A reading of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ fracking ban bill, the one he introduced last Friday in the U.S. Senate contends hydraulic fracturing is not in the national interest of the United States. If it were to become law, it would impact virtually every oil and gas company in Oklahoma and other states.
Officially, it is known as the “Fracking Ban Act” and no doubt, those oil and gas industry leaders who read it, think it makes some pretty outrageous claims about what fracking is doing to this country. Sanders not only wants it banned, but wants the oil and gas industry to pay for pollution cleanup.
A review of the bill shows that Sanders wants the federal government to follow the lead of states, cities, counties and towns that have banned hydraulic fracturing.
Here’s one of his contentions in the act—that fracking is linked to earthquakes all across North America including in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Arkansas.
Another claim cited in the act is that numerous scientific studies have shown that the chemicals cause serious negative health impacts such as cancer and birth defects.
Sen. Sanders used his act to claim that fracking pollutes the air and contributes to ground-level ozone, causing serious negative health impacts such as strokes, heart attacks and asthma. He even blames it on premature births in Pennsylvania.
Sanders maintains in the act that even if every coal plant were replaced by fracked gas electricity in the next ten years, emissions would remain on track to grow through 2050 because of what he called “pervasive methane leaks that make fracked gas as dangerous as coal.”
Included among his claims in the proposed Act is that the fracking industry regularly disposes of waste that will remain radioactive for thousands of years by spraying it on roads next to homes and farms.
If the Democratic Senator’s act were to actually become law, it would force the oil and gas industry to pay for the costs of cleaning up pollution and “preparing communities for the unavoidable impacts of climate change.”
But he would also have taxpayers through the federal government pay for retraining fossil fuel workers. And those retrained workers would be guaranteed “unionized green jobs.”
Source: Fracking Ban Act filed in U.S. Senate