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peoli

(3,111 posts)
Sun Feb 16, 2014, 03:28 PM Feb 2014

Plan Shows Regulatory Agency and Fracking Industry in Cahoots to Promote Drilling in State Parks

Source: EcoWatch

Public documents reveal a plan by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), the agency responsible for regulating fracking in Ohio, to work with “allied” groups to promote the controversial drilling technique in state parks. The “allied” groups named were both fracking industry and state regulatory bodies alike, drawing new criticisms to what many people have been calling Gov. Kasich’s agenda to have his own way with the state’s public funds and resources.

The document, Oil & Gas State Lands Leasing: Draft Outline for Communication Plan, was uncovered by Program Coordinator for the Ohio Chapter of the Sierra Club Brian Kunkemoeller after making a public records request. It outlines a PR initiative from August 2012 to “encourage support” to stakeholders and the public for fracking in state parks and forests, and proactively counter “zealous resistance by environmental activist opponents, who are skilled propagandists.”

After reading the 13-page document, Kunkemoeller was gravely concerned as the ODNR seemed to be acting like a marketing firm for the oil and gas industry instead of the agency charged with regulating oil-and-gas drilling in Ohio to protect human health and the environment.

“This is an unprecedented collusion between oil and gas companies and the agencies that regulate them. This isn’t just bad news for our parks and forests, it’s bad news for our democracy,” said Kunkemoeller.



Read more: http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/16/regulatory-agency-fracking-industry-promote-drilling/

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Herself

(185 posts)
1. I believe this to be true
Sun Feb 16, 2014, 03:43 PM
Feb 2014

but I can not reveal why I do. I can't get a hole of someone that would be able to tell me plans for Ohio currently. It's been discussed privately in the past.

Divernan

(15,480 posts)
2. Exactly the same shit going on in Penn. w/Gov. Corbett and DEP
Sun Feb 16, 2014, 03:45 PM
Feb 2014

Corbett gutted the state Dept. of Environmental Protection as soon as he got in office by slashing the number of inspectors available to go into the field to monitor and investigate complaints, and then appointing a Big Gas crony as head of the DEP, and taking away powers from the inspectors. They were not allowed to file a notice of violation or take any action, but had to turn their reports in and nothing was done until the political hack heading DEP approved the action.

The Wielding Truth

(11,415 posts)
5. So the Oil and Gas companies keep the politicians in power, reap the profits and we lose.
Sun Feb 16, 2014, 05:33 PM
Feb 2014

How can the corruption be stopped?

Ahpook

(2,750 posts)
7. I don't know
Sun Feb 16, 2014, 06:58 PM
Feb 2014

but this and a magnitude of other problems need to be stopped. You would think somewhere in their dark soul they would understand what they are doing to our world. But, I suppose being drunk on money and power negates this thought process?

Its past time to fight back

They may kill us with bullets but they're already killing us with polluted air, food and water. Whats to lose?

Divernan

(15,480 posts)
11. Only cure would be campaign finance reform/reversing Citizens United.
Mon Feb 17, 2014, 12:14 AM
Feb 2014

Big Oil has paid off the majority of politicians from both parties, right down to the local govt. level in Pennsylvania. 2 recently elected township commissioners in a southwestern PA. fracking community are a farmer who's leased several hundred acres for fracking, and a man whose parents have leased farmland for fracking.

 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
8. And what democracy would that be?
Sun Feb 16, 2014, 07:26 PM
Feb 2014
- You have to have one first, before you can lose it. It seems to me that if it walks like a fascist state, and it quacks like a fascist state then it's a fascist state, or a derivative thereof.

K&R

[center]''Which man should have used a breath mint?''




"In dog years, I'm dead." - Unknown[/center]

tecelote

(5,122 posts)
9. Even if climate change is not real... Even if you do not care about nature and wildlife...
Sun Feb 16, 2014, 08:08 PM
Feb 2014

Parks are lands owned by the public. Park land should be free from commercialization. That's the reason why we have parks.

Do we have no integrity these days? Must everything be for sale?

America is a country that has lost it's way.

okaawhatever

(9,462 posts)
12. Yet another reason we need campaign finance reform. I wonder if there's any law being broken here?
Mon Feb 17, 2014, 12:41 AM
Feb 2014

Surely this state agent is in violation of his duties. Honest services fraud? I wonder what the charter for the agency says it's responsibilities are.

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