Another Obama administration agency has poured cold water on anti-fracking fears so commonly promoted by the liberal media.
The Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced May 27, that their recent study of offshore hydraulic fracturing (more commonly called fracking) in California found no long term damage to the environment.
The Washington Examiner reported that the analysis reviewed fracking conducted off the California coast during oil and gas drilling production within the last thirty years.
Rather than consider the evidence and both sides of the issue, the media have often supported anti-fracking claims by giving more coverage to environmentalists and celebrities who oppose fracking. They’ve turned to people including Mark Ruffalo, Yoko Ono, and the Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox to bash the method of natural gas extraction. They claim it contaminates drinking water and threatens the environment. In fact, between Jan. 1, 2010, and April 30, 2013, half of the broadcast networks’ reports on fracking cited either celebrities or anti-fracking films.
However, the latest data from the federal government contradicted fracking opponents and the liberal media.
“In some cases where impacts are somewhat more pronounced, such as with discharge of produced water, the impacts are minor, short-term and localized,” Director of the Ocean Energy Management bureau Abigail Ross Hopper said. “The comprehensive analysis shows that these practices, conducted according to permit requirements, have minimal impact.”
A U.S. district court in L.A. banned fracking off the Santa Barbara coast on Jan. 29, 2016, as part of a legal settlement between the Center For Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
That settlement also determined that the bureau would perform an “assessment” of the effects of fracking in order to determine whether or not fracking would be resumed.
Attorney Kristen Monsell on behalf of the CBD declared in a January press release that “Offshore fracking is a dirty and dangerous practice that has absolutely no place in our ocean.”
However, the ban was lifted on May 27, 2016, following the federal agency’s assessment to the contrary. That day, CBD Director Miyoko Sakashita blasted the decision saying, “The Obama administration is once again putting California’s beautiful coast in the oil industry’s crosshairs.”
Sakashita also said, “Our beaches and wildlife face a renewed threat from fracking chemicals and oil spills. New legal action may be the only way to get federal officials to do their jobs and protect our ocean from offshore fracking.”
President of the National Ocean Industries Association Randall Luthi was optimistic about the study’s results and dismissed Sakashita’s threats as “hyperbole.”
In a May 27, statement, Luthi declared, “Offshore energy is a vital source of jobs and revenue for both California and the U.S., and the sooner operations offshore California can resume the better.”
But this news may not garner much press attention. In June 2015, ABC and NBC news refrained from mentioning the EPA’s findings that oil and gas fracking did not pose a threat to drinking water.
