California Attorney General Frowns on Fracking Plans in Central Valley by the Trump Administration
Press release from the California Attorney General’s Office. Please remember that this is not neutral reporting but a press release from one side of a situation.:
California Attorney General Becerra…issued a statement [yesterday] in response to the Trump Administration’s decision to open up more than one million acres of public lands in Central California to oil and gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking). In June, Attorney General Becerra filed a comment letter responding to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)’s deficient draft supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS), which fails to fully evaluate the project’s impact on the communities and environment of Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura Counties.
“The Trump Administration’s Bureau of Land Management wants to expose more than a million acres of public land in Central California to drilling and fracking using a patently deficient environment impact study,” said Attorney General Becerra. “That’s not how we do things in California. We’re prepared to do whatever we must to protect the health and safety of our people. We intend to be good stewards of our public lands.”
On April 26, 2019, BLM issued a draft supplemental EIS evaluating its plan to open more than one million acres of federal lands to oil and gas leasing. Fracking is a procedure in which oil and gas producers inject water, sand, and certain chemicals at high pressure into tight rock formations to extract oil and gas. While most of the fluid is water, the process also includes toxic chemicals that pollute nearby groundwater and flow back to the surface for above-ground storage.
A growing body of evidence points to fracking as a significant cause of water and air pollution and low-level seismic events.
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Duke Nukem
😂
Fuck Becerra. Fracking is great for our energy independence, and does not foul ground water. Becerra is a liar, just like all the other anti fracking anti better quality of life democrat envirowackos. We show this bullshit to our students, they want him recalled. Along with Newsom, the truly great asshole of governors. If you want to go back to the caveman days and eat everything raw, and walk every where, go ahead. But we say fuck that, we use fossil fuels to do so much, and it’s cheap. If you don’t like the use of fossil fuels, don’t go to Eureka, that’s how they produce all the electric power there, and in so many other communities.
Are you insane?😎
Do some research stuber, ’cause your ignorance is on full display.
Sorry to tell you but the FACTS say Otherwise about 99% of your claims!!!
Thanks for making it so easy to see what an ignoramus you are.
Yes, how could pumping toxic chemicals into the ground possibly contaminate groundwater?
I agree. The tar and oil seeps out of the ground down there and life still goes on. We need the price of gas to go down here. Repeal the gas tax too. Its unfair to rural residents. Our roads aren’t getting fixed. Repeal the county tax too. Get rid of all the supervisors who supported it too.
[edit] you will fight to poison someone else’s ground water and further impact an already fragile ecological area, and in the next breath fight against the Terra- gen wind power project. Perfect example of narrow minded Trump supporting not in my back yard mentality.
🕯🌳Here they come,fossil fuel Republicans. Yum,yum.🛐
How are the wind mills coming, progressive?
That’s also a Republican led project for an energy company looking to get federal subsidies using out of date technology with an insufficient environmental review in a corrupt rural county like ours. Pretty much the same issue different energy companies. All brought to this county by Rex Bhon, the cyrpto-republican, you that dude with a criminal bear spraying grower boy that got his easy permit under Honeydew Farms, as a political ploy to garner votes and campaign donations during a campaign year. Kick the wind mills and Rex both to the curb!
do you pedal your asz to work everyday?
False equivalency.
And a home robbery invader too
Fraking should be renamed, as it could create giant sink holes.
We can instead create tiny villages for beautiful refugees from all across Earths many bistro’s.
Refugees believe in purchasing power, and enjoy sipping coffee just like Americans do.🇺🇸
They would love their new shopping districts in the Central Valley.🇮🇹
Diversity is the only way to achieve peace and a everlasting shopping experience.
Imagine living in a coutured bungalow near your favorite Costco bargain center!
It’s not who we are, as Americans, to discriminate.
As the crow flies, we have always been a tolerant nation.
Shop with your pocketbook.
Let’s make Swedish children proud,
Vote no on fraking, vote yes on I phones.
Save the bistro’s that make this shopping ecosystem so resilient!
“As the crow flies” we have always been a tolerant nation??? WTH does that mean?
Lol. It means nothing, like other far right conservative flat earth jiberish. I have learned the hard way, sometimes you just can’t argue with insanity! Good luck though!
As his war on California continues !
🕯🌳”Here they come walking down the street
There getting the funniest looks from everyone they meet
Hey,Hey it’s the Trump Administration they don’t get any work done because there to bust putting everybody down. “
What?
We’re the young generation,
and we’ve got something to say.
🗽Trump just got bent over like a taco on the trade deal. The Art of Deal. Hey sure if you like Russian stew comrade.
It will be tied up in court till the corrupt bastard is gone.
It certainly was before he was elected. BTW the title of this article is misleading as is the AG’s statement. They are not arguing over a plan involving fracking but over the possibility that fracking is not outright banned in advance. Which would be a good thing IMHO.
We can’t afford to lose water and we certainly are already earthquake prone. Fracking has implicated in increased earthquakes in other areas. It is already too scary here for that.
But a little historical perspective would make the California AG sound a little less like the political rabid dog he is. This link covers the issue, involving Federal interpretations of land use that existed before Trump was President.
“At issue are new guidelines unveiled last month by the Bureau of Land Management that aim to avoid long, drawn-out National Environmental Policy Act reviews whenever possible. One feature of the February memo is an emphasis on the use of “determinations of NEPA adequacy” for oil and gas leasing. The approach, known as a DNA, allows the agency to forgo fresh environmental review when it already has studies that cover a new proposal.” https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060076105
So it is an attempt to keep the unending demand for more and more studies being used as a tool to keep lands from commercial use. For example court ordered additional studies were used to attempt to keep a solar farm from being built. “But courts haven’t rejected the use of DNAs in all circumstances. In 2015, for example, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with BLM when the agency declined to do a new NEPA analysis for the massive Ivanpah solar power project in California — even after finding that the development would harm more tortoises than initially expected.”
Unending litigation from the above example to stopping straightening the curves in the road at the Avenue of the Giants has been a tool that has been misused and abused. This is an attempt to curtail that abuse WHEN it is deemed that the delaying tactic of constantly demanding new studies would produce nothing . But then again using the regulation to stop abuse could also become an abuse itself if used to circumvent necessary studies to exposure commercial interests.
So, even though the AG is right about fracking IMO, it’s incidental to his need for political posturing. It’s always hard to agree with someone so disagreeable themselves but in this case with fracking, he’s right to object to this as a misapplication if an Obama era regulation.
I agree
That ground.Will be more fertile with the oil out of it.its been covered with oil wells for as long as I have been alive. Let the rest of it be extracted.
🇺🇸🕯I think Willie’s right, economically it would do Humboldt great and if kept in check then the effects on the environment would be minimal. 🖖
Katherine and Willie, sitting in a tree…
🎄Fracking the worst thing you could do in California. 🖖
Political grandstanding. The democrats under Obama with full court press by Feinstein and Gov. Brown very quietly fracked the hell out of California to the tune that fracked oil now represents 12% of the state’s GDP! With an economy as large and diverse as California’s that is stunning! This was pushed hardest during the drought years. $$$$$$$
https://earthjustice.org/features/california-and-fracking
https://www.cleanwateraction.org/campaign/oil-gas-and-fracking-california
Love these stinkin’ facts. More proof that Democrats are simply Republicans in sheep’s clothing.
Yup, and as long as we’re fascinated by the reality tv show of politics both sides continue business as usual.
If this were about protecting the environment, the first order of business would be to require existing operations to store their holding water in lined ponds. Right now, throughout the valley, Kern County in particular, there are massive holding ponds on bare dirt, leeching an unknown amount of unknown chemicals directly into the groundwater aquifers. There is a relatively simple, cost effective solution. But instead, we allow them to continue polluting our waters, while restricting additional activities.
At least when they are fracking, they are depositing their chemicals hundreds to thousands of feet below the groundwater aquifers, where the only true path for groundwater contamination is through faulty well casings (which is relatively rare nowadays).
This is about limiting progress, and increasing dependence on the state. We need to keep gas prices artificially high in this state, in order to lower disposable incomes, so citizens become more reliant and what the state provides instead of what they earn themselves.
Yes, most of the water and soil pollution there comes from pesticide and fertilizer contamination that settles in the tulare sink.
Not all fracking flow back is reinjected. And even if it is, the fracking fluid can escape into an aquifer. “EPA found scientific evidence that hydraulic fracturing activities can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances. ” https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=332990
Fracking kills! Causes sinkholes and incites earthquakes! Not what we need in California!
They should go frack themselves!
I was born and raised in this state. I retired in 2012 at age 63. My mistake was not getting out of this fucked up democratic state at that time. Now at 70 I’m stuck here. The state of Jefferson is badly needed. Even Oregon is getting screwed up. Newsom needs to be recalled along with his AG.
Maybe we should just have more wind turbines instead. Ya think?