2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Issues - Where Do You and Your Candidate Stand on Fracking?
As it becomes more difficult to extract gas from the ground, oil companies are turning more and more to processes like fracking.
Fracking uses extremely large amounts of fresh water plus a secret mixture of chemicals.
While fracking may be beneficial to oil company profits, it's extremely bad for the environment. Water is one of the most important resources we have and fracking is contaminating billions of gallons, rendering it unfit for normal human use.
And what happens to the billions of gallons of contaminated fresh water? Great question.
While oil company profits are rising, peoples around the world are protesting the effect of fracking on their environments.
So where do the candidates stand on this process of fracking our environment?
Hillary Clinton is a strong proponent of fracking. While working for the taxpayers as Secretary of State, she used the power of the US of A to convince foreign governments to begin or increase their use of fracking in spite of the protesting peoples in those countries.
So while peoples in countries around the world are protesting the destruction of their fresh water, Secretary Clinton was using our tax dollars to help Haliburton, Chevron, and other oil giants convince governments to use the environmentally damaging process of fracking.
While some try to say that Clinton and Senator Sanders are close on most issues, the fricking fracking issue shows that they are miles apart.
Senator Bernie Sanders (4)
Oil companies are using the fracking process around the world to increase their profits while destroying the freshwater supplies of the people. And where are they going to dump their billions of gallons of toxic waste water? Probably not in their own backyard.
(1) http://www.cleanwateraction.org/page/fracking-process
(2) http://dangersoffracking.com/
(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/22/global-protests-fracking-globalfrackdown_n_1905034.html
(4) http://www.betterworld.net/quotes/bernie12.htm
cali
(114,904 posts)They help fund her campaign, while robbing the environment, and making the future impossible for generations to come.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)part of her position on job creation and infrastructure investment!
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)the creation of HER job?
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)To read more about his environmental record, see this article from Grist magazine: "Martin OMalley, long-shot presidential hopeful, is a real climate hawk".
A difference between O'Malley and Sanders is that O'Malley has been a governor. That's both a strength and a weakness. The advantage for O'Malley is that he can point to more progressive accomplishments. He had the powers of an executive, with a generally friendly legislature, while Sanders was merely one Senatorial vote out of a hundred. Sanders didn't impose a fracking moratorium, because of course he couldn't.
The disadvantage for O'Malley is that he had to get involved in the messy sausage-making of crafting state policies. This sometimes resulted in his making decisions that accepted compromises or otherwise provided a basis for attack. Fracking is a case in point. From that same Grist article:
For some environmentalists, OMalleys willingness to allow fracking at all is their one disappointment in his record. I would prefer that OMalley would come out in favor of a ban on fracking in Maryland, says Tidwell. But others say OMalley is making a shrewd move. With rules in place before Hogan comes in, Hogan may find it more politically difficult to repeal them than he would have to simply not write any himself. The fact that we have a governor-elect who wants to move forward on fracking means we want to get some protections in place as soon as possible, Karla Raettig, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, told The Washington Post.
To me, O'Malley's maneuver makes sense. Nevertheless, I can see how activists, like the one quoted in this excerpt, could criticize it.
It's worth noting that that activist, Mike Tidwell, while disagreeing with O'Malley on the fracking strategy, is generally laudatory about him. Same article:
Incidentally, the growing anti-fracking sentiment is evident in Maryland. The Republican Governor was unable to block legislation earlier this year that wrote O'Malley's moratorium into law.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)for it.
Bernie too is against it and VT won't allow it.
Hopefully more states will end it. We know now for sure that it is the cause of small earthquakes, according to scientists and they are now researching whether it is the cause of larger quakes.
dorkzilla
(5,141 posts)Howie Hawkins and Zephyr Teachout had a lot to do with Cuomos flip on that issue.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)with Cuomo over fracking and Cuomo wouldn't meet with protesters at all.
I think they huge resistance of NYers all over the state, plus Zephyr Teachout who really gave him a challenge in that race, did have something to do with it.
I hope Zephyr runs for Congress. Or the Senate, against Schumer.
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)I think that the record number of feedback documents had something to do with it. They had to push the decision back twice, so that they could trudge through the comments. There were literally millions of comments. It was originally 30 days, but it got extended twice. Then there were the meetings, of which I went to two, and both times mentioned things that they had not thought of.
I don't think that it was Hawkins or Teachout that had much to do with the NY ban on fracking. I do believe that it was WE THE PEOPLE, united against it. And you know what they say, don't you? Well here's a reminder: The people united shall NEVER be defeated!
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)what would happen if he went ahead with fracking. I was afraid that it would happen anyhow, after the election. But was very surprised when he banned it. In a good way.
Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)FSogol
(45,525 posts)their hands. Without O'Malley's regulations, fracking would have begun on day 1 of the Hogan debacle.
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)by the Usual Suspects. Count on it.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)Shame on you
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Go Bernie!
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Edit: O'Malley answered!
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)blackspade
(10,056 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Zorra
(27,670 posts)nationwide.
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)According to Hillary SuperPAC training, we should avoid talking about the issues
artislife
(9,497 posts)It only ruins ground water...
MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)agenda. Or she could have resigned in protest to the Obama fracking interests.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)One wouldn't have guessed they had similar agendas when Obama was pretending to be a progressive in 2007.
MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)even ones that say that socialism or some form thereof can coexist within a capitalist framework. Never happen.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)You can have him, but he will be fracking offshore in marine sanctuaries ASAP.
if not already.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)So is my candidate.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)their best argument? That was rhetorical. They have no argument. The best I can guess is that they are ambivalent about fracking and will follow H.Clinton regardless of what she stands for.
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)for Hillary. Sad, isn't it? A candidate whose superPAC trains her supporters how to avoid discussing issues?
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,417 posts)Thanks for the thread, rhett o rick.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)important. But why?