California: Ask Your Legislator before May 15 to Support a Fracking Moratorium

[antiquie]

Last edited Tue May 14, 2013, 11:53 AM - Edit history (1)

On Monday, April 29, thanks to your help, AB 1301 (Bloom), a bill that would impose a state moratorium on fracking and mandate a review of the controversial practice’s health and environmental impacts, made it out of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources.

Now we face the next big hurdle: Getting the bill out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which begins debate on it Wednesday, May 15. Please let the Democratic Leadership, and any Committee Member that represents your district, know you want a moratorium on fracking in California!

PLEASE CALL BEFORE WEDNESDAY, MAY 15.

Democratic Leadership:

1. Speaker of the Assembly, Assemblymember John Pérez, [phone]

2. Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Assemblymember Mike Gatto, [phone]

Please also call the following members if you live in their districts. If you don’t know your representatives in the legislature, you can find them here. It is especially important that the five likely swing votes, listed below in bold, hear from you.

Raul Bocanegra Dem - 39 [phone] (Arleta, North Valley, Sun Valley)
Steven Bradford Dem - 62 [phone] (Inglewood, Hawthorne, El Segundo)
Ian C. Calderon Dem - 52 [phone] (Industry, Whittier, Hacienda Heights, SE of LA)
Susan Talamantes Eggman Dem - 13 [phone] (Stockton, Tracy)
Isadore Hall, III Dem - 64 [phone] (Compton)
Diane L. Harkey (Vice Chair) Rep - 73 [phone]
Nora Campos Dem - 27 [phone]
Tim Donnelly Rep - 23 ( 916) 319-2033
Jimmy Gomez Dem - 51 [phone]
Chris R. Holden Dem - 41 [phone]
Eric Linder Rep - 60 [phone]
Richard Pan Dem - 09 [phone]
Bill Quirk Dem - 20 [phone]
Donald P. Wagner Rep - 68 [phone]
Shirley N. Weber Dem - 79 [phone]
Franklin E. Bigelow Rep - 05 [phone]

When your call goes through, you could say: “I urge you to ensure the passage of AB 1301 out of Appropriations and the State Assembly. California can’t afford the huge costs of water, soil, and air contamination resulting from Fracking for oil under some of our most productive farmland. Without clean air and clean water, there are no farms. Without farms, there is no food.”

If you call your legislator, and their voicemail is full, it means we’re having an impact!

Organic Consumers Association
via email

[Buzz Clik]

1. Would it not be more productive to call for better regulations of the industry.

[antiquie]

2. How so?

How can it be done safely?

[Buzz Clik]

3. We are given the impression that fracking is just a bunch of guys with big machines punching holes.

Fracking is a highly refined engineering process that has been evolving for decades. The problems arise in the oldest part of the technology, and that's the well casing. Tighten up requirements on the integrity of the well casing in every fracking hole, and we will have gone a long way to stopping the impingement on drinking water aquifers and the leakage of natural gas.

[antiquie]

4. For starters

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014448648
This is earthquake country.

More later...

[Buzz Clik]

5. I see. A bit of context I didn't have. Thanks.

[cui bono]

6. One of the problems is the fracking industry doesn't have to divulge what chemicals

they are pumping into the ground as it's proprietary. So until that law or whatever it is is changed I doubt there's much that can be done in the way of regulation. Not to mention, who is going to regulate? Nothing very promising is coming out of this govt. in the way of regulation.

[antiquie]

7. AB 1301

An act to amend Section 75002 of add Sections 3017 and 3203.5 to the Public Resources Code, relating to water resources oil and gas.

AB 1301, as amended, Bloom. The Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006. Oil and gas: hydraulic fracturing.

The Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006, approved by the voters as Proposition 84 at the November 7, 2006, statewide general election, finds and declares that protecting the state’s drinking water and water resources is vital to the public health, the state’s economy, and the environment.

This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to that provision.

Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.
Section 3017 is added to the Public Resources Code, to read:

3017.
“Hydraulic fracturing” means a technique used in preparing a well that typically involves the pressurized injection of water and chemicals, compounds, and materials into an underground geologic formation in order to expand existing fractures or create new fractures in that formation, thereby causing or enhancing the production of oil or gas from a well. Hydraulic fracturing shall include the terms “fracking,” “hydrofracking,” “hydrofracturing,” “unconventional shale drilling,” and other colloquial terms referencing this drilling technique.

SEC. 2.
Section 3203.5 is added to the Public Resources Code, to read:

3203.5.
(a) Notwithstanding any other law, hydraulic fracturing operations are prohibited.
(b) This section shall remain in effect until the Legislature enacts subsequent legislation that determines whether and under what conditions hydraulic fracturing may be conducted while protecting the public health and safety and the natural resources of the state.

SEC. 3.
No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIIIB of the California Constitution because the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIIIB of the California Constitution.SECTION 1.Section 75002 of the Public Resources Code is amended to read 5002.
The people of California find and declare that protecting the drinking water and water resources of the state are vital to the public health, the economy of the state, and the environment.

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1301

[antiquie]

8. Updated OP to current status of AB 1301.