Recent quotes:
Idiot lawyers quote idiot academics: excluding fracking technology, fracking doesn't pollute.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found no evidence that fracturing shale causes groundwater contamination.[…]The team identified eight clusters of fugitive-gas-contaminated groundwater, and found that each of the clusters was attributable to either a failure of annulus cement, faulty production casings, or well failure. The team did not find any evidence to suggest that a vertical migration of hydrocarbon gas from depth to groundwater through intervening layers of geological formations had occurred […] Thus, none of the contamination was due to hydraulic fracturing or horizontal drilling techniques.
The Senate passed a massive fracking bill Thursday which would lift North Carolina's fracking moratorium and allow drilling to begin as early as July, 2015.
S786, or the Energy Modernization Act, could be heard in the House next week.
One of the most egregious provisions in the bill which made disclosing fracking trade secrets a Class 1 felony was reduced, in an amendment by Sen. Chad Barefoot, R- Wake, to being punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor, the difference between months and days of community punishment.
Senate Democrats had proposed no punishment for disclosure of trade secrets yesterday but were voted down, though they did manage to get in a provision that would require more frequent water testing.
An amendment from Sen. Josh Stein, D-Wake that would measure air pollution from fracking, was shut down today as well.
Also, the state would spend $500,000 as part of an “industry consortium to drill three vertical core holes” in the Sanford sub-basin. The drilling would provide information about the state’s energy potential and “serve as a mechanism to attract qualifiedcompanies interested in safely and responsibly exploring for natural gas in North Carolina’s Triassicbasins,” according to the budget.