Two House Fracking bills will be heard in the Agriculture and Natural
Resources Subcommittee on Tuesday, March 17 at 12:30. Please call the members of the committee Monday
and urge them to vote NO!
Bills:
HB 1205 - Regulation of
Oil and Gas Resources by Rep. Rodrigues, and
HB
1209 - Public Records/High-pressure Well Stimulation Chemical Disclosure Registry
also by Rep. Rodrigues.
If you’re coming to the Capitol
for the joint ReThink Energy/Sierra Club Florida Energy Days, be sure to come
to the meeting to speak against these bills.
It will be held in the meeting room on the first floor of the House
Office Building. (see the blog post
immediately below this one.)
HB 1205 would require a permit
and some regulation for “high pressure well stimulation” and HB 1209 would
allow the chemicals used in fracking to be hidden behind “trade secrets” provisions. Overall, the bills are very little improved
from last year and should not become law.
Regulation and permitting
requirements DO NOT:
·
ensure
Florida’s aquifers will not be contaminated by toxic fracking chemicals,
hydrocarbons, or flowback containing radioactive materials
·
keep burning
gas from spilling CO2 into the atmosphere
Only leaving the dirty fuels in
the ground can do that.
There is no need to use this
extreme method of extracting gas in Florida.
Solar energy and energy efficiency can provide the power we need, and
provide jobs in the bargain without putting our state at risk. Permitting will only benefit the fossil fuel
industry that wants to shackle Florida’s businesses and residents to an
outmoded way of life. Fracking should be
banned in Florida and the transition to a clean energy economy should begin.
HB 1205 and HB 1209 are inextricably linked and must be
evaluated in that context.
HB 1205 calls for disclosure of the volume of water and the
chemicals injected into the ground to frack wells, but provides that the
information is kept secret for a year if requested by the well operator [lines
365-367] Also, HB 1209 allows companies
to withhold whichever chemicals they choose from disclosure by claiming they
are “trade secrets” and only a court can decide otherwise. (Public records
exemptions have to be in stand-alone bills and pass by a 2/3 majority in both
the House and Senate; that’s why there are two bills.) Therefore, the disclosure HB 1205 requires is
not comprehensive and residents will be deprived of information they need to
protect their own interests.
- Frackers are not
required to report the chemicals they use until 60 days after they start
fracking (which the industry considers to be when they’ve completed the
drilling, including at least the preliminary horizontal drilling). People need to know what is going to be
put into the ground before it’s
injected if they’re to have any chance of acting to protect themselves.
- Local governments are
preempted from adopting more protective ordinances.
- Frackers are not
required to report chemicals that are injected into the ground
accidentally. This provision is a
loophole without logic. If a
company puts a material into the ground, they should have to report it
whether it was on purpose or not.
If the material was injected and the company didn’t know about it,
they should have the burden of proving they didn’t know, and could not
reasonably be expected to know, about the injection. If it’s their well, they should be
responsible for what’s in it.
- The legislature should
impose a moratorium on any fracking in the state at least until the EPA report on the impact of fracking on the
drinking water resource is completed and studied. There should also be a
moratorium on fracking until the study required in section 8 of the bill
is completed and analyzed.
- Citizens have no
federal protection under the Safe Water Drinking Act (Congress passed an
exemption for fracking in 2005 (the
Halliburton loophole).)
The ‘Trade Secrets’ provisions in HB 1209 allow any company
to merely mark any chemical it submits to DEP as a ‘trade secret’. From that point on, DEP is prohibited from
releasing any information about the chemical to the public. The company has to get a court to agree that
the ‘trade secret’ actually is one. But
here’s the hook – the judge can only use what is in statute to decide what
constitutes a ‘trade secret.’ And the
Florida Statutes consider only ethical business practices in regard to ‘trade
secrets.’ 812.081 (1)(c) defines a
‘trade secret’ as something that is secret, that is of value, that is for use
or in use by the business, and that is an advantage to the business. The court does not consider whether the
trade secret is dangerous to public heath.
- There should be complete transparency in
disclosing the volume and identity of fracking fluids, and full and robust
public participation before
any fracking activity takes place.
Without full disclosure, public participation is frustrated since
citizens won’t even know there’s a problem until it’s too late. The interests of one industry cannot
supersede those of entire communities.
- There are legitimate
concerns about fracking:
- Volume
of water used and (up to 13 million gallons per well)
- Chemical
mixing – spills and transportation accidents
- Injection
of chemicals – migration to groundwater and mobilization of subsurface
materials into aquifer
- Flowback
and produced water – spills, treatment, leaching, final disposition of
pits – and what happens to the 30% of the injected fluids that are not
returned to the surface?
- Wastewater
treatment and waste disposal – contamination of surface and groundwater,
insufficient treatment, transportation accidents.
·
The National Academy of Sciences discovered that
homes within 1 kilometer (2/3 mile) were six times more likely to have six
times more methane in their drinking water than those farther away. Ethane levels were 23 times higher.
·
At least 29 dangerously toxic chemicals are used
in 652 products for fracking. They
include carcinogens, hazardous air pollutants, and substances regulated under
the Safe Water Drinking Act (except for fracking because of the
exemption).
Please call these member’s offices tomorrow (Monday) and
urge them to vote NO on HB 1205 and HB 1209
House Agriculture and Natural Resources Subcommittee 2015
Rep. Tom Goodson, Chair 850-717-5050 tom.goodson@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Jake Raburn, V Chair 850-717-5057 jake.raburn@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Jim Boyd 850-717-5071 jim.boyd@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Neil Combee 850-717-5039 neil.combee@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Brad Drake 850-717-5005 brad.drake@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Bobby DuBose 850-717-5094 bobby.dubose@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Katie Edwards 850-717-5098 katie.edwards@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Eric Eisnaugle 850-717-5044 eric.eisnaugle@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Larry Lee 850-717-5084 larry.lee@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Ray Pilon 850-717-5072 ray.pilon@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Jimmie Smith 850-717-5034 jimmie.smith@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Jennifer Sullivan 850-717-5031 jennifer.sullivan@myfloridahouse.gov
Rep. Clovis Watson 850-717-5020 clovis.watson@myfloridahouse.gov
jim.boyd@myfloridahouse.gov, neil.combee@myfloridahouse.gov, brad.drake@myfloridahouse.gov,
bobby.dubose@myfloridahouse.gov, katie.edwards@myfloridahouse.gov, eric.eisnaugle@myfloridahouse.gov,
tom.goodson@myfloridahouse.gov, larry.lee@myfloridahouse.gov, ray.pilon@myfloridahouse.gov,
jake.raburn@myfloridahouse.gov, jimmie.smith@myfloridahouse.gov, jennifer.sullivan@myfloridahouse.gov,
clovis.watson@myfloridahouse.gov
David Cullen
Sierra Club
Florida lobbyist
cullenasea@aol.com
