Their names appeared on letters urging fracking Ohio's state parks. They don't know how.

[riversedge]

Source: cleveland.com





Updated: Sep. 11, 2023, 9:48 a.m.|Published: Sep. 10, 2023, 5:30 a.m.

Jake Zuckerman, [email protected]

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The letter from Briella Keep to her state government was simple – Ohio should for the first time allow “responsible” oil and gas exploration under state parks like Salt Fork.

But there was one problem. Briella Keep was 9 years old on July 5, the day the letter was sent to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC), and there’s no way she could have written it, according to her mother, Brittany Keep.

Briella likes trees, nature, clothes, and dolls, like many girls her age. She doesn’t know anything about oil and gas exploration. She lives about 130 miles away from Salt Fork. Neither Briella nor her mother have ever visited.

Brittany Keep has no clue how her phone number, her daughter’s email address, or their home address, wound up on a letter touting “opportunities for economic development and the creation of family-sustaining jobs” in Ohio.

“This is not OK,” Brittany Keep said. “She definitely did not submit that draft.”............................................

Read more: https://www.cleveland.com/open/2023/09/their-names-appeared-on-letters-urging-fracking-ohios-state-parks-they-dont-know-how.html

---

Goodness. This company has a long History of fraud!

Link to tweet

?s=20

Salt Fork Lake, at nearly 3,000 acres, is the centerpiece of Salt Fork State Park. A state board has received multiple requests under a new legal process to frack under the park. And it received thousands of public comments in support of the idea, including from dozens who said they don't know how their names wound up on those comments. (Susan Glaser/Cleveland.com)

[2naSalit]

1. So much for any kind of info...

Being safe. They will do everything to destroy us.

[Jimvanhise]

2. THEY HAVE THE MEANS

Instead of fracking and similar means which can actually pollute the water table, why don't these companies use their vast wealth to invent ways of producing energy which do not threaten the environment?

[Think. Again.]

5. Because they own....

...a lot of oil that they're determined to make us buy.

[FakeNoose]

18. The oil industry has been around for 150 years but fracking is relatively new technology

It allows them to extract oil & natural gas from shale that they couldn't pump out before with the old tech oil wells. So the states like PA and OH (there are others) that have lots of shale are now under siege to allow this type of extraction.

I'm in Pennsylvania and I can tell you that fracking destroys many acres of formerly pristine woodlands (or farmlands) and it also does terrible things to the groundwater. It pollutes the water table in ways that will take hundreds of years for nature to correct. It's bad for the environment but the oil companies don't care. They want their profits and then they want to get out before it's time to pay for cleanup.

To answer your question: the oil & gas companies have already invested in the new fracking equipment, they've already trained their workforce and they've bought or leased the land where they want to get in. It's now a simple matter to them: who can we BRIBE to get the permits to go ahead and frack?

[Alexander Of Assyria]

3. As vast clean hydrogen gas fields are discovered the fossil fuel panic and propaganda and deceit

will be immense…a dying industry isn’t going to go down without a fight, and many many lies.

[Think. Again.]

6. Very, very...

...VERY true.

[Torchlight]

10. Could be a serious long-term problem for Moscow

whose oil exports are the only thing keeping a paper-tiger economy on life-support.

[Think. Again.]

4. Gee...

...I wonder if it has anything to do with the fossil fuel industry's complete lack of ethics and integrity...

[doc03]

7. I live in Belmont County about 40 miles from Salt Fork Park. There have been almost

600 wells drilled in this county in the last 10-15 years. I started receiving royalties for a well under my property about
6 months ago. The wellhead itself is about 2 miles from here and I hear they drill about 2 miles under the ground. I am not aware of anyone that has had any negative effects from fracking in this area other than the water and sand truck traffic when they are in the fracking process. I sure don't approve of anyone writing fraudulent letters supporting fracking under Sal Fork though. They have drilled under the other lakes in the area that are controlled by the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District. I think there is enough private land to drill under without the state park lands.

[IronLionZion]

8. Because they are not getting any consequences or punishment for it

[dalton99a]

9. "One woman was legally blind and doesn't use the computer"

The Consumer Energy Alliance has left a trail in three states over about 10 years of people saying the organization used their names on government petitions without consent.

The organization, based in Houston and staffed and operated by HBW Resources, a public relations and lobbying firm, runs on dues from its members, which include major oil and gas companies like Dominion Energy, Columbia Gas, Shell, and others.

In 2014, the Consumer Energy Alliance submitted 2,500 comments to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin as it reviewed a proposed electricity rate hike, according to a regulatory filing. The purported signees said they believed “every energy consumer should pay a fair share for maintaining the electrical grid.” However, the Madison Capital Times reported that several signees said they were misrepresented and opposed the rate hike. Environmental advocates asked the commission to toss the petitions.

In 2018, another similar instance arose. Lawmakers in South Carolina were considering legislation that could kill a proposed utility company acquisition. Suddenly they received a deluge of Consumer Energy Alliance-originated form letters from constituents urging against it. But as the Post & Courier reported, some of the people whose names appeared on the letters said they were impersonated.

...

[csziggy]

13. They should be charged with identity theft.

Just because they didn't use stolen identities to immediately steal money, this misuse of people's information is just as much for monetary gain as stealing their credit information.

But of course, big corporations and their lackeys seem to be immune from what would put an ordinary person in prison.

[Bayard]

19. Yes!

And any of these, "non-profits," need to lose that status immediately.

[pecosbob]

11. Just like Ajit Pai encouraged during the Net Neutrality input process.

[moonshinegnomie]

12. simple solution

toss out any letter send by the consumer energy alliance.
treat them as nonexistent

[riversedge]

15. With their history of fraud, the current letters should be tossed and BURNED!!

[Lonestarblue]

14. What this story and other recent ones tell me is that we need a serious overhaul of our tax laws

that allow groups like this to collect money and avoid taxes as they use the money for deceitful and damaging purposes. The definition of what qualifies as a nonprofit for federal tax purposes is fairly broad and included political organizations as well as groups that develop national and international sports (since when are sports nonprofit!!!).

I’m ready for some stricter laws. I don’t believe political organizations should be no profits. The exception would be donations to a specific political campaign or politician. Too many PACs with dark money are undermining democracy.

And while many might not agree, I think religious groups should not be nonprofit since most of them do very little charity work these days. Legitimate charities that have religious connections but spend most of them donations on their mission of helping people should be exempted. But even then, there should be limits. When I consider donations to a charity, such as Doctors Without Border, I check them out on Charity Navigator to see the percentages of money spent on the mission versus the fund raising and administrative costs. It’s surprising sometimes how much is spent on the administrators and how little is spent on the mission. Tax rules should set a minimum for the mission.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

17. Here are laws, but the mechanism to enforce the laws is seized up in two party power politics.

Much like the FEC and FCC, put in chains.

[Botany]

16. Jan. 2023: With stroke of his pen, Gov. Mike DeWine defines natural gas as green energy

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation that broadly expands the ability to drill for oil and gas in state parks and also legally redefines natural gas as a source of “green energy.”

A 2011 state law gave state agencies the authority, if they choose, to lease out state lands for oil and gas exploration and production. The bill signed by DeWine on Friday would change that language to say a state agency “shall” accept a lease that meets certain conditions, instead of saying it “may” do so. In other words, it forces an agency to grant the lease application from oil and gas drillers.

The term green energy typically refers to energy derived from the sun and wind, not fossil fuels. Natural gas is a fossil fuel released by digging into the earth that acts as a greenhouse gas via leakage during transport and when it’s combusted. Its main component is methane, a potent heat-trapping gas.

https://www.cleveland.com/open/2023/01/with-stroke-of-his-pen-gov-mike-dewine-defines-natural-gas-as-green-energy.html

******
This summer OH has had > 20 days of smoke from Canada's wildfire that are fueled by the hotter and drier
conditions because of our use of fossil fuels and when you burn gas you get CO2 a greenhouse gas. Oh is so
fucking corrupt.

[Evolve Dammit]

20. This is so gross, I can't begin to express my disgust. OH has it's head up fossil fuels ass. Always

has. The family should find an attorney and intitiate a lawsuit on behalf of their daughter (then 9?)