Mass. Senate Passes 10-Year Fracking Moratorium

The Massachusetts Senate approved a bill yesterday to place a ten-year moratorium on fracking and the disposal of fracking wastewater in the Commonwealth.

“Across the country, fracking is polluting drinking water and making families sick,” said Ben Hellerstein, State Director for Environment Massachusetts. “We applaud Senate leaders for taking steps to ensure this dirty drilling and its toxic waste never come to Massachusetts.”

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a method of drilling that involves injecting millions of gallons of water, often laced with toxic chemicals, deep underground to fracture rock formations and release oil and gas.

In a single year, fracking across the country produced at least 14 billion gallons of wastewater containing toxic and often radioactive elements — wastewater for which there is no known failsafe disposal or treatment method.

Although fracking is not currently happening in Massachusetts, the Hartford Shale, a rock formation under the Connecticut River Valley, may contain deposits of gas suitable for drilling.

“The harm caused by fracking has no place in Massachusetts,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Marc R. Pacheco. “Fracking releases harmful chemicals into our air while contaminating fresh groundwater, causing seismic events, flaring methane and severely harming public health.”

A growing number of documented cases show individuals suffering acute and chronic health effects while living near fracking operations — including nausea, rashes, dizziness, headaches and nose bleeds. Additionally, methane leaks from fracking wells and associated infrastructure are a significant source of global warming pollution.

“When an industry group held a seminar a few years back about fracking in the Hartford Basin, I immediately filed a bill to prevent this activity,” said Representative Denise Provost. “The Connecticut River Valley is heavily dependent on well water, and its surface waters provide much of the drinking water for Greater Boston. A fracking ban is essential to protect our irreplaceable water resources.”

More than 1,000 health professionals have called on state and federal officials to protect the public from the harms posed by fracking.

“Massachusetts has long been a leader when it comes to promoting clean energy and stopping global warming. A ban on fracking is a great way to continue our record of leadership,” said Hellerstein. “Now, it’s up to the House and Governor Baker to finish the job.”

If the senate-passed bill becomes law, Massachusetts would become the latest along the East Coast to restrict the dirty drilling practice. Vermont and New York have banned fracking, and Maryland has enacted a moratorium of its own.

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​Russia’s Gazprom and China’s CNPC to exclude dollar from gas settlements — RT Business

Russia and China expect to use the ruble and yuan in payments for gas supplied using the western Altay pipeline. When it and the eastern Power of Siberia pipeline is open Beijing will become the biggest consumer of Russian gas.

READ MORE: Putin, Xi Jinping sign mega gas deal on second gas supply route

“As a sales contract is not signed, then, of course, the currency of payment has not yet been determined. However, the Chinese side and the Russian side are discussing [currency-Ed.] today and are in intricate negotiations on the possibility of paying in yuan and rubles,”Gazprom Export CEO Elena Burmistrova said Tuesday.

Gazprom says it’s not going to disclose the pricing formula for gas supplied to China via the western route because negotiations are underway, and pricing is a commercial secret, she added.

READ MORE:Russia and China seal historic $400bn gas deal

The western Altay route is expected to supply 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year to China. A basic agreement on the supply was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on May 8.

The western route is an addition to the eastern route ratified last year, which will deliver 38 bcm of gas to China annually.

via ​Russia’s Gazprom and China’s CNPC to exclude dollar from gas settlements — RT Business.

White House authorizes Shell to resume drilling in the Arctic – World Socialist Web Site

By Thomas Gaist

13 May 2015

The Obama White House and the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced Monday that Royal Dutch Shell has received US government authorization to resume its drilling operations in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea, near Alaska.

Drilling in the area was halted three years ago, after Shell’s activities produced near-disasters, including the running aground of a drilling rig and malfunctions of important safety-related machinery.

Renewed drilling could begin as early as June. The oil transnational is planning to drill half a dozen new “exploratory” sites while spending more than $1 billion on its Arctic venture this year.

Shell has already dispatched a vessel, the “Polar Pioneer,” to begin initial preparations. Reports Tuesday indicated that environmentalist groups planned to confront the vessel as it entered port in Seattle, Washington.

Environmental activist groups are being presented in the corporate media as the main voices of opposition to the latest move to open the Arctic to unrestrained economic and military development.

Shell’s proposals themselves are “risky and ill-conceived,” an executive at environmental group Oceana told the Wall Street Journal. US government approval for resumed drilling was “based on a rushed and incomplete environmental and safety review,” according to research conducted by Earthjustice.

via White House authorizes Shell to resume drilling in the Arctic – World Socialist Web Site.

Big Oil, Qataris, Saudis Lick Lips As US ‘Fights ISIS’ By Bombing Syrian Pipelines

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/10/big-oil-qataris-saudis-lick-lips-as-us.html#more

In yet another example of the infantile nature of NATO propaganda regarding the Syrian crisis, it is now being reported in the mainstream media that that the United States must bomb Syrian oil pipelines in order to defeat the ISIS threat that NATO itself created.

While logically fallacious, the rationale offered to the American public remains that ISIS is making millions of dollars per day via the sale of the oil taken from the fields in its possession on the black market to a number of different states.

Yet, while the U.S. media does not bother to explain just how ISIS manages to extract, refine, and ship the oil, or how it is able to procure deals, and complete their transactions outside of the knowledge of Western militaries, governments, and intelligence agencies to the tune of $2 million per day, these outlets do provide the solution – bomb the oil pipelines belonging to Bashar al-Assad.

Of course, while it is most likely true that ISIS is using their commandeered oil sites to support themselves on a number of fronts, and even attempting (with some success) to sell that oil, the idea that ISIS is somehow able to evade the most sophisticated monitoring network in the entire world during the process of obtaining, refining, selling, and delivering oil across the region is entirely unbelievable. Indeed, it is about as believable as the claim that ISIS was able to seize such large swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq without the knowledge of the United States and NATO.

via Activist Post: Big Oil, Qataris, Saudis Lick Lips As US ‘Fights ISIS’ By Bombing Syrian Pipelines.

Asia-Pacific Perspective: Abbott’s War and The World of Oil and Money

from independentaustralia.com:

Oil and money collide again as Tony Abbott carries Australia back into the Middle East conflict for the third time in three decades. Rodney E. Lever reports.

It is difficult to believe that Tony Abbott knows what he is doing in committing Australia to a third war in Iraq. How does one read into the mind of a man who has been a serial liar all his life?

Joan Abbott (no relation as far as I know) tweeted this comment to me:

‘A war without definition pursued by a man who defies definition. Welcome to Australia, land of the Great (un)Defined.’

Prime Minister Abbott has pegged his place in history to a leaking vessel and it raises many questions and many doubts.

When, for example, did Barack Obama ask Australia to send our squadron of Hornets? Did I miss something? America has its own much more powerful air force. When did Obama request Australian troops? He has declared that his own army will be restricted to training Iraq forces again to meet the threat of ISIL (or ISIS, as America calls it).

From the beginning, this has been Obama’s war. He was elected to end the first mess in Iraq started by George W. Bush simply because the American power elite no longer trusted Saddam Hussein, who had previously been an ally to the US but had outlived his usefulness.

via Asia-Pacific Perspective: Abbott’s War and The World of Oil and Money.

Ever questioned the assasination of Franz Ferdinand as being the cause of WWI?..

This is a question that had been running around my mind for many years and it wasn’t until I used the pretext of modern day wars, oil, that the fog started to clear.

Below is just a small piece from William Engdahl’s incredible geopolitics-geoeconomics website regarding Germany’s quest for oil and Britain’s lack thereof preceding WWI.

Oil and the buildup to the Great War

In trying to sort out the myriad of factors at play in Eurasia on the eve of the First World War it is important to look at the processes leading to August 1914, and the relative calculus of power at the time. This means examining economic processes, including financial, raw material, population growth— in the context of relations among nations, and political and–as defined by the original and influential English geopolitician, Sir Halford Mackinder–geopolitical forces–a political economy or geopolitical approach.

It was common in the days of the Great War to speak of the Great Powers. The Great Powers were so named because they both were great in size and wielded great power in the affairs of nations. The question was what constituted “great.” Until 1892, the United States was not even considered enough a contender at the table to warrant posting a full Ambassador level diplomatic mission. She was hardly a serious factor in European or Eurasian affairs. The Great Powers included Great Britain, France, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Czarist Russia. After its defeat of France in 1871, Germany too joined the ranks of the Great Powers, albeit as a latecomer. Ottoman Turkey, known then as the “sick man of Europe” was a prize which all Great Powers were sharpening their knives over, as they anticipated how to carve it up to their particular advantage.

In 1914, and the decades following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, it was almost axiom that there was no power on earth greater than the British Empire. The foundations of that Empire, however, were far less solid than generally appreciated.

via Oil & WWI.