May, 04 2012, 03:01pm EDT
BLM Proposal to Reduce Risks to Ground Water from Oil and Gas Fracking
NRDC: “We Need Stronger Protections for Our Lands and Our Health”
WASHINGTON
The Bureau of Land Management today issued draft safeguards to reduce the risks to groundwater from hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") of oil and gas wells. These new safeguards, once finalized, will apply to leasing of federal oil and gas reserves beneath BLM land, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and other property.
The proposal would require operators to better manage fracking waste, disclose the chemicals used during fracking, and strengthen the actual wells put into the ground.
The following is a statement from Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council:
"We need BLM to be a leader when it comes protecting our lands, water and ultimately our health from fracking pollution, yet several states already have stronger protections in place than what the agency proposed today. This is a critical first step, but so much more needs to be done.
"Oil and gas operations are expanding rapidly with new technologies and into new areas, including closer and closer to where families live and children go to school, but federal safeguards have not caught up. And industry does not inspire confidence when it balks at the notion of sharing chemical ingredients upfront. Communities shouldn't have to wait for that information until after the deed is done."
"We hope the agency will strengthen this proposal before it becomes final."
To read more about today's announcement from BLM, see Amy Mall's blog at https://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/
Today's action marks the second step from the Obama administration to help manage the dangers associated with fracking. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized the first-ever limits on dangerous air pollution produced during the fracking process on federal and private lands. Similar to today's draft proposal, the EPA addressed some major concerns but fell short of what's necessary to address critical environmental and health problem such as limiting emissions of methane, a potent climate change pollutant and other dangerous air pollutants.
David Doniger, policy director of NRDC's climate and clean air has a blog post on the EPA final safeguards here: https://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ddoniger/separating_fracked_from_fictio.html
NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
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Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
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Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
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Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
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As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
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