Top Obama aide Heather Zichal worked the Pavillion fracking investigation

 by Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter, EnergyWire: Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Pavillion, Wyo., is a tiny community of fewer than 300 people, nearly 2,000 miles from Washington, D.C., in a deeply Republican state that President Obama never had any chance of winning.

But Obama's top aide on energy issues, Heather Zichal, took a significant interest in the community's water supply in late 2011 and early 2012.

Documents show that Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, monitored and managed developments behind the scenes as U.S. EPA prepared to release its findings that hydraulic fracturing had contaminated groundwater in Pavillion.

Those findings had outsized implications for the country's oil and gas drilling boom. They would serve as the first documentation of water contamination from hydraulic fracturing. Advances in the process have been behind the surge in domestic production.

Industry had long held that there had never been a documented instance of such contamination. But the EPA report stood to puncture that talking point. Nearly three years later, EPA has abandoned the investigation, and the implications of its findings are unclear.

Emails obtained by EnergyWire through the Freedom of Information Act show that Zichal got briefings from top EPA officials as they prepared to release the report, was informed the afternoon before the report was rolled out in December 2011 and sought to manage the fallout when it came under criticism.

"Can we get some talking points on this asap?" Zichal wrote to then-Deputy EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe on January 3, 2012, above a news story on flaws in EPA's handling of the sampling process.

The FOIA documents also show that Zichal emailed with then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on the Pavillion investigation. Jackson herself showed considerable interest in the case, sending nearly 100 emails involving Pavillion between November 2010 and April 2011, including a few from her personal email account.

Jackson had also taken a close interest in a drilling contamination case in Texas that was dropped in 2012 (EnergyWire, Feb. 13).

White House officials say there is nothing unusual in Zichal’s involvement in Pavillion. But environmentalists and other groups say it indicates that politics might have been intruding on science.

EPA's Pavillion report found fracking fluids to be present in deep groundwater but not the area's shallower drinking water. The drilling and fracking that took place in Pavillion bears little resemblance to the mile-deep, high-volume drilling taking place in shale formations in Pennsylvania and North Dakota. But the report became a go-to example for environmentalists and others worried that fracturing could contaminate groundwater.

The findings ran into a buzz saw of criticism from the oil and gas industry and state officials. They deemed it sloppy and lacking in transparency. And when the U.S. Geological Survey said it couldn't replicate the results from one of the wells, they said their criticisms were validated.

EPA abandoned the Pavillion investigation earlier this summer with little explanation (EnergyWire, June 21, 2013). It was EPA's third retreat from a drilling contamination investigation during the Obama administration, joining methane migration cases in Texas and Pennsylvania.

The agency handed the investigation to Wyoming state officials, though the people with fouled water say the state long ignored their concerns and the state had fought EPA on the study. Wyoming will continue with the help of a $1.5 million grant from Encana Oil & Gas, Inc., the company accused of contaminating the water.

EPA says it stands by its results but will not rely on them in the future.

The White House emails add to questions from environmentalists and conservative groups about the role politics played in bringing the Pavillion investigation and in abandoning it. Similar concerns have been raised about the other two cases.

EPA scientists had already found merit to the case by the time the emails show the White House getting involved, said Amy Mall of the Natural Resources Defense Council. But Zichal's interest makes Mall wonder what role the White House played in EPA's retreat in Pavillion and the other two cases.

"This leaves open to question whether political involvement played a role in dropping these three cases," Mall said.

Food & Water Watch, which wants fracking banned, is calling on EPA to reopen all three pollution investigations, said Emily Wurth, the group's water program director.

Conservative lawyer Christopher Horner has already been pursuing evidence he says he obtained that the Obama administration retreated from the Pennsylvania case, in Dimock, out of fear that the investigation might hurt Obama's re-election chances in 2012 (EnergyWire, July 30, 2013). He said White House involvement in the Pavillion case strikes a similar chord.

"That is consistent with the information presented to me about the Dimock case," Horner said, "that politics were guiding the proceedings and political considerations were at play."

Asked for comment, a White House official said Zichal’s involvement was not unusual and didn’t interfere with EPA’s scientific decision making.

“The White House has a coordinating role across agencies, and it is common practice for agencies to let the White House know about major announcements that are coming,” the White House official said. “As the correspondence shows, the EPA conducts these analyses, not the White House, and this specific engagement is consistent with the administration’s strong commitment to scientific integrity.”

“Furthermore,” the official said, “in recognizing that many agencies are involved in policy around natural gas, the president created an interagency working group with the White House to coordinate policy issues and engage in long-term planning on natural gas.”

Zichal led the working group.

Zichal's role in regulations

Zichal, a former aide to then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), started in the White House as the assistant to energy and climate "czar" Carol Browner, who left in 2011. In the past year or so, Zichal has taken on an increasingly high-profile role as the White House's chief ambassador to oil and gas companies.

That role arose in part from industry lobbying. The working group on drilling that Obama tapped Zichal to head was requested by the American Petroleum Institute. Her handling of that assignment has earned her some praise from people in the oil and gas industry and criticism from environmentalists who follow drilling issues.

Zichal has played an important role in the administration's handling of proposed regulations for fracking on public lands. She met more than 20 times in 2012 with industry groups and company executives lobbying on the proposed rule, according to an EnergyWire review of White House visitor records (EnergyWire, April 12).

Environmental groups, which had far fewer meetings with her on the rule, have complained that the increased access is related to the administration's decisions to weaken the rule.

White House visitor records show Zichal met with another top EPA official, senior policy counsel Bob Sussman, in the White House complex three times from October to December 2011. Those records offer no details of what gets discussed. But emails released by EPA under FOIA indicate that Sussman was Zichal's point of contact at EPA on the Pavillion issue.

About three weeks before the rollout, Zichal noted to Sussman in an email that EPA had done a briefing on the report for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and asked whether the agency had done the same for Wyoming's congresswoman and two senators. When he hadn't replied the next day, Zichal followed up -- "Sorry, any update here?"

In November 2011, EPA gave the results of its testing to residents at a community meeting in Pavillion. The next morning, Sussman wrote Zichal that he had the details. Zichal replied, "Great. Will call as soon as this meeting wraps."

The night before the report came out in December, Sussman notified her it would be out the next day and added, "Happy to provide more details."

Dozens more emails between Zichal and Sussman, Jackson and other top EPA officials were withheld under exemptions to FOIA, but their subject lines indicate they concerned the Pavillion investigation.

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059987018

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Graham Readfearn: Australia's Department of Defence concerned about climate change threat multipliers

Climate change will 'exacerbate existing problems': Defence

by Graham Readfearn, ABC Australia, Environment, September 11, 2013

As first responders and humanitarian assistance providers, the armed forces will be busy in a climate changed future. Credit: Australian Defence Image Library

See also

• Related Story:Climate change a 'threat multiplier' for DefenceNews Online25 Mar 2013
• Related Story:Defence unmoved by climate change dataNews Online9 Oct 2009
• Related Story:Defence needs to recognise climate of riskNews Opinion12 Jun 2009
• Related Story:Ex-Defence Force chief Admiral Chris barrie helps launch Climate Commission reportNews Online17 Jun 2013

Extreme weather and rising sea levels caused by climate change will significantly increase the need for an effective defence force. It's why the military are taking notice of the scientists.

WHEN AUSTRALIAN professors Colin Butler, Tony McMichael and Will Steffen stood up to talk climate change at a series of briefings in Canberra earlier this year there was something very different about the audience.

This wasn't a forum organised by an environment group where the seats are taken up by the usual cohort of the climate concerned.

Instead, this audience was full of hardheaded military types and members of the defence community - people worried more about conflict and geopolitics than wind turbines and carbon footprints. This invitation to speak on climate change had come from Australia's Department of Defence.

"They wanted to get a handle on the idea of tipping elements in the climate system that could cause rapid change that would be very difficult for human societies to deal with," says Professor Steffen, an Australian Climate Commissioner and executive director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University.

Butler, Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Canberra, displayed maps of places where climate change might act as a "threat multiplier" - food and water shortages in eastern parts of Asia and forced migration across Africa.

"The maintenance of peace and preventing war depends on more than just military personnel and hardware," says Professor Butler. "It also depends on what I call the 'determinants of peace' - that is, having enough basic resources of food, shelter and energy."

It's a far cry from 2009, when a Defence White Paper concluded that climate change would not be a serious consideration for the Defence Forces until at least 2030.

Australia's current National Security Strategy lists climate change as a broad global challenge "with national security implications" alongside the more obvious threats of corruption and the resurgence of violent political groups.

Last month in the journal Science, researchers reported the results of an analysis of "45 different conflict data sets" and found "strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict."

When rainfall and temperatures started to shift, the study found a systematic increase in "the risk of many types of conflict."

One of the study's authors, the University of California's Marshall Burke, told the ABC that if societies in the future responded to these changes in the same way as previous ones, then, for example, "We could see a 50 per cent or greater increase in civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of climate change by about 2050."

Does this mean war?

Air Vice-Marshal Neil Hart is head of the Joint Capability Coordination Division at the Department of Defence. His responsibilities include examining the potential impacts of global changes on the preparedness of the Australian Defence Force.

He says that changes in the global climate system have the potential to "exacerbate existing problems" through flooding of low-lying regions, more frequent and severe natural disasters, and shifting rainfall. This could lead to loss of food production in some areas and "climate-driven large-scale human migration."

"Taken together, these factors point to the potential for an increased demand for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and stabilisation operations over coming decades," he says.

The Australian Government's latest Defence White Paper, published in May, found that global energy, food and water resources were under pressure from population growth, rising affluence and climate change.

"As a frequent first responder to national and international emergencies, Defence needs to be prepared for some of the consequences of global climate system changes, such as potentially increased demands for the Australian Defence Force to undertake humanitarian and disaster relief responses both domestically and across the region."
 

As a threat multiplier, it has the potential to generate and exacerbate destabilising conditions that could reshape the regional security environment.

  The commander of the US Navy in the Pacific, Admiral Samuel Locklear, agrees climate change is a real threat to peace. Earlier this year he said climate change was the greatest long-term security threat for his region.

Rising sea levels could displace communities, he said, and the impacts from climate change could "cripple the security environment."

Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti is the UK's special representative on climate change. Appointed by the Foreign Office, he says climate change will likely "accelerate global instability" and that it challenges "our ability to deliver our core mission of providing national security."

Security council

Professor Tony McMichael, an expert on the impacts of climate change on human health at Australian National University, believes the defence department "can see quite clearly that the world around us is changing pretty rapidly and that has considerable implications for the defence forces on several fronts - both beyond our borders and within."

He says climate change impacts are already causing health issues in the Asia Pacific region, in particular from sea levels rising and damaging land used for growing food.

"So there are concerns that food supplies, agricultural land and even habitable land is now under threat. That represents a number of immediate threats to nutrition, health and safety that in the longer term is likely to disrupt communities."

In September, Australia will take its turn as president of the United Nations Security Council, where there have been long-running calls for more formal recognition of the climate threat.

One of Australia's leading security think tanks, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), produced a detailed report on climate change and Australia's defence force in March.

The report suggested that climate change had "generated little interest in either the Australian Defence Force (ADF) or the Australian Defence Department" compared with the UK and the United States.

"Climate change is transforming the conventional roles of security forces," the report said. "As a threat multiplier, it has the potential to generate and exacerbate destabilising conditions that could reshape the regional security environment."

But the report also pointed out the ADF had been called on to help communities after the 2009 Victorian bushfires, the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi in 2011. These events, the report said, had resulted in some of the largest defence deployments ever in Australia.

As the issue of refugees continues to dominate the political landscape, Professor McMichael says the current flows of people "really are just a taste of what's to come as living conditions deteriorate in many parts of the world."

The ASPI report highlighted how there were 250 million people living in the river deltas of Asia. In particular, the report said the Mekong and Ganges-Brahmaputra deltas were regarded as being at extreme risk from sea level rise.

"Many defence forces around the world are obviously seeing the strategic implications of a rapidly destabilising climate and what that might mean," adds Professor Steffen. "It's simply in their interest to be prepared."

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/09/11/3845626.htm

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URGENT: phone your CA rep to prevent industry amendments to fracking bill

Your call urgently needed: We have four days to stop a bill that could frack California

SB 4, an already weak fracking bill, was amended Friday to exempt fracking from California's most important environmental law: the California Environmental Quality Act. The amendments could even block Governor Brown's authority to ban fracking should he determine it is unsafe. We only have four days to kill this bill—call your Assembly member today and tell him to vote 'NO' on SB 4. Click below for a sample script and the number to call:

Dear Karin, We want to update you on what’s happening with a bill that could open the floodgates to fracking in California without review under our state's most important environmental law. This email may be longer and more detailed than usual, but our fight to stop fracking in California is facing a watershed vote in the Legislature. We feel it’s imperative to share our thinking on what’s happening with you immediately. On Friday, dangerous, last-minute amendments were attached to Senator Fran Pavley's fracking bill, SB 4. With these added amendments, the last fracking bill left standing in the California Legislature just got a whole lot worse. Shockingly, the amendments give state regulators authority to exempt fracking from California's strongest and most important environmental law: the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The new amendments could even block Governor Brown's authority to ban fracking in California should he determine fracking is unsafe and want to take executive action to protect our citizens and our water. Call Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer: Vote 'no' on Senator Pavley's dangerous fracking bill and support a ban on fracking. Click here to call. Senator Pavley has long been one of our greatest environmental champions in the California Legislature. But SB 4 falls far short of the standard of uncompromising advocacy that she's set. Groups like CREDO, MoveOn.org Civic Action, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity and dozens of others oppose this bill. We cannot support a bill that would allow fracking to move forward in California, endangering public health and the climate, and providing political cover to the fracking industry to claim that fracking is safely regulated. In this case, an incredibly weak bill is worse than no bill at all. CREDO knew that the bill would be further weakened during the legislative process and that earlier support for the bill from environmental groups could be used by legislators as an excuse for voting for the bill even after it was further compromised and those groups withdrew support. What happened on Friday was even worse than we could have predicted. The amendments added on Friday make it even more urgent that environmentalists unite and kill this bill. Call Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer: Vote 'no' on Senator Pavley's dangerous fracking bill and support a ban on fracking. Click here to call. Even before it was amended on Friday, SB 4 was a dangerously weak bill. It allows the fracking industry to keep secret the volumes and concentrations of the dangerous chemicals it injects underground by designating them "trade secrets." That means Californians won't know whether the industry is trucking teaspoons or tons of toxic chemicals through our communities. And SB 4 won't stop fracking from expanding rapidly in California while polluting our air, contaminating our water, and accelerating climate change. But Friday's amendments are by far the worst part of the bill. The California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA, is California's environmental safety-net. It requires the government to notify the public about any environmentally destructive project, thoroughly analyze and mitigate its environmental risks, and provide the public with an opportunity to voice concerns about the project. The new amendments to SB 4 could be used by state regulators to make an end-run around CEQA’s bedrock environmental review and mitigation requirements and could also prevent our state’s air and water boards, local land use jurisdictions and other agencies from carrying out their own CEQA reviews of fracking. Under existing law, the governor and state regulators can deny approvals for wells that involve fracking or place a partial or complete moratorium on fracking. The new language states that state regulators "shall allow" fracking to take place until regulations are finalized in 2015 provided that certain conditions are met. This could be interpreted to require every fracked well to be approved between now and 2015, with environmental review conducted only after the fact and could be used to prevent the governor or state regulators from issuing a moratorium on fracking prior to 2015. Call Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer: Vote 'no' on Senator Pavley's dangerous fracking bill and support a ban on fracking. Click here to call. The California Legislature is legendary for last-minute shenanigans, so we can't know what will happen to SB 4 in the next few days. It could change dramatically—probably for the worse. What we do know is that Friday's amendments make SB 4 a must-kill piece of legislation, and we only have four days before the end of the legislative session to stop it. It's time to pull the plug on the Legislature's dangerous push to pass fracking legislation before things get any worse. Our friends in Sacramento are telling us that it's possible to stop SB 4 in the Assembly, where it's currently awaiting a floor vote. Call Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer: Vote 'no' on Senator Pavley's dangerous fracking bill and support a ban on fracking. Click here to call. The bottom line is that SB 4 would actually pave the way for more fracking in California and roll back existing legal protections, leaving us worse off. The legislative session ends this week and the Legislature has a lot of important issues left to resolve. What happens next for SB 4 is impossible to predict, but here are the most likely scenarios: The Assembly doesn't vote on, or votes against SB 4, which would mean the bill doesn't become law. The Assembly passes SB 4 in its current form, it goes to the Senate for a final up-or-down vote, and then off to Governor Brown for his signature, making SB 4 law. The Assembly sends SB 4 back to a policy committee for amendments. That could mean the CEQA loophole is removed, but it would also give pro-fracking lobbyists another shot at amending the bill and making it even worse—which we know they want to do. After that, the bill would either pass or fail. Assembly leadership and moderate democrats decide that SB 4 is untenable, so they "gut and amend" an entirely unrelated bill (which means they strip a bill of everything but its bill number and amend it with totally new language) to produce a last-minute fracking bill even worse than SB 4. What happens this legislative session may depend on whether we put enough pressure on our elected officials not to vote with the fracking industry. The chaotic last days of the legislative session often privilege powerful interests like the oil industry, who have the clout in Sacramento, and the armies of trained lobbyists swarming the Legislature, to get what they want while the public isn't watching. To make sure that doesn't happen, we need to make it clear that we are watching and that we will hold our elected officials accountable if they pass a bill that kneecaps our efforts to ban fracking in California. Call Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer: Vote 'no' on Senator Pavley's dangerous fracking bill and support a ban on fracking. Click here to call. Thanks for fighting fracking. Zack Malitz, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets Click below for a sample script and the number to call:

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Glenn Greenwald: The Independent falsely claims it has NSA documents from Snowden

You know, the public is just not going to stand for much more of this kind of thing.  Our governments are illegally spying on us without our knowledge and without warrants -- all clearly extra-constitutional.  The U.K. is just as bad as the U.S.  

• • by Glenn Greenwald
  • theguardian.com, Friday 23 August 2013 07.42 EDT
  • Jump to comments (924)

GCHQ's headquarters on the outskirts of Cheltenham. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA

(Updated below)

The Independent this morning published an article - which it repeatedly claims comes from "documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden" - disclosing that "Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies." This is the first time the Independent has published any revelations purportedly from the NSA documents, and it's the type of disclosure which journalists working directly with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have thus far avoided.

That leads to the obvious question: who is the source for this disclosure? Snowden this morning said he wants it to be clear that he was not the source for the Independent, stating:

• I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to The Independent. The journalists I have worked with have, at my request, been judicious and careful in ensuring that the only things disclosed are what the public should know but that does not place any person in danger. People at all levels of society up to and including the President of the United States have recognized the contribution of these careful disclosures to a necessary public debate, and we are proud of this record.
• "It appears that the UK government is now seeking to create an appearance that the Guardian and Washington Post's disclosures are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others. The UK government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose information that, were it released by a private citizen, they would argue is a criminal act."

In other words: right as there is a major scandal over the UK's abusive and lawless exploitation of its Terrorism Act - with public opinion against the use of the Terrorism law to detain David Miranda - and right as the UK government is trying to tell a court that there are serious dangers to the public safety from these documents, there suddenly appears exactly the type of disclosure the UK government wants but that has never happened before. That is why Snowden is making clear: despite The Independent's attempt to make it appears that it is so, he is not their source for that disclosure. Who, then, is?

The US government itself has constantly used this tactic: aggressively targeting those who disclose embarrassing or incriminating information about the government in the name of protecting the sanctity of classified information, while simultaneously leaking classified information prolifically when doing so advances their political interests.

One other matter about the Independent article: it strongly suggests that there is some agreement in place to restrict the Guardian's ongoing reporting about the NSA documents. Speaking for myself, let me make one thing clear: I'm not aware of, nor subject to, any agreement that imposes any limitations of any kind on the reporting that I am doing on these documents. I would never agree to any such limitations. As I've made repeatedly clear, bullying tactics of the kind we saw this week will not deter my reporting or the reporting of those I'm working with in any way. I'm working hard on numerous new and significant NSA stories and intend to publish them the moment they are ready.

Related question

For those in the media and elsewhere arguing that the possession and transport of classified information is a crime: does that mean you believe that not only Daniel Ellsberg committed a felony, but also the New York Times reporters and editors did when they received, possessed, copied, transported and published the thousands of pages of top-secret documents known as the Pentagon Papers?

Do you also believe the Washington Post committed felonies when receiving and then publishing top secret information that the Bush administration was maintaining a network for CIA black sites around the world, or when the New York Times revealed in 2005 the top secret program whereby the NSA had created a warrantless eavesdropping program aimed at US citizens?

Or is this some newly created standard of criminality that applies only to our NSA reporting? Do media figures who are advocating that possessing or transmitting classified information is a crime really not comprehend the precedent they are setting for investigative journalism?

UPDATE

The Independent's Oliver Wright just tweeted the following:

"For the record: The Independent was not leaked or 'duped' into publishing today's front page story by the Government."

Leaving aside the fact that the Independent article quotes an anonymous "senior Whitehall source," nobody said they were "duped" into publishing anything. The question is: who provided them this document or the information in it? It clearly did not come from Snowden or any of the journalists with whom he has directly worked. The Independent provided no source information whatsoever for their rather significant disclosure of top secret information. Did they see any such documents, and if so, who, generally, provided it to them? I don't mean, obviously, that they should identify their specific source, but at least some information about their basis for these claims, given how significant they are, would be warranted. One would think that they would not have published something like this without either seeing the documents or getting confirmation from someone who has: the class of people who qualify is very small, and includes, most prominently and obviously, the UK government itself.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government-independent-military-base

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Nearly 650,000 Comments Call on Obama Administration to Ban Fracking on Public Lands

by

Environmental Action, DailyKos, August 22, 2013

Washington, D.C.—Today, a coalition of 276 environmental and consumer organizations including Americans Against Fracking, 350.org, Berks Gas Truth, Center for Biological Diversity, CREDO Action, Democracy for America, Environmental Action, Daily Kos, Food & Water Watch, MoveOn, Progressive Democrats of America, The Post Carbon Institute and United For Action delivered to President Obama and the Bureau of Land Management nearly 650,000 public comments asking the federal government to ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on public lands. This development amplifies the message sent by the 7,800 people who called the White House yesterday, urging President Obama to protect communities and their resources from the negative effects of fracking. The deadline for submitting public comments to the federal government regarding drilling and fracking on federal lands is August 23.

"Our public lands are a national treasure and a sacred trust passed by one generation of Americans to another," said Drew Hudson of Environmental Action. "Fracking on public lands threatens the drinking water of millions of people, including the President's daughters and everyone else here in Washington, D.C. It would also poison many of our last wild and pristine ecosystems. Fracking has no place on our public lands, and these citizens, more than half a million of them, are calling on the President and the Bureau of Land Management to say: ‘Yes we can ban fracking.’ "

"By allowing fracking on public lands, the BLM is participating in a form of legalized corruption that pollutes our democracy and undermines the national interest," said actor and advocate Daryl Hannah. "They are sacrificing our public lands, which they've been entrusted with, to the fossil fuel industry and private profits. Instead they should honor their mandate to ensure the health of these lands, their uncontaminated water, air, soil and biodiversity on behalf of all the citizenry and future generations."

"From California, to Colorado, Pennsylvania to New York, and everywhere in between, the public understands that fracking poses an immediate threat to our water, air, health and climate, and they’re fighting back. President Obama needs to stop listening to the oil and gas industry and instead listen to the people who elected him," added Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “If President Obama truly wants to curb climate change and move us to a renewable energy future, he should listen to the science and ban fracking.”

A letter sent today to the President by Americans Against Fracking and its coalition partners explained that the Bureau of Land Management controls access to over 700 million acres of federally owned mineral rights, most of which are beneath federal public and Native American land. Currently, about 38 million acres of federal public lands are leased, and over each of the past four years, the oil and gas industry has drilled over three thousand new wells, most of which will be or have been fracked.

“Fracking on public lands puts the drinking water of tens of millions of Americans at risk," said Mike Hersh, a MoveOn volunteer organizer in Maryland and Maryland Coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America. "MoveOn members are organizing in 43 states to protect our water, our climate, and our communities from fracking, and today we're taking that call directly to President Obama--ban fracking on public lands.”

"As President Obama calls for urgent action on climate change, it makes no sense to usher in a new, monumental threat to our climate, with a massive expansion of fracking for oil and gas on public lands," said Zack Malitz, campaign manager for CREDO. "President Obama should ban fracking on public lands."

In June, President Obama articulated the importance of addressing global climate change in his Climate Action Plan. Yet drilling and fracking for oil and gas will only make the problem worse. Methane, the primary constituent of fracked gas, is a potent greenhouse gas, at least 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 100-year time frame, and causes between 79 to 105 times the climate forcing of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration found that the rate of methane leakage in at least two active gas fields is much higher than the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory’s current estimate.

“Many of us worked hard to elect President Obama because we wanted a President who would protect all Americans,” noted David Braun of United For Action. “It’s time for him to represent those who elected him, not big oil and gas. While it’s admirable that the President wants to tackle climate change, fracking has no place in any plan to combat it.”

"The Keystone XL fight is proof that everyday people can fight toe-to-toe with the fossil fuel industry to stop climate change," added Jason Kowalski, policy director for 350.org. "Fracking is unlocking new carbon reserves, and this is carbon that climate scientists say we can't afford to burn. President Obama takes climate change seriously, so he knows we can't simply frack our way out of this problem."

When burned, fracked gas produces significant amounts of carbon dioxide. In fact, even if methane leaks could be minimized to about 1 percent of what is produced, the International Energy Agency has estimated that a scenario of increased global dependence on fracked gas would increase the global average temperature by 3.5 °C, or by about 6.3 °F, by 2035.

“Americans want President Obama to protect our beautiful public lands from fracking pollution,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “This inherently dangerous technology contaminates our air and water and disrupts our climate. The president has a duty to protect our environment and our communities by standing up to the oil and gas industry and prohibiting fracking in these wonderful wild places.”

Among the federal lands targeted for drilling and fracking are watersheds vital for the provision of clean drinking water for millions of Americans, such as the Shawnee National Forest in Illinois, Wayne National Forest in Ohio and George Washington National Forest in Virginia. Also targeted are federal lands near iconic national parks, such as Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in Utah and Sequoia National Park in California, among others.

The submission of these comments comes just weeks after the Los Angeles Times revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shut down a fracking-related water contamination investigation in Dimock, Pennsylvania, despite evidence that water there was polluted. The Los Angeles Times reported that regional EPA staff warned senior EPA officials that water tests revealed high levels of methane in the drinking water of a number of homes in Dimock. Instead of continuing the investigation, the EPA abruptly closed the case, stopped water deliveries to the residents and deemed the water there safe to drink. This week, concerned Americans have convened in New York and Pennsylvania to protest EPA’s apparent mishandling of the Dimock investigation.

“President Obama need look no further than Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest to see fracking's devastating effects on our public lands. Fracking is a dangerous, destructive practice that perpetuates our reliance on outmoded forms of energy. It has no more place on our public lands than it has in our energy future,” concluded Karen Feridun, founder of Berks Gas Truth.

Read the letter to President Obama and see a full list of organizations that signed on to the letter here.

Americans Against Fracking is composed of the following groups. For more information about Americans Against Fracking, visit  www.AmericansAgainstFracking.org

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/22/1233145/-Nearly-650-000-Comments-Call-on-Obama-Administration-to-Ban-Fracking-on-Public-Lands#

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Snowden NSA scandal: UK grabs David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald, and detains him for 7 hours at Heathrow

David Miranda: 'They said I would be put in jail if I didn't co-operate'

Partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald gives his first interview on nine-hour interrogation at Heathrow airport

Glenn Greenwald, left, meets his partner, David Miranda, at Rio de Janeiro airport after he finally reached Brazil following his nine-hour detention at Heathrow – an experience that has changed Miranda’s view of Britain. Photograph: Ricardo Moraes/Reuters

by Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro, The Guardian, August 19, 2013

David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist who broke stories of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, has accused Britain of a "total abuse of power" for interrogating him for almost nine hours at Heathrow under the Terrorism Act.

In his first interview since returning to his home in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday, Miranda said the authorities in the UK had pandered to the US in trying to intimidate him and force him to reveal the passwords to his computer and mobile phone.

"They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn't co-operate," said Miranda. "They treated me like I was a criminal or someone about to attack the UK … It was exhausting and frustrating, but I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong."

Miranda – a Brazilian national who lives with Greenwald in Rio – was held for the maximum time permitted under schedule seven of the Terrorism Act 2000 which allows officers to stop, search and question individuals at airports, ports and border areas.

During that time, he said, he was not allowed to call his partner, who is a qualified lawyer in the US, nor was he given an interpreter, despite being promised one because he felt uncomfortable speaking in a second language.

"I was in a different country with different laws, in a room with seven agents coming and going who kept asking me questions. I thought anything could happen. I thought I might be detained for a very long time," he said.

He was on his way back from Berlin, where he was ferrying materials between Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on stories related to the NSA files released by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

Miranda was seized almost as soon as his British Airways flight touched down on Sunday morning. "There was an announcement on the plane that everyone had to show their passports. The minute I stepped out of the plane they took me away to a small room with four chairs and a machine for taking fingerprints," he recalled.

His carry-on bags were searched and, he says, police confiscated a computer, two pen drives, an external hard drive and several other electronic items, including a games console, as well two newly bought watches and phones that were packaged and boxed in his stowed luggage.

"They got me to tell them the passwords for my computer and mobile phone," Miranda said. "They said I was obliged to answer all their questions and used the words 'prison' and 'station' all the time."

"It is clear why they took me. It's because I'm Glenn's partner. Because I went to Berlin. Because Laura lives there. So they think I have a big connection," he said. "But I don't have a role. I don't look at documents. I don't even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura is working on."

Miranda was told he was being detained under the Terrorism Act. He was never accused of being a terrorist or being associated with terrorists, but he was told that if – after nine hours – his interrogators did not think he was being co-operative, then he could be taken to a police station and put in jail.

"This law shouldn't be given to police officers. They use it to get access to documents or people that they cannot get the legal way through courts or judges," said Miranda. "It's a total abuse of power."

He was offered a lawyer and a cup of water, but he refused both because he did not trust the authorities. The questions, he said, were relentless – about Greenwald, Snowden, Poitras and a host of other apparently random subjects.

"They even asked me about the protests in Brazil, why people were unhappy and who I knew in the government," said Miranda.

He got his first drink – from a Coke machine in the corridor – after eight hours and was eventually released almost an hour later. Police records show he had been held from 08.05 to 17.00.

Unable immediately to find a flight for him back to Rio, Miranda says the Heathrow police then escorted him to passport control so he could enter Britain and wait there.

"It was ridiculous," he said. "First they treat me like a terrorist suspect. Then they are ready to release me in the UK."

Although he believes the British authorities were doing the bidding of the US, Miranda says his view of the UK has completely changed as a result of the experience.

"I have friends in the UK and liked to visit, but you can't go to a country where they have laws that allow the abuse of liberty for nothing," he said.

The White House on Monday insisted that it was not involved in the decision to detain Miranda, though a spokesman said US officials had been given a "heads up" by British officials beforehand.

The Brazilian government has expressed grave concern about the "unjustified" detention.

Speaking by phone from the couple's home in the Tijuca forest, Miranda said it felt "awesome" to be back. "It's really good to be here. I felt the weight lift off my shoulders as soon I got back. Brazil feels very secure, very safe," he said. "I knew my country would protect me, and I believe in my husband and knew that he would do anything to help me."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-interview-detention-heathrow

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The Guardian Says Britain Forced It to Destroy Snowden Material

from Reuters, August 19, 2013

WASHINGTON/RIO DE JANEIRO — The Guardian, a major outlet for revelations based on leaks from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, says the British government threatened legal action against the newspaper unless it either destroyed the classified documents or handed them back to British authorities.

In an article posted on the British newspaper's website on Monday, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said that a month ago, after the newspaper had published several stories based on Snowden's material, a British official advised him: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back."

Rusbridger's disclosure follows Sunday's detainment at London's Heathrow Airport under British anti-terrorism laws of David Miranda, domestic partner of U.S. journalist and Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald.

Miranda, a Brazilian citizen in transit from Berlin to Brazil, said he was released without charge after nine hours of questioning but minus his laptop, cellphone and memory sticks.

Greenwald, who met face to face in Hong Kong with Snowden and has written or co-authored many of the newspaper's stories about U.S. surveillance of global communications, vowed on Monday to publish more documents and said Britain will "regret" detaining his partner.

Rusbridger said that after further talks with the British government, two "security experts" from Government Communications Headquarters, the British equivalent of the ultra-secretive U.S. National Security Agency, visited the Guardian's London offices.

In the building's basement, Rusbridger wrote, government officials watched as computers which contained material provided by Snowden were physically pulverized. "We can call off the black helicopters," Rusbridger says one of the officials joked.

A source familiar with the event said Guardian employees destroyed the computers as government security experts looked on.

Rusbridger, in his article, said he told British officials that due to the nature of "international collaborations" among journalists, it would remain possible for media organizations to "take advantage of the most permissive legal environments." Henceforth, he said, the Guardian "did not have to do our reporting from London."

A source familiar with the matter said that this meant British authorities were on notice that the Guardian was likely to continue to report on the Snowden revelations from outside British government jurisdiction.

'HAD YOUR DEBATE'

Rusbridger said that in meetings with British officials, before the computers were destroyed, he told them the Guardian could not do its journalistic duty if it gave in to the government's requests.

In response, he wrote, a government official told him that the newspaper had already achieved the aim of sparking a debate on government surveillance. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more," the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

The Guardian's decision to publicize the government threat - and the newspaper's assertion that it can continue reporting on the Snowden revelations from outside of Britain - appears to be the latest step in an escalating battle between the news media and governments over reporting of secret surveillance programs.

One U.S. security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday that while the United States did not ask British authorities to detain Miranda, British officials had given the United States a "heads up" about the British government's plan to question him.

Greenwald, asked by a reporter if the detention of his partner would deter him from future reporting, said the opposite would happen.

"I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England, too. I have many documents on England's spy system," Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio de Janeiro's airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil.

During Miranda's trip to Berlin, which the Guardian said it had paid for, he visited with Laura Poitras, an independent film-maker who was the first journalist to interact with Snowden. Poitras co-authored stories based on Snowden's material for the Washington Post and the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Greenwald told the New York Times that Miranda went to Berlin to deliver materials downloaded by Snowden to Poitras and to acquire from Poitras a different set of materials for delivery to Greenwald, who lives with Miranda near Rio de Janeiro.

Greenwald told the Forbes website that "everything" Miranda had "was heavily encrypted." Greenwald did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters requesting comment.

While British authorities confirmed that Miranda had been detained under an anti-terrorism law, they did not further explain their actions. Brazil's government complained about Miranda's detention in a statement on Sunday that said the use of the British anti-terrorism law was unjustified.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Tim Dobbyn)

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/08/19/world/europe/19reuters-usa-security-snowden-guardian.html

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