Scott Walker’s Mentor, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, on the Environment: Frack the Earth

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is a new presidential hopeful among Tea Partiers for 2012.

Here is a sample from a speech in February (See full speech at: A Must Read: Indiana Governor and Presidential Hopeful Compares Budget Issues to “Red Menace” and the Cold War) on the issue of energy and the environment.

Basically he’s saying let’s hand over the environment to the Koch brothers and other oil companies from Appalachia to the Rockies. “…treat domestic energy production as the economic necessity it is and the job creator it can be. Drill, and frack, and lease, and license, unleash in every way the jobs potential in the enormous energy resources we have been denying ourselves.”

What is fracking for natural gas?

To See a visual explanation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) go to:

What is Hydraulic Fracturing?

Following is list of valuable articles from ProPublica on the “fracking debate.”

1st Posted in ProPublica, Feb. 28, 2011

Top of Form

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the fracking and natural gas drilling debate, with the documentary film Gasland [1] nominated for an Academy Award and a front-page story [2] in Sunday’s New York Times on the dangers posed by the technology.

The Times story underscored the findings of dozens of reports that ProPublica has published over the past three years, adding new details from previously undisclosed government documents. The increasing public interest in the possible dangers of gas drilling comes as the world’s energy companies are placing a multi-billion dollar bet on its potential. At the request of Vice President Dick Cheney, Congress exempted gas drilling from federal regulation in 2005. Since then, industry officials have successfully lobbied against calls in Washington to change the law, calls that have intensified in recent months with new attention on the issue.

For those who want to dive deeper into the complex science and regulatory issues of fracking, we offer a quick breakdown of the key issues.

It’s a subject reporter Abrahm Lustgarten has been covering for ProPublica since July of 2008. In the years since then, Lustgarten and his ProPublica colleagues have criss-crossed the country, interviewing drillers, industry officials and residents from Wyoming to Colorado to Pennsylvania. To listen to a podcast from Lustgarten, click here [3]. To read a detailed account of one man’s fight against water contamination in Wyoming, click here [4]. (Lustgarten received the 2009 George Polk Award for environmental reporting for his investigation of hydraulic fracturing as well as the 2009 Stokes Award for Best Energy Writing from the National Press Foundation.)

Below is a list of 19 of our most important stories, arranged by topic so you can quickly find the information you need. For a list of all the 100 or so stories we’ve written about gas drilling since 2008, you can also visit our gas drilling home page [5].

Radioactivity

• Is Marcellus Shale Too Hot to Handle? [6] – A 2009 analysis of wastewater samples from wells in New York showed levels of radioactivity more than 250 times the federal drinking water standard.

Wastewater

• With Natural Gas Drilling Boom, Pennsylvania Faces an Onslaught of Wastewater [7] – As gas drilling expanded in 2008 and 2009, Pennsylvania regulators were unprepared for a wave of contaminated wastewater.
• Drilling Wastewater Disposal Options in N.Y. Report Have Problems of Their Own [8] – This December 2009 investigation showed that none of the disposal options laid out in a state report on gas drilling was realistic.

Methane Contamination

• Officials in Three States Pin Water Woes on Gas Drilling [9] – As new drilling expanded across the country, cases proliferated of natural gas leaking into water wells.
• Water Problems From Drilling More Frequent Than Pa. Thought [10] – Methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004.

Overview

• Buried Secrets: Is Natural Gas Drilling Endangering U.S. Water Supplies? [11] – A 2008 investigation found more than 1,000 cases of water contamination in drilling areas around the country.
• New York’s Gas Rush Poses Environmental Threat [12] – As state legislators looked to fast-track gas drilling permits in 2008, this investigation revealed environmental harm from drilling in other states and looked at how drilling might affect New York’s waters.
• What We Don’t Know [13] – A look at the basics of hydraulic fracturing and gas drilling from December 2009.
• How the West’s Energy Boom Could Threaten Drinking Water for 1 in 12 Americans [14] – An examination of the threats posed by oil and gas drilling in the Colorado River Basin.

Regulation

• State Oil and Gas Regulators Spread Too Thin [15] – As gas drilling expanded across the country, state agencies failed to keep pace by hiring more inspectors, leaving some wells uninspected for years.
• Underused Drilling Practices Could Avoid Pollution [16] – Innovative industry solutions that would use less water and reduce air pollution have not played a prominent role in the national debate over how to drill safely.
• In New Gas Wells More Chemicals Remain Underground [17] – A December 2009 investigation showed that despite previous reports, as much as 80 percent of hydraulic fracturing fluids can remain underground.
• Energy Industry Sways Congress With Misleading Data [18] – As the industry tried to pre-empt stronger federal regulation, it used arguments that were undercut by its own data and reports.

Air Pollution

• Climate Benefits of Natural Gas May Be Overstated [19] – New emissions estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency cast doubt on the assumption that gas offers a quick and easy solution to climate change.

A Must Read: Indiana Governor and Presidential Hopeful Compares Budget Issues to “Red Menace” and the Cold War

Governor Mitch Daniels is a new Presidential hopeful among Tea Partiers for 2012. Here he bares his rotten soul and love for evil empire. At the same time he gives important insight into Republican and Tea Party objectives.

Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana compares the budget issues faced federally and by many states to the “Red Menace’ of the Cold War, with innuendo similar to Joe McCarthy’s anticommunist witch hunt, directed at the left, progressives and liberals. With his Republican dominated legislature, having risen to office on the wave of right wing tea party fanaticism, the full program for “reclaiming America” begins to emerge from his enactments in Indiana.

Here is a sample from his speech on the issue energy and the environment. Let’s strip mine from Appalachia to the Rockies. “…treat domestic energy production as the economic necessity it is and the job creator it can be. Drill, and frack, and lease, and license, unleash in every way the jobs potential in the enormous energy resources we have been denying ourselves.”

Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN)

Friday, February 11, 2011 Washington, DC, CPAC

To listen to Daniel’s full speech got to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivGHn6_dqcU&feature=player_embedded

Indiana Republican Governor Mitch Daniels addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. on Friday. Below the video of his address to CPAC are his remarks at CPAC’s Ronald Reagan Centennial Dinner:

Phyllis Schlafly, David Keene, George Will, good friends, thank you for the enormous privilege of this podium. Even a casual observer of American public life knows how many great ideas have been born here, how many important debates joined here, how many giants of our democracy appeared on this platform. When David broached the invitation, my first reaction was one I often have: “Who cancelled?” But first choice or fifteenth, the honor, and the responsibility to do the occasion justice, is the same. I am seized with the sentiment best expressed by Hizzoner, the original Mayor Richard Daley, who once proclaimed a similar honor the “pinochle of success.”

We are all grateful to our co-sponsors, the Reagan Foundation and the Reagan Ranch. How fitting that we convene under their auspices, as we close this first week of the centennial. Those of us who served President Reagan were taught to show constant respect for the presidency and whoever occupies it. But, among us alums, the term “the President” tends to connote just one of those forty-four men, that great man with whom God blessed America one hundred years ago this week.