efforts to combat climate change.
"The Compendium gives a sobering overview of the toxic harm that fracking is inflicting on our water, our air and our people," observed Larry Moore, MD, an emergency room doctor in Colorado Springs and a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado Working Group. "It's a real problem here in Colorado, where I practice, and it's getting worse and worse across the country."
The evidence to date from scientific, medical, and journalistic investigations combine to demonstrate that fracking poses significant threats to air, water, human health, public safety, community cohesion, long-term economic vitality, biodiversity, seismic stability, and climate stability.
The Compendium finds that, "Across a wide range of parameters, from air and water pollution to radioactivity to social disruption to greenhouse gas emissions, the data continue to reveal a plethora of recurring problems and harms that cannot be sufficiently averted through regulatory frameworks. There is no evidence that fracking can operate without threatening public health directly and without imperiling climate stability upon which public health depends."
Physicians for Social Responsibility mobilizes physicians and health professionals to advocate for climate solutions and a nuclear weapons-free world. PSR's health advocates contribute a health voice to energy, environmental health and nuclear weapons policy at the local, federal and international level.
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A top First Amendment expert on Tuesday said TikTok has a strong case against the U.S. government as the social media platform filed a federal lawsuit against a potential ban—particularly since proponents of the law have admitted it is aimed at blocking Americans' access to news out of Gaza.
The platform filed the lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit nearly two weeks after President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversaries Act into law as part of a larger foreign aid package.
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As Common Dreams reported Monday, Republican lawmakers including U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) have linked TikTok to the burgeoning anti-war protest movement spreading across the U.S., with the latter saying in an interview with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last Friday that "there was such overwhelming support" in Congress to shut down TikTok because of the frequent posting of Palestine-related content on the app.
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"The fact that some legislators have acknowledged that the ban was motivated by a desire to suppress content about the Israel-Gaza conflict will make the law especially difficult for the government to defend," Jaffer added.
The law's sponsors claim it "is not a ban because it offers ByteDance a choice: divest TikTok's U.S. business or be shut down," reads the lawsuit. "But in reality, there is no choice. The 'qualified divestiture' demanded by the act to allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally."
Even if selling the app within the time frame was feasible, added TikTok and ByteDance, the law "would still be an extraordinary and unconstitutional assertion of power," ultimately allowing Congress to "circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down."
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As Bunch wrote:
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Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens on Tuesday responded to U.S. government allegations of fossil fuel industry price fixing with calls for federal prosecution and congressional action to return money to the American public.
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Owens' statement came after members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) declined to contest ExxonMobil's controversial $64.5 billion acquisition of Pioneer—which was completed Friday—but approved a consent order barring Sheffield from serving on Exxon's board of directors or as an adviser to the fossil fuel giant.
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The FTC voted 3-2 to accept the order and place related documents on the record for public comment. Citing communications including in-person meetings, public statements, text messages, and WhatsApp conversations, a commission complaint accuses Sheffield of trying to collude with the representatives of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and OPEC+.
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Pioneer toldFortune that the company and its founder "believe that the FTC's complaint reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the U.S. and global oil markets and misreads the nature and intent of Mr. Sheffield's actions," but neither party would take "any steps to prevent the merger from closing."
ExxonMobil "learned of the FTC's allegations regarding Sheffield from the agency and said in a statement that they are 'entirely inconsistent with how we do business,'" according to Fortune. "Exxon has agreed to the terms of the consent decree," which also "prohibits the oil giant from appointing any Pioneer employee or director to its board for five years."
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An alliance of unionized rail workers on Tuesday demanded that the U.S. Senate reject President Joe Biden's nomination of former Trump administration official Ronald Batory to serve on the board of Amtrak, the nation's passenger rail company.
In a statement, Railroad Workers United (RWU) said Batory's tenure as head of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) under former President Donald Trump "was marked by policies favoring 'operational efficiencies' (i.e., corporate profits) over the safety and well-being of rail workers and the public."
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The statement urges rail workers across the country to contact their senators and demand they block Batory's nomination.
"His record clearly demonstrates a prioritization of carrier profits over the safety of rail workers and the traveling public," said RWU, calling the Senate to "derail Batory."
“Railroad Workers United urges all members of #raillabor to actively contact their Senators and argue against Mr. Batory's confirmation. His record clearly demonstrates a prioritization of carrier profits over the safety of rail workers and the traveling public.” #DerailBatory pic.twitter.com/8kVNNsBihD
— Railroad Workers United ✊ (@railroadworkers) May 7, 2024
Rail workers reacted with outrage last week after Biden announced Batory's nomination, given his ties to the railroad industry and policy moves under an administration whose deregulatory spree helped lay the groundwork for the toxic crash in East Palestine, Ohio last year.
Amtrak's board of directors is required to be both geographically and politically diverse. Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, noted in a statement Monday that while Batory "would never be our choice, we recognize that federal law requires the board to have three members from the minority party, in this case the Republican Party."
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In its statement Tuesday, RWU acknowledged that "some may argue that the Biden administration is procedurally obligated to forward this nomination."
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