This doesn’t seem to fit with most of my conservative friends, but it does fit with our obligation to be good stewards of what man has been given domain over, so I ask you to listen and consider.
I’m about as conservative as anyone I know, and to be even more explicit, more transparent, trying to let you pigeon-hole me so you can get a fix on what I believe, where I’m at, and why, … I’ll admit that, until fairly recently, I’ve found very little to argue with Sean Hannity about, … but I differ vehemently on one very important issue he’s begun to harp on daily, and conservative or liberal, I ask you to listen …
“I’ve always tried to keep an open mind, but I realize that as I’ve grown older and had more experience, my belief system was more than just coherent but I realized that in my agreeing with the arch-conservatives, at times I’d become like them, … pretty dogmatic.
Long ago I stated that when everyone thinks alike, there’s a distinct possibility that no one in that group is truly thinking! When I found some disturbing facts that didn’t seem to fit, I began to re-examine one issue.
Sean ridicules Obama and other leftist Democrats saying that they claim Republicans actually want dirty air and water.
Most conservatives laugh at how ridiculous those charges sound … but in doing so, Hannity’s actually taking a page right out of Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals” … ridiculing the opposition.
That may seem to be fair play, but it inhibits learning anything from each other. Like it or not, both sides need to understand that the opposition may have some good points and “divide and conquer” is not in our best interest where critical life and death issues exist.
He accuses them of what I thought was a ridiculous fantasy, but I wondered if there was any basis for their accusations.
Why bother, I thought, they don’t try to convince anyone; they just accuse and ridicule. But, … Sean never once mentions, the “Halliburton Loophole!” That’s what didn’t fit!
Is that where their charges stem from, about Republicans actually wanting dirty water? Republican’s children drink water too. Or is it that they claim Republicans children drink only bottled water? I don’t buy that; we’ve read the studies that claim that most bottled water is no better than tap water.
I don’t have a clue if that’s the root of their charges or not, but when one approaches the underlying issue objectively, this ultra conservative found even more startling information!
“The HALLIBURTON LOOPHOLE” is a law that allows the use of dangerous chemicals to be used to help ‘harvest’ oil from billions of acres of shale deposits. Those chemicals (who knows what they are) work their way into the aquifers and water tables where wells are drilled for our drinking water. It doesn’t take extraordinary common sense to know that cannot be healthy!
Who allowed these companies to refuse to disclose these deadly chemicals? Congress, of course …
We all know of their waste, of their smoke-filled, back-room deals, and how their credibility has dropped, but the people continue to re-elect them … Another good question to ask!
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) chemicals are exempt from federal disclosure laws. That’s due to famous language inside a 2005 federal law known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” which exempts drillers from the Clean Water Act.
A growing number of states – Pennsylvania among them – have passed their own disclosure regulations, though. Wyoming was first, in September 2010. Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Michigan followed suit. In June 2011, Texas became the first state to pass a law requiring companies to disclose what chemicals are being shot into the ground at each well.
Several other states, including Colorado and Montana, are in the process of writing disclosure regulations.
A website called FracFocus is becoming a national clearinghouse for information about fracking chemicals. It’s run by the Groundwater Protection Council, and received a ringing endorsement from the federal Department of Energy’s August report on shale drilling, which called for an “immediate” increase in well-by-well chemical disclosure.
All five state regulations and laws allow companies to claim “trade secrets,” as if they were another Coca Cola, and keep information about certain chemicals from being released to the public. Four of the five – Pennsylvania is the outlier – have set up websites where people can read well-by-well chemical information.
Pennsylvania’s Democratic U.S. Senator, Bob Casey, is leading the push to close the federal disclosure loophole. But while the energy industry is on-board with state-level disclosure regulations, the bulk of drilling companies oppose federal requirements, calling them redundant.
Why is Hannity needing to promote jobs which pay $80-120,000 per year? Why are people leaving these jobs, may be a better question! I personally know of the death of one young man working in the N. Dakota shale-oil fields. Could it be that people are beginning to know the dangers of working with these dangerous chemicals? Just exactly why are these jobs paying so well?
One more closing point: Israel too, has a glut of oil-shale, yet they’re waiting for better technology, to safely “harvest’ their oil-shale. Who’s wiser?
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