Friend,
It's been a heck of a fracking year. And it's not over yet. In a matter of days, Governor Cuomo could make a major announcement about fracking in New York State - which would impact millions more people.1
But before that happens, and before the holiday craziness takes over, let's take a quick look back. We started the year pushing back on policies that supported fracking at the federal level. But the frackers made a big mistake this year.
In addition to drilling new wells in places like California and Pennsylvania, they started building out a new generation of fracked gas infrastructure: Pipelines in Massachusetts, Virginia, North Carolina and more; New storage facilities like the one in Seneca Lake New York; And new export terminals in Maryland and Oregon. It’s painful to see more and more communities getting fracked, but these struggles unite activists like you and me together in solidarity. Together, we’re all fighting one big opponent, the fracking industry.
So whether you live in New York, California, or anywhere in between, I hope you'll join me in making a year end donation to support Environmental Action's fracking work in 2015.
2014 was also the year we learned a lot of new and disturbing things about fracking's true impacts. A compendium of hundreds of health studies confirmed our fears that fracking makes people sick.2 And several new studies showed that fracking's impact on the climate is MUCH worse than the EPA and other experts had previously estimated.3
But despite the evidence, our elected leaders have been slow to wake up to the dangers of fracking. President Obama and his EPA, Interior Department, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have marched stolidly along. They've assured us that fracking can be done safely, and that its impacts to the climate are not as bad as coal's.
Neither of those statements are true, and until we get these agencies to wake up and look at the more recent research, other politicians will follow the president's lead. We say this, unfortunately, just as Governor O'Malley disregarded his own health department's study and moved to open up Maryland to fracking. Also as newly-elected Governor Tom Wolfe's moves to keep fracking Pennsylvania, despite all the local opposition.
As we await big decisions from Governor Cuomo in New York, as well as Governor Brown in California, I know we can keep fracking out of those two big, populous states. If we succeed, we can start the new year with big victories. More importantly, we can send a signal to everyone fighting a local pipeline, compressor station, storage facility or export terminal that they're not alone.
Together, we made the fracking movement, bigger, broader and more diverse than ever this year. Now, help us finish the job to ban fracking once and for all in 2015 by making a donation.
Thanks for being a Fractivist,
Drew Hudson, Director, and the team at Environmental Action
1 - New Yorkers Against Fracking, Not One Well! Rally Against Fracking and For Renewable Energy at Cuomo’s State of the State Address!
2 - Concerned Health professionals of New York, COMPENDIUM OF SCIENTIFIC, MEDICAL, AND MEDIA FINDINGS DEMONSTRATING RISKS AND HARMS OF FRACKING 2nd edition, December 11, 2014
3 - Bill McKibben, Bad News for Obama: Fracking May Be Worse Than Burning Coal, Mother Jones, Sep. 8, 2014
|
