Hinchey, Fox and Ruffalo On the Need to Protect Drinking Water from Risks of Hydraulic Fracturing

Maurice joins Academy Award Nominees Josh Fox and Mark Ruffalo to Discuss the Need to Protect Drinking Water from Unregulated Natural Gas Drilling.

Washington, DC - Adding star power to efforts to regulate the environmentally risky form of natural gas drilling known as hydraulic fracturing today were Gasland Director Josh Fox, and actor turned activist Mark Ruffalo. The pair joined Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) and Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) in sounding the call for baseline federal rules and oversight that would protect against the contamination of drinking water and other broad scale environmental impacts.

"If hydraulic fracturing is so safe, why is the industry so afraid of letting the EPA make sure," asked Hinchey. "If the chemicals they are using aren't seeping into people's drinking water, why is the industry so afraid of a requirement that they tell us what they are injecting into the ground? This is the same industry that lied about their use of diesel fuel in the fracking process, and there is no reason to expect that they'll change their ways anytime soon. I want to thank Josh Fox and Mark Ruffalo for asking the tough questions and using their star power to raise awareness about this important issue. What they are doing is so critically important, and I'm doing everything I can to support their efforts."

Ruffalo, a resident of Sullivan County, New York, which is in Hinchey's district, has helped lead the fight for stronger statewide rules to govern the gas extraction process in Albany. His efforts helped achieve a temporary moratorium on drilling throughout New York State. Fox, director of the Academy Award nominated documentary Gasland, has also been a leader in the charge to stop unregulated natural gas drilling throughout the country.

Hinchey is the co-author of the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act, which he introduced in the previous Congress with Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO). The bill was co-sponsored by Polis and Holt and seeks to eliminate the so-called 2005 Halliburton exemption, which prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating fracking through the Safe Drinking Water Act. The legislation would also require the disclosure of chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process. Hinchey is also the author of language that initiated an ongoing EPA study to determine the environmental impacts of the drilling technique.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Maurice Hinchey
• Mark Ruffalo
• Josh Fox
• GASLAND
• Natural Gas
• drilling
• fracturing
• fracking
• hydraulic fracturing
• Congress
• FRAC Act
• Safe Drinking Water Act
• Water
• water protection
• chemical disclosure
• EPA
• Environmental Protection
• Environment
• Washington
• capitol hill
• the capitol.

[AnnieLenihan]

Too bad the Clean Drinking Water Act only covers wells that have 25 users or more. Read the act please. Pushing this will not do much for people in drilling areas unless it is changed to cover all people with wells and springs.

Why not call for ban? Why are we begging the regulators who work for oil and gas to help us. This is about regulating something that cannot be regulated.

BAN NOW!

[SuperOmniguy]

We need safe water to survive. Pretty simple, no water, no life. What is not to understand. Good job guys! Thanks for doing the right thing.

[allanrrrrr]

Thank you, Maurice, Josh and Mark.  Keep it up.