Today’s Essential Reads
FRACKING:
Albany County Legislature Passes Two Year Fracking Moratorium
The Albany County legislature has passed a two year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling on county owned lands.
Doctors React Differently to Fracking “Gag Rule”
Pennsylvania doctors are reacting harshly to a rule that they fear could prevent them from speaking to other physicians about the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluid.
In the farm country of southern Kansas, water is a precious commodity. And not just for farming — for fracking.
Fracking Los Angeles: What Life Is Like on the Country’s Biggest Urban Oilfield
This unfortunately is not the premise of a new disaster movie in Hollywood, but a real-life, potentially threatening thriller that involves un-regulated and un-reported fracking in Los Angeles. More people are waking up to the threat of hydraulic fracturing and proposed drilling expansion in their yards in the city. Hollywood may be the most visible industry here but oil and gas exploration and production has been staging itself here too for many decades. This issue faces the entire Golden State.
BP OIL SPILL:
BP Loses Bid for Access to U.S. E-Mails in Spill Case
BP Plc (BP/) can’t have access to 21 documents including e-mail communications between the White House and other top U.S. officials during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010, a federal judge ruled.
Galveston Dolphin Deaths Investigated
Researchers are trying to determine whether more than 100 dolphins stranded on the Texas coast, most of them in Galveston, died because of the BP oil spill, a deadly algal bloom or some undetermined cause.
BP Spill Judge Won’t Step Aside in Criminal Obstruction Case
The judge presiding over a criminal obstruction case stemming from the BP Plc (BP/) 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill said he won’t recuse himself after attorneys on both sides agreed he doesn’t have a conflict of interest.
Louisiana First Legislation Could Create As Many As 58,000 Jobs
Under the law, coastal restoration or protection contractors will outline employment plans once the contract has been awarded.
RADIATION:
Fukushima Watch: Japan Gets ‘Feudal’ on Reactor Restarts
As the Japanese government moves full steam ahead with plans to bring back online the first nuclear reactors since last year’s crisis in Fukushima, the town of Oi is preparing to roll out the futons for a pair of long-term visiting V.I.P.s from Tokyo.
