A Call for Radical Accountability
-by Jay Burney
In the years leading up to the Macondo/Deep Water Horizon well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, arguably the greatest human caused environmental disaster in history, the world was silent on the environment. For almost a decade the media downplayed environmentalism as an extremely obstructionist strategy preventing economic growth. Climate change deniers grabbed the headlines. The devastations of the energy industry were obscured by the American obsession with war and the latest Hollywood sex scandals. Media abandoned it’s seasoned reporters and went with industry “talking points” to construct storylines that had no critical basis.
Even after the ongoing disaster all but destroyed the ecosystems and human lifestyles of the Gulf, many still refer to the disaster as a “spill”. This was no spill.
This is a huge disaster that was caused by a deceptive industry intent on cutting corners and squeezing the most profit possible out of dangerous operations. Whenever you hear the phrase “Gulf Oil Spill”, you probably downplay the reality and enormity of this planet changing disaster. This week, BP went on trial for the damages caused by the Macondo blow out that caused 11 direct human deaths and untold damages to the ecology and economic future of the Gulf Coast.
The New York State hydrofracking issue has brought an oil and gas industry sponsored hate campaign replete with a barrage of partisan and divisive language crafting. The phrase engineering is designed to incite passion against those that urge a cautious approach to hydrofracking.
This includes economic arguments that urge us to believe unconditionally that jobs and economic growth are totally dependent upon the industries ability to extract wealth for private gain from among other places, public properties and with public money. The truth is much further away.
An industry oriented projection analysis of fracking affiliated New York State jobs has been repeated by the New York State DEC as it seeks to justify hydrofracking operations in the state. DEC consultants, -a local WNY company with strong ties to the oil and gas industry, Ecology an Environment, wrote in a taxpayer funded report that an average NYS shale gas development scenario would bring 53,969 jobs. Food and Water Watch, an activist organization opposed to hydrofracking published an independent analysis last November entitled “New York State Exaggerated Potential Job Creation from Shale Gas Development.” It states that the Ecology and Environment projections are “deeply flawed”. It states that “in the first year of an average scenario only 195 new jobs would be created for NYS residents, and that after 10 years only 600 jobs. After the 10th year there would be almost no more new jobs created”.
There are other substantial economic, environmental, and social impacts. These include the probable boom and bust cycle that accompanies most natural resources extraction operations. Communities should experience extraordinary downsides once the fracking operations cease. These include significant infrastructure costs including roads and maintenance, damage to fragile and valuable ecological systems, and impacts on human health and well-being.
Principle concerns made by anti-fracking activists point to a consequential lack of science that substantiates that fracking safe. There is more than enough evidence to suggest that both the process and chemicals injected into the earth permanently contaminates water that all life depends upon. This effects humans, animals, and agriculture and food production. There is significant science that clearly links chemicals used in hydrofracking with human disease including a wide array of cancers. This business is as serious and as costly as death.
Many of these impacts are considered “externalities” by our traditional way of economic accounting. This means that many of the fracking costs will not be paid for by the industry and instead will be born by individuals and taxpayers.
One of the principle issues is that many of the chemicals used are proprietary, which means that they are kept secret by the industry. While we know mostly what the chemicals are, by hiding the truth behind specific proprietary disclosures, the industry can disingenuously argue that chemicals found in well water and aquifers cannot be traced to the drilling sources. In addition, gas and oil extractions are legally exempt from important parts of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Water Act, the Community Right to Know Act, the Clean Air Act, The National Environmental Policy Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. This Bush/Cheney era energy legislation enjoyed bipartisan support. Accountability and the ultimate health costs are protected by a complex and costly legal system that ensures that costs will be borne by a wider society, -the taxpayers and individuals effected. These corporate entitlements are outrageous and dangerous.
As of this writing the USEPA is at least a year away from releasing its science on the safety of hydrofracking. Early drafts clearly point out that that contaminated well waters and aquifers are directly linked to fracking operations. This brings us to the common sense fact that the “economic impact” of gas extraction may be far from positive. Individuals that have testified against fracking include doctors, ecologists, scientists, economists, oil and gas extraction specialists, and DEC technical staff whom say that they do not have nearly enough resources to safely oversee fracking.
When the federal government states that they are considering requiring gas drilling companies to disclose proprietary formulas used in frack liquids, the question has to be “disclose to whom?” Unless this is fully disclosed to the public there is no possible way that the public will be safe. Nor can the public make informed decisions about fracking safety. Many, including those inside government claim that the government does not have the resources to oversee the many aspects of fracking. It is not hard to imagine that as the size of our government recedes, the ability of oversight will also diminish. If the formulas are disclosed to the public, we certainly will find a way to scrutinize, analyze and ultimately make informed and transparent choices about the activities, processes and impacts of this very dangerous industry and its economic, environmental and social consequences.
Environmental activists of all stripes have been and continue to be targets of the campaign to disarm citizen knowledge. This assault is led by industry apologists and death merchants, many of which stand to make huge profits if we the people allow fracking.
Industry apologists continue to target citizen awareness.
In early December Fred Dicker, the longtime state editor of the NY Post went off on “extreme environmentalists on a Fox TV broadcast suggesting that those that oppose fracking are radicals, use hyperbole, are extremists and uninformed. Local news accounts from our “legacy” TV and print outlets carry that same message. More often than not the media carries uncritical accounts of hydrofracking issues from the point of view of the businesses that have the money to spend underwriting the local “news” operations. I am sure that most of you think that hydrofracking in NYS is good for our economy and will provide lots of jobs.
The propaganda greased by the big companies goes all the way to the Governors office, and beyond. Some of the justifications go beyond the pale.
Recently, Republican presidential candidate Rick (google it) Santorum, whom seems to believe that his radical brand of fundamental Christianity should guide our political/economic/social destiny, suggested that God made planet earth in order to allow humans to exploit its natural resources. He said that “radical environmentalists believe that man should protect the earth”. He said, “That is a phony ideal, we are not here to protect the earth”, and that “the objective is man, not environment”. How does one even begin to address this exasperating disconnect? Without a healthy earth, a healthy planet, there is no “man”. If we poison the planet with phony idealism such as Santorums, humans disappear. Its that simple. This election may very well be about the ability of humans to survive.
Activists that are willing to go against the grain and stand up for ecological integrity, clean water and air, and fight with their words and actions against a monstrous corporate financial and propaganda machine should be considered heros and patriots. Instead some of the mainstream media parrots the industry talking points and portrays activists in as mislead, selfish, obstructionists, socialists, or worse eco-terrorists. That last label puts individuals and organizations that oppose fracking and are willing to say so on a list of potential criminals and the consequences are becoming increasingly dire.
Just because someone is so green that the trees hug them doesn’t or shouldn’t mean that they are extremists. Why aren’t the profiteers and their spokespuppets that use disinformation, incomplete half-truths and quick decision-making that masques economic, environmental, and social truths considered the extremists? Who are the criminals here?
Set Out
A Call for Radical Accountability
The first order of business is to ban fracking.
Beyond that we should make the industry be totally accountable by
-Revisiting the federal exemptions from environmental and community protections.
-Make the industry pay for independent analysis.
It is time that we adopt a newly emerged from the “Occupy Movement concept”- "Radical Accountability".
Lets take the promises of jobs and safety from of the industry and codify them, with financial incentives. For instance, if the state is not going to wait for the science, do the health analysis, or conduct full economic evaluations, make the profiteers accountable by demanding that corporate entitlements be incentivized by:
-A public accountability panel with each appointee and no members or their families linked to industry hydrofracking profits. The independent panel must be be funded by the private sector and will include a privately financed fund to independently evaluate health and economic impacts of hydrofracking in NYS.
-Full public disclosure of chemicals used, to include tracers on the chemicals and substances used at each site, so that when they appear in water, they can be sourced.
-Adequate private financed bonding (A minimum $50 million bond for each well) for potential public damages. Let the industry bear the costs, not society. Let the freemarket decide! Make the externalities internal transparent costs.
-Publically disclosed job guarantees linked to every individual well and the aggregate that includes penalties for nonperformance, and under performance. Negotiate job creation contracts in public, and be financially incentivized and accountable if they turn out not to be true.
Without these actions, the public takes all the risks, there is no free market and the corporate entitlements will continue to eviscerate the 99%.
Without these actions we cannot find a way to protect our environment, and not to put too fine a point on it, but without ecosystems there is no economy.
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