Today’s Essential Reads
FRACKING:
Plain Trustees Ban Drilling on Township Property
Trustees moved Tuesday night to ban “horizontal slick water hydraulic fracturing” on township property, but for some residents that’s not enough.
W.Va. Firm Plans to Drill Again in National Forest
The president of a Clarksburg gas company that inadvertently killed a tiny patch of the Monongahela National Forest by legally dousing it with drilling wastewater says he will eventually drill again in the nearly million-acre forest, but he’ll do things much differently.
Fracking Could Damage New York & Pennsylvania Tourism, Too
Another study showing how fracking is hardly an unqualified good as it’s proponents would have you believe: A new study shows that while in the short term hydraulic fracturing wells will likely have little impact on tourism, over time the increased industrialization of the landscape that comes with fracking could do serious damage to tourism.
Talisman Energy Coloring Book on Fracking Lampooned by Stephen Colbert
When the folks at Talisman Energy dreamed up a children’s coloring book about a dinosaur explaining the origins of natural gas, they had no idea that the “friendly fracosaurus” would become a casualty in the anti-fracking cultural wars.
BP OIL SPILL:
Business Owner Frustrated About BP Claim Process (Video)
Some Acadiana businesses are still financially recovering more than a year after the crude disaster. Don’s Boat Landing Owner, Tony Romero, said the BP oil spill brought his business to a standstill.
GOP Wants To Slash EPA Funding To 1990s Levels, Slash Funds For Oil Spill Prevention
In a bold response to the recent oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and Yellowstone River, House Republicans are marking up a FY 2012 appropriations bill today that would cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency to 1999 levels, slash the agency’s oil spill prevention budget, and fail to provide additional resources for Deepwater Horizon victims.
‘The Watchdog’: House Committee Wants To Drop Proposal To Expand Offshore Drilling Oversight
House Republicans want to drop one of the key components of the Interior Department’s overhaul of the troubled agency responsible for oversight of offshore drilling — expanding the enforcement of regulations to contractors.
Mississippi Sues BP Oil Fund Administrator, Seeking Access To Records
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is suing BP oil spill fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg, in an attempt to force open the books at the Gulf Coast Claims Facility.
RADIATION:
After SF’s Cellphone Radiation Law Stalls, Weaker Ordinance in the Works
Remember San Francisco’s cellphone ordinance that made national news last year by requiring retailers to display each phone’s radiation level?
NRC Issues Nuclear Safety Recommendations
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s dozen suggestions, issued in response to the Fukushima disaster in Japan, fall far short of what outside experts have advocated.
