Fracking Disclosure
By Marjorie Childress reports on a New Mexico lawmaker opposing right-to-know legislation on fracking:
“It’s gonna fuel litigation, radical fringe groups, who don’t understand the process of what we do and how we do it,” Rep. Don Bratton, R-Lea County, said about HB 136, a bill that would require companies to publicly disclose hydraulic fracking chemicals, a procedure that uses high pressure to inject a mixture of sand, water and chemicals into rock and shale formations deep underground to release natural gas.
Bratton objected to the bill, saying that requiring companies to disclose fracking chemicals—which he said were components “we use in our everyday lives”–was like requiring grocery stores to disclose all the ingredients in products they sell, like toothpaste. He also said there was no evidence that fracking chemicals pollute water deep underground.
Hmmm….Can you imaging the horror of asking a company to put the ingredients of what makes up their products on packaging? I mean, it would be just like the United States in 2013! Of course reproducing the good old days of patent medicines and rat poison in our sausage is an actual goal of the modern Republican Party.
As a supporter of the bill said:
“If it’s true that they’re all benign, ..why on earth is there such a huge fight about what’s in it? If it really is just soap, water, sand, common lubricants…why is an extraordinarily modest bill similar to bills in other states, why is there an onslaught of opposition?” Egolf asked