Today’s Essential Reads
FRACKING:
ABC, NBC Mostly Ignore Fracking; CBS Airs 6 Times More Negative Stories
Contaminated water, health problems, and now … earthquakes? Fracking, a way to get natural gas out of layers deep within the earth, has been blamed for it all and the liberal news media have been consistently against the method, rarely showing supporters or mentioning any upside of the process.
California Regulators Take Heat Over Fracking
California oil regulators on Wednesday capped a series of seven public meetings on hydraulic fracturing with a Sacramento session, pledging to use thousands of public comments to guide their efforts to write rules for the controversial method of oil extraction.
Court Rules for Towns in Pennsylvania Fracking Suit
A Pennsylvania court overturned key parts of the state’s new natural gas development law that would have stripped municipalities of zoning rights and handed state agencies sole authority to determine where the controversial practice of high-volume hydraulic fracturing should occur.
BP OIL SPILL:
Report Slams Companies’ Focus in Gulf Spill
Two of the main companies involved in the disastrous 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill were more focused on personal injury risks than the potential for a major accident, a federal agency said in a report released Tuesday.
Shell Scales Back 2012 Arctic Drilling Goals
Faced with iced-in Arctic waters and failure to secure U.S. Coast Guard approval of its oil-spill barge, Royal Dutch Shell* is ratcheting down its plan to drill as many as five exploratory wells this summer in the seas north of Alaska.
BP Oil Spill Claimants May Have Been Misled by Two Websites, Judge Declares
A federal judge presiding over a proposed class-action settlement of BP oil spill claims ordered a website operator Thursday to post disclaimers on two sites to avoid misleading visitors into believing they are filing official claims. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said an existing disclaimer on one of the sites — deepwaterhorizonsettlementclaims.com — “does not cure the misleading nature of the site.”
Oil Spill Pollutes Beach Outside Terminal
AN INVESTIGATION has been launched into an oil spill outside the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland on Thursday evening.
RADIATION:
After Fukushima, Nuclear Power on Collision Course With Japanese Public
On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by a massive earthquake — measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale — and a tsunami with waves up to 65 feet high, leading to a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As a result, Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants were taken offline for safety checks. The last one was powered down on May 5, 2012.
