Obama administration approves ALEC model bill

[ProSense]

3. Wait,

"Obama administration approves ALEC model bill"

...how did weakening a rule still in draft form become "approves ALEC model bill"? The proposal was never modeled after ALEC. The fact that they're not as strong as originally proposed is the result of the same process that happens as rules are being considered.

Sierra Club:

Breaking: Interior Department Bows to Pressure from Oil and Gas Industry, Weakens Fracking Rules

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed an updated set of rules governing hydraulic fracturing, on public lands today. The controversial oil and gas development technique—in which drillers blast millions of gallons of chemically treated water into the earth to force oil and gas from underground deposits—has been linked to air and water pollution and public health problems.

“Comparing today’s rule governing fracking on public lands with the one proposed a year earlier, it is clear what happened: the Bureau of Land Management caved to the wealthy and powerful oil and gas industry and left the public to fend for itself,” said Jessica Ennis, legislative representative at Earthjustice.

<...>

The updated proposal eliminates protections included in the version proposed last year and fails to include safeguards demanded by environmental and public health advocates.

Among the problems identified in the updated regulations:

• The proposed rules do not require an evaluation of the integrity of cement barriers in individual wells—the critical barrier between toxic fracking chemicals and groundwater—instead allowing oil and gas companies to test one well and allow those results to guide the development of other similar wells.
  
  
• The updated proposal does not require fracking companies to disclose chemicals before they are pumped into the ground—a critical measure that would give nearby communities time to test and monitor water supplies for any fracking-related water pollution.

“The Sierra Club is alarmed and disappointed by the fundamental inadequacy of the Bureau of Land Management’s new proposed fracking regulations,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “After reviewing the draft rules, we believe the administration is putting the American public’s health and well-being at risk, while continuing to give polluters a free ride. The draft BLM rules ignore the recommendations of the president’s own shale gas advisory committee, which called for transparency, full public chemical disclosure, environmental safeguards, and pollution monitoring.”
- more -

http://ecowatch.com/2013/interior-department-bows-to-pressure-oil-gas-industry-weakens-fracking-rules/

The rules are still in draft form, and the administration should be pressured to include these protections, which were in the original proposal, in the final rule.