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HBO to Premiere Explosive Natural Gas Documentary
“Gasland” Exposes Unchecked Drilling’s Threat to Health and the Environment
WASHINGTON
Film director Josh Fox grew up in rural Pennsylvania on the Delaware
River, which sits above the natural gas-rich Marcellus shale formation
deep underground. When he was offered $100,000 to lease his property
for natural gas exploration, Fox decided to chronicle drilling's impact
on the American landscape and its people.
On Monday, June 21 at 9:00 p.m. EDT, Home Box Office (HBO) will
premiere "Gasland," Fox's documentary on the dangers of natural gas
exploration. Writing in Variety, the entertainment industry
publication, critic Robert Koehler said, "If a film can ever enact
social change, which is rare, the potency of "Gasland" suggests that
this may be that film." Gasland has won acclaim on the independent film
festival circuit, including taking home the Special Jury prize at the
2010 Sundance Film Festival.
"Gasland's message is invaluable to our work educating lawmakers and
the public on the dangers that unregulated natural gas drilling poses
to public health and the environment," said Dusty Horwitt, senior
counsel at Environmental Working Group (EWG). "Mr. Fox's film is
particularly relevant in its depiction of the impact that unchecked gas
drilling has had on the health of rural American families and the
callous attitude of industry representatives."
"I leaned heavily on EWG's research on natural gas extraction
techniques as source material for Gasland," said Fox. "EWG's advocacy
for safer drilling brings heft to arguments urging lawmakers at the
local and national level to address the astounding lack of regulation
of natural gas drilling," Fox said.
EWG is hosting a live chat with Fox following the HBO premiere on Tuesday June 22nd at https://www.enviroblog.org/2010/06/fracking-live-chat-with-ewg-gasland-di...
Natural gas companies have industrialized the Western landscape,
punching thousands of wells into pristine lands, injecting toxic
chemicals, consuming millions of gallons of water, digging pits for
hazardous waste and carving out sprawling road networks. Yet almost
uniquely among U.S. industries, oil and gas drillers are exempt from
regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the
Clean Air Act and other federal environmental laws.
With the discovery of large natural gas reserves in the Marcellus
shale, New York, Pennsylvania and other eastern states are now in line
to experience similar devastation. As "Gasland" documents, residents of
Pennsylvania have already had their drinking water contaminated in
areas where drilling took place.
Recent research by EWG has focused on a process known as horizontal
drilling combined with hydraulic fracturing, which has enabled gas
companies to unlock huge new deposits of gas buried in deep shale
formations. Known as "fracking," the process shatters the rock to allow
captive gas and oil to flow to the surface. Fracking is used in 90
percent of the nation's natural gas and oil wells.
In "Drilling Around the Law," https://www.ewg.org/drillingaroundthelaw,
EWG showed that drilling companies are skirting federal law and
injecting toxic petroleum distillates into thousands of wells,
threatening drinking water supplies from Pennsylvania to Wyoming.
Federal and state regulators, meanwhile, largely look the other way.
A report titled "Free Pass for Oil and Gas in the American West,"
documented that the boom in unregulated oil and natural gas exploration
across the West poses a threat to public health and the environment.
Exclusive EWG maps detailed drilling activity county by county.
EWG Safe Drinking Water Fact Sheet Produced in Conjunction with Earthworks - https://www.ewg.org/Safe-Drinking-Water-Act-Should-Cover-Hydraulic-Fractu...
Key findings of EWG's reports included:
* Drilling companies are using dozens of petroleum distillates in
their hydraulic fracturing fluids. These distillates, including
kerosene, mineral spirits and diesel fuel, contain high levels of the
so-called BTEX chemicals benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene,
which are toxic in water at minuscule levels. Benzene is of particular
concern because it is a known human carcinogen in water at
concentrations higher than five parts per billion.
* In a worst-case scenario, petroleum distillates used to
hydraulically fracture a single well could contain enough benzene to
contaminate more than 100 billion gallons of drinking water to unsafe
levels, according to drilling company disclosures in New York and
published studies. That's more than then times the water used by the
state of New York every day.
* In using petroleum distillates, companies are skirting the federal
Safe Drinking Water Act, which requires a permit for fracturing with
diesel fuel (itself a petroleum distillate). In 2004, the EPA concluded
that the use of diesel fuel in fracturing poses "the greatest potential
threat to [underground sources of drinking water] because the BTEX
constituents in diesel fuel exceed the [maximum contaminant level] at
the point-of-injection." EWG found that other petroleum distillates
used in fracking can contain even higher levels of benzene but do not
require a permit.
* Regulators in four states (New York, Pennsylvania, Montana and
Texas) told EWG that they do not check to determine whether drilling
companies are using diesel or other petroleum distillates. Regulators
in these states and Wyoming said they do not issue permits for
fracturing. A Wyoming official who asked not to be named said companies
there commonly fractured with diesel.
* In February, the House Energy and Commerce Committee reported that
two companies, B.J. Services and Halliburton, had injected diesel in
hydraulic fracturing operations in at least 15 states from 2005 through
2007. At least some of these injections occurred on or after Aug. 8,
2005, when the Energy Policy Act of 2005 became law. This law exempted
hydraulic fracturing from the Underground Injection Control permitting
requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act except when diesel is used,
so the two companies may have broken the law if they fractured with
diesel without a permit. The committee did not disclose where the
injections occurred.
* The committee also found that B.J. Services violated a non-binding
2003 agreement with EPA not to inject diesel fuel directly into
underground sources of drinking water in coal bed methane formations.
* Companies have sought to drill for natural gas in the watershed
that provides New York City's drinking water. The city has strongly
opposed such drilling.
* Industry often claims there is no evidence that hydraulic
fracturing has ever contaminated drinking water, but people from
Pennsylvania to Wyoming have clearly documented that their water was
affected.
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
(202) 667-6982LATEST NEWS
Pope Leo to Iran War Architects: 'Cease Fire'
"Violence can never lead to the justice, stability, and peace that the people are waiting for,” the pope said during a prayer.
Mar 15, 2026
Pope Leo XIV called for a ceasefire in the Middle East on Sunday, in his most direct appeal for peace since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on February 28.
While the pope did not mention either US President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name, he directly addressed those driving hostilities.
“On behalf of the Christians of the Middle East and all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict,” Leo said, according to The Associated Press. “Cease fire so that avenues for dialogue may be reopened. Violence can never lead to the justice, stability, and peace that the people are waiting for.”
The remarks came following his recital of the Angelus Prayer from the Vatican at 12:00 pm local time.
“Some claim to involve the name of God in these deadly decisions, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness."
"The people of the Middle East for two weeks have been suffering the atrocious violence of war," he began.
He continued: “Thousands of innocent people have been killed, and many others have been forced to abandon their homes. I renew my prayerful closeness to all those who have lost their loved ones in the attacks that have struck schools, hospitals, and residential areas."
According to AP, the mentioned school strike likely referred to the US bombing of an elementary school in Minab, Iran on the first day of the war, which killed at least 175 people, the majority of whom were children.
Pope Leo also repeated concerns about the situation in Lebanon, and called for "paths of dialogue that can support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis underway."
Israeli attacks on that country have forced about 1 million people to abandon their homes and killed more than 800, The Guardian reported.
The pope's remarks came two days after a Israeli strikes killed 12 healthcare workers at the primary healthcare facility in Burj Qalaouiyah, Lebanon, an attack that the country's health ministry said "violated all international humanitarian laws.”
Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement Saturday: "WHO condemns this tragic loss of life and emphasizes that health workers must always be protected. According to international humanitarian law, medical personnel and facilities should never be attacked or militarized."
He continued: "The intensification of conflict in Lebanon and the broader Middle East increases the likelihood of such tragedies. Urgent action is required to de-escalate the crisis and protect the health of people throughout the region."
In Iran, meanwhile, US and Israeli attacks on the city of Isfahan killed at least 15 people Sunday morning, and the total death toll for the country is around 1,400, according to Al Jazeera.
Following his remarks during the Angelus Prayer, Pope Leo also addressed the war while conducting a pastoral visit to a suburb of Rome.
“Currently, many of our brothers and sisters in the world are suffering from violent conflicts, caused by the absurd claim that problems and differences can be resolved through war,” he said, as Agence France-Presse reported.
He also criticized those who use religion to justify violence: “Some claim to involve the name of God in these deadly decisions, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness. It is peace that those who invoke him must seek.”
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Israeli Forces Kill Parents and 2 Children in West Bank, Beat Surviving Children
"Targeting an entire family in this savage manner reveals the true nature of the Israeli occupation and its policies based on killing and extermination, destruction and displacement," the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Mar 15, 2026
The Israeli Defense Forces killed a Palestinian couple and two of their children in the West Bank on Sunday, on one of the deadliest days for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in weeks.
The soldiers opened fire on a car in the village of Tammun in which 37-year-old Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, his 35-year-old wife Waad, and their four sons Mohammad, Othman, Mustafa, and Khaled were traveling. Odeh, Waad, 5-year-old Mohammad, and 7-year-old Othman were shot in the head and died, leaving behind two injured children.
"We came under direct fire, we didn't know the source. Everyone in the car was martyred, except my brother Mustafa and me," one of the surviving children, 12-year-old Khaled, told Reuters from the hospital.
He said that after the shooting was over, the Israeli soldiers pulled him out of the car and began to beat him, telling him, "We killed dogs."
"These crimes occur within a systematic policy pursued by the occupation authorities using lethal force against Palestinian civilians."
The soldiers also beat his other surviving brother, according to Al Jazeera.
The Israeli military said that it had been operating in Tammun to make arrests on "terrorist" charges and that soldiers had fired on a vehicle when it accelerated toward them, according to Reuters. It said it was reviewing the incident.
Al Jazeera journalist Nida Ibrahim said that the family had been totally shocked by the shooting.
“The extended family says the father and the mother did not know that Israeli forces were there as they were in a Palestinian car,” she said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the killing on social media as a "terrifying arbitrary execution crime that targeted an entire Palestinian family inside their vehicle."
The Israeli soldiers also prevented Red Crescent workers from reaching the family, the ministry said, leading to the families' "deliberate and cold-blooded execution."
The ministry continued: "The Ministry affirms that targeting an entire family in this savage manner reveals the true nature of the Israeli occupation and its policies based on killing and extermination, destruction and displacement, amid a systematic impunity, and it further affirms that these crimes, concurrent with the escalation of settler crimes and their organized terrorism in the occupied West Bank, are not isolated incidents, but part of a comprehensive and systematic aggression aimed at exterminating the Palestinian people and displacing them, in clear exploitation of the escalation occurring in the region."
In a statement issued on social media, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) also blamed the deaths on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice.
"This escalation in these crimes comes as a direct result of the expansion of shooting instructions in the Israeli army, the rising violence of settlers amid the prevalence of an impunity policy, and the entrenchment of ethnic cleansing amid unprecedented international silence," PCHR said.
It continued: "While the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemns the unjustified murder crimes committed by occupation forces and settlers, it affirms that these crimes occur within a systematic policy pursued by the occupation authorities using lethal force against Palestinian civilians, in flagrant violation of the principles of necessity and distinction that form fundamental pillars of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Moreover, they come as part of a pattern aimed at terrorizing citizens, intimidating them, and entrenching ethnic cleansing policies, and replicating acts of genocide, albeit in a less overt manner."
Also on Sunday, Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian man in Nablus Governorate, making him the sixth man killed by settlers since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. Movement restrictions imposed due the war have emboldened setters to attack, knowing that ambulances will be delayed in reaching their victims, human rights advocates and healthcare workers told Reuters.
In total, Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed 25 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, PCHR said.
In Gaza, where Israeli strikes at first declined following the beginning of the Iran war, the death toll is rising again. On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed nine police officers in Zawayda and a pregnant woman, her husband, and son in Nuseirat.
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'Serious Threat to the First Amendment' as Trump Admin Wins First Antifa Terror Charge
"A case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protest," one legal advocate said.
Mar 15, 2026
The government has largely won its first case bringing material-support-for-terrorism charges against protesters alleged to belong to "antifa," which President Donald Trump designated as a domestic terror group in 2025 despite the fact that no such organized group exists and the president has no legal authority to designate organizations as domestic terror groups.
A federal jury in Fort Worth, Texas agreed on Friday to convict eight people of domestic terrorism because they wore all black to a protest outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas on July 4, 2025, at which one of the protesters shot and wounded a police officer. Legal experts say the verdict could bolster attempts by the administration to stifle dissent.
"A case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protests and also helps them kind of intimidate, increase the fear, hoping that folks in other cities then will think twice over protesting,” Suzanne Adely, interim president of the National Lawyers Guild, told The Associated Press.
The administration promised it would be the first such case of many.
"The US lost today with this verdict."
“Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities—not under President Trump,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Friday. “Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets.”
The trial revolved around a nighttime protest at which participants planned to set off fireworks in solidarity with the around 1,000 migrants detained inside the Prarieland ICE facility. Some participants brought guns, which is legal in Texas, as The Intercept reported.
Sam Levine explained in The Guardian what happened next:
Shortly after arriving at the facility, two or three of the protesters broke away from the larger group and began spray painting cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van, and broke a security camera. Two ICE detention guards came out and told the protesters to stop. A police officer arrived on the scene shortly after and drew his weapon at one of the people allegedly doing vandalism. One of the protesters was standing in the woods with an AR-15 and hit him in the shoulder. The officer would survive.
At first, the federal government charged those arrested after the event with "attempted murder of a police officer," according to NOTUS.
However, that changed after Trump's designation of antifa as a terror group in September and the release of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which directs federal law enforcement to target left-leaning groups and activities. The next month, the government's case expanded to include terrorism charges.
“This wouldn’t be a terrorism case if it weren’t for that memo,” one defense lawyer told NOTUS on background.
The prosecution argued that the fact that the protesters wore black clothes to the protest was enough to convict them of material support for terrorism.
“Providing your body as camouflage for others to do the enumerated acts is providing support,” Assistant US Attorney Shawn Smith said during closing arguments, as The Intercept reported on Thursday. “It’s impossible to tell who is doing what. That’s the point.”
The defense, meanwhile, warned the jury about the free speech implications of the charge.
“The government is asking you to put protesters in prison as terrorists. You are the only people who can stop that,” Blake Burns, an attorney for defendant Elizabeth Soto, said, according to The Guardian.
"When the villain is a made-up boogeyman then the target becomes 'anyone who disagrees with Trump'—and this is the result."
Ultimately, the jury decided to convict eight defendants of material support for terrorism as well as riot, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive. However, they dismissed attempts by the state to argue that the protest constituted a pre-planned ambush and charge four people who had not shot at the police officer with attempted murder and discharging a firearm during a crime. Only Benjamin Song, the alleged shooter, was charged with one count of attempted murder and three counts of discharging a firearm.
The jury also convicted a ninth defendant, Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada, of conspiracy to conceal documents. Sanchez Estrada, who was not at the protest, had simply moved a box of zines out of his wife's home after she was arrested for the protest, according to The Intercept.
"The US lost today with this verdict,” Sanchez Estrada’s attorney, Christopher Weinbel, said, as AP reported.
Support the Prarieland Defendants said in a statement, "Everything about this trial from beginning to end has proven what we have said all along: This is a sham trial, built on political persecution and ideological attacks coming from the top."
However, the group commended the solidarity that had sprung up among the defendants and their allies and vowed to continue to support them.
"We have a long journey ahead of us to continue fighting these charges along with the state level charges," they said. "What happens here sets the tone for what’s to come. We are here and we won’t give up."
Outside observers warned about the implication for the right to protest under Trump.
"Remember all the people who dismissed the alarm over NSPM-7 because 'ANTIFA isn't even a real organization'? We told you that didn't matter. When the villain is a made-up boogeyman then the target becomes 'anyone who disagrees with Trump'—and this is the result," said Cory Archibald, the co-founder of Track AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee].
Content creator Austin MacNamara said: "The Prairieland trial was given almost zero media coverage because of the blatant lies by DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and Police. This verdict now sets a precedent for criminalization of dissent across the board. Noise demos, Black-Bloc, pamphlets/zines/red cards, all of this can be used to imprison you."
Academic Nathan Goodman wrote that convicting people of terrorism based on clothing was a "serious threat to the First Amendment."
The verdict gives new poignancy to what defendant Meagan Morris told NOTUS ahead of the jury's decision: “If we win, I think it shows that Trump’s mandate is not working, that the people understand that you can’t criminalize, you know, First and Second Amendment-protected activities. And I think if we lose, then… a lot of the country is OK with what’s going on. And it will be a much darker time, it’ll just signify a much increased crackdown on political opposition and free speech."
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