Fracking Industry Colludes With Pennsylvania Legislature to Create Dangerous New Law

Fracking Industry Colludes With Pennsylvania Legislature to Create Dangerous New Law by Maura Stephens, February 12, 2012, Maura Stephens’ Blog | News Analysis
The fracking industry has written a bill that gives itself legal permission to poison Pennsylvanians-and keeps doctors who treat them once they’re poisoned from telling anyone else what poisoned them. The bill also essentially permits all gas drilling and processing activities anywhere, including in residential areas. It’s all being sold as an “impact fee” bill. Counties that want the income will sign on — and that probably means most counties will… This is a blatant abrogation of the United States constitution…. The fact that the industry has included verbiage in this bill that prevents doctors from revealing the chemicals their patients were exposed to: 1. indicates that the industry knows that much of the substances they are using are a threat to public health – enough so that emergency room and other physicians would see cases of toxic exposure to fracking and related chemicals and substances on a regular basis, i.e. that this is not a safe process; 2. indicates that the industry wants to keep it quiet – they know that if the health risks of their activities due to chemical exposure (in air and water) were to become public there would be such enormous outcry that they would be – appropriately – shut down.