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Indybay Feature

Governor Brown: Stop Misleading Californians About Fracking!

by Petition
PETITION STATEMENT: Governor Brown: You misled the people of California by saying that "fracking can't happen" in California's Monterey Shale until an environmental study is completed. In fact, fracking is already happening all across the state! It's time to walk the talk and enact an immediate statewide moratorium on fracking.
By Tia Lebherz, to be delivered to Governor Jerry Brown

Petition Background

Outside an event on Monday in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to address Governor Brown directly about his position to green light fracking in California. Governor Brown responded to me with an insult, implying that what I know about our water and environment — through extensive research in college and years in the field — isn't true.

The next day, I couldn't believe my ears when I heard Governor Brown talking about our interaction in an interview with KQED public radio. Throughout the interview, the governor's statements made me wonder how much he actually knows about fracking in our state. He's quoted telling KQED that fracking "can’t happen until a major and the first serious scientific study to an environmental impact analysis that I required by a law I signed two months ago is done."(1)

That's just not true. Fracking and other unconventional forms of drilling are happening in the Monterey Shale right now.(2) And the bill he is referring to, SB 4, actually says that the state "shall" allow fracking to continue even before the study is complete.

Whether Governor Brown is simply ill-informed or blatantly lying to us, his comments on KQED were incredibly misleading to the people of California. Fracking will continue to happen — threatening our water, air and climate — until he actually takes action and bans fracking in the Golden State. If Governor Brown thinks that fracking should not happen before the environmental study is completed, then he should act now to put an immediate moratorium on fracking.

Sources:

1. "Jerry Brown Lashes Out Against Environmentalists Over Fracking," KQED, October 30, 2013
http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/10/30/jerry-brown-fracking/

2. "Vast Oil Reserve May Now Be Within Reach, and Battle Heats Up," The New York Times, February 3, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/us/vast-oil-reserve-may-now-be-within-reach-and-battle-heats-up.html

"Rose Field: A McLure Shale, Monterey Formation Development Story," Society of Petroleum Engineers, accessed November 1, 2013
http://www.onepetro.org/mslib/app/Preview.do?paperNumber=00083501&societyCode=SPE

"Elk Hills," Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Accessed November 1, 2013
http://www.oxy.com/OurBusinesses/OilAndGas/UnitedStates/Pages/ElkHills.aspx

Sign petition:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/governor-brown-stop-misleadi
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