Mock commercial undermines new Vote 4 Energy oil advertisement

Today, the American Petroleum Institute unveiled its 2012 Vote 4 Energy astroturf campaign, centered around a major election-linked CNN advertising package that PolluterWatch helped expose last month with audio recordings from inside the studio.Vote 4 Energy attempts to show 'real Americans' who are 'energy voters,' meaning they are committing to vote for whichever politicians support Big Oil's dirty agenda in this election year. Typical. API also bought the back page of the A section of the Washington Post with a Vote 4 Energy ad, space that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to normal people.

Anticipating this new misinformation campaign, PolluterWatch created a mock commercial to show how API and it's oil company members (Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron and all the usual suspects) have to fake citizen support for the oil industry:

http://www.polluterwatch.com/blog/mock-commercial-undermines-new-vote-4-energy-oil-advertisement

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is Big Oil's top lobbying firm, using a $200 million budget to push dirty energy incentives and tax handouts for oil companies into our national laws. They have been caught in the past staging rallies for their Energy Citizens astroturf campaign, as revealed by Greenpeace in a confidential API memo to oil executives. Why do they fake citizen support? Probably because Americans overwhelmingly support clean energy over dirty oil development.

Knowing that API is rolling out the astroturf on cable TV, we decided to roll out actual astroturf at the location of their press conference today, literally making attendees walk down a long astroturf 'green carpet' shrouded by Big Oil logos as they entered the event. The K St lobbyists seemed downright confused by seeing the corporate logos that are normally invisible at API events.

Inside, API CEO Jack Gerard announced the campaign and promoted dirty energy development like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in his "State of American Energy" address. Apparently Jack thinks he's the President of United States of Energy, I thought he was just an oil lobbyist. Reporters leaving the session spoke about how bogus the event was--same old same old from Jack.

Jack Gerard may want to trick Americans into his Vote 4 Energy nonsense, but he demonstrates the same predictable rhetoric that oil companies always use to make themselves sound somewhat responsible, when everyone knows they aren't--see our profiles for ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, all multi-billion dollar corporations, making record profits even in a global recession, and looking for more tax breaks and handouts. If you are watching election coverage on CNN and spot API's astroturf ad, don't buy the lie. Vote for yourself, not oil executives.

Ohio EPA comments needed

Ohio EPA is asking for comments on their proposed “Draft General Permit for Shale Gas Exploration Surface Water Impacts.”  Ohio EPA Seeks Public Comments on Draft General Permit For Wetland and Stream Impacts at Shale Gas Well Sites

 Comment period ends Jan. 13^th, 2012

http://www.epa.ohio.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=II_clMQeDlU%3d&tabid=5024

Expert: Wastewater well in Ohio triggered quakes

CLEVELAND (AP) — A northeast Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drillingalmost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes in the Youngstown area since last spring, a seismologist investigating the quakes said Monday.

Research is continuing on the now-shuttered injection well at Youngstown and seismic activity, but it might take a year for the wastewater-related rumblings in the earth to dissipate, said John Armbruster of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

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U.K. Quakes Likely Caused by Fracking

Two small earthquakes that shook the Lancashire coast of northwest England and the nearby city of Blackpool earlier this year were probably caused by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—a shale gas extraction technique that was being used nearby to explore its shale gas wells—according to a report released today. The energy company Cuadrilla Resources had begun an experimental drilling operation half a kilometer from the quakes' epicenter in March.

Fracking has caused concerns in some countries over its potential health and environmental impact—critics accuse it of contaminating drinking water with gas and the chemicals used for extraction—and it is banned in some countries and some U.S. states. Cuadrilla's is the first fracking operation conducted in the United Kingdom.

After geologists pointed the finger at Cuadrilla as the possible cause of the quakes, it commissioned independent experts to prepare a report on the topic. Entitled Geomechanical Study of Bowland Shale Seismicity, it has concluded that it is "highly probable" that the quakes were triggered by Cuadrilla's fracking: high pressure injection of fluids into rocks in order to fracture them and release shale gas. But the quakes were a fluke, the report continues, as the geology of the region was highly unusual to begin with.

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FracTracker- Co-occurrence of earthquakes and geological faults in Central NY

Created Oct 3, 2011 by Karen Edelstein

Despite some assumptions to the contrary, earthquakes are known to occur across the northeastern United States. In Central NY, they are sometimes associated with known geological faults

Follow the site

http://data.fractracker.org/cbi/snapshot/full?concept=~01e73a7988edde11e0829c942a7385dc67

Slow Down Fracking in Athens County (SD-FRAC)

While fracking obviously has some economic benefits for involved individuals, companies, and communities, critics have pointed out that the expected benefits are vastly overstated by the industry and the Ohio government. The recent study The Economic Value of Shale Natural Gas in Ohio, conducted by OSU economists Weinstein and Partridge, showed that the widely touted creation of 200,000 jobs in Ohio through fracking is more likely to be in the vicinity of 20,000 jobs. A similar number of fracking-related jobs was in fact created inPennsylvania between 2004 and 2010, although the industry prediction was much higher (between 100,000 and 200,000).

While 20,000 additional jobs may still be welcome in a shaky economy, the researchers point out that “like virtually every other economic event, there are winners (e.g., landowners or high-paid rig workers) and losers (e.g., those who can no longer afford the high rents in mining communities and communities dealing with excessive demands on their infrastructure).”  The authors also emphasize that industry-funded studies usually don’t address the fact that most fracking jobs are temporary but “long-term regional economic development requires permanent jobs” [p. 2]. If most of those 20,000 jobs are only short-term jobs and (as seems to be typical) are mostly held by out-of-state workers, then the boom will be quite short-lived.

Moreover, while some landowners may end up with a considerable amount of money, one must seriously question the assumption that there is an overall net positive economic effect of drilling.  A study cited by Weinstein and Partridge submits that “previous industry-funded reports have focused on the benefits while ignoring the costs and risks associated with natural gas extraction” and that they “haven’t properly accounted for other impacts, including the costs of environmental degradation,” nor for “the impact on infrastructure, property values, and the ‘displacement impact’ pollution can have on other industries such as tourism and fishing” [p. 5].

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