The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) lobbied successfully to pass and preserve the "Halliburton Loophole," which exempts the oil and gas industry from the law requiring disclosure of toxic fracking chemicals.
Reflexive secrecy has been a hallmark of government efforts to deal with highly hazardous chemical facilities in recent decades. Another reminder of that secrecy came in an April 11, 2016, piece in Greenwire by Sam Pearson. Photo: The fertilizer plant in West, Texas, that exploded in 2013, killing 15 people, by Shane Torgerson, courtesy of Wikipedia.
"Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has a new line of attack against Hillary Clinton tailor-made for New York voters: that she is too soft on hydraulic fracturing."
"Institutions managing $6 trillion in assets plan to back a call for U.S. oil major ExxonMobil to disclose the impact of climate change policy on its business, one of the organizers of the vote said on Tuesday."
"Flint residents aren’t using enough water to pull necessary chemical treatments through the city’s system, hindering efforts to get water up to safety standards in a community where residents are afraid to use their taps and loathe to pay for what comes out of them.
Although the past six months have produced improvements, recent testing by Virginia Tech researchers, including expert Marc Edwards, shows contamination still at problem levels.
"A new report calls into question — again — California’s handling of this winter’s historic natural gas leak, this time suggesting that regulators and the gas company are purposely scaring the community and legislature into putting the storage facility back online."
"More than 120 religious groups are encouraging lawmakers to approve President Obama’s proposed $750 million contribution to an international climate change fund."
"Fifty four large investors managing 1 trillion pounds in assets have launched a campaign to curb the use of antibiotics in the meat and poultry used by ten large U.S. and British restaurant groups."
"A leading brand of home and garden pest-control products says it will stop using a class of pesticides linked to the decline of bees."
"Three environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to press for faster action in setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. aircraft."
