For Immediate Release
September 12, 2012
Contact:
Kelly Trout, 240-396-2022, Kelly@chesapeakeclimate.org
Mike Tidwell, 240-460-5838, mtidwell@chesapeakeclimate.org
Elected official and activists launch campaign for strong MD fracking moratorium
BALTIMORE, MD — State Delegate Heather Mizeur (D-Montgomery) today joined a broad coalition of public health, environmental, faith, labor and civil rights groups to launch a campaign to pass a state moratorium on fracking, a controversial method of natural gas drilling.
Del. Mizeur’s legislative proposal, outlined today at a press conference in Baltimore, would prevent fracking from occurring in Maryland until and unless the state completes a comprehensive, science-based review of the dangers fracking poses to drinking water, public health and safety, the climate, rural communities and the environment. Only then could the General Assembly vote on whether or not to allow fracking to proceed, taking into account the range of risks outlined in the studies.
“For the last two years, oil and gas lobbyists have defeated pragmatic proposals to fund environmental and public health safety studies on fracking in Maryland,” said State Delegate Heather Mizeur. “I want to make it clear that the public policy of the state of Maryland is no fracking until rigorous scientific studies are complete.”
The public interest groups backing the Fracking Moratorium Now! campaign said that a strong statutory moratorium is needed to ensure that science and open democratic debate — rather than the influence of oil and gas industry lobbyists — determine the direction of Maryland’s energy future. In the last legislative session, closed-door lobbying led by the American Petroleum Institute prevented a bill to fund fracking risk studies from even coming to a vote in the Senate.
“As a nurse, I know firsthand that our health is one thing we can’t afford to gamble with. First do no harm is the ethic that must guide our state’s approach to fracking,” said Katie Huffling, a certified nurse-midwife from Mount Rainier, MD and Director of Programs for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. “The chemicals used in fracking and the air pollution caused by drilling pose serious health risks, including increased risk of asthma, reproductive problems, and cancer.”
“Maryland legislators have a responsibility to get to the bottom of what lobbyists at API apparently don’t want the public to know about the dangers of fracking,” said Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “Delegate Mizeur’s proposal will ensure that a democratic debate on whether or not fracking is worth the risk occurs before toxic chemicals contaminate our wells or earthquakes shake our homes.”
In states where fracking is already occurring, drilling activity has been linked to a range of harmful impacts, including contaminated streams and rivers, flammable tap water, degraded air quality and earthquakes. Fracking also contributes to climate change through the release of methane gas in the drilling process and emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide upon combustion.
In 2011, Governor Martin O’Malley issued an executive order establishing a special commission to determine if and how fracking activity could be conducted safely in the state, but the commission lacks the funding necessary to complete its work.
The groups backing the Fracking Moratorium Now! campaign include the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, Climate Change Initiative of Howard County, Earthworks, Environment Maryland, Interfaith Power & Light (MD.DC.NoVA), Labor Network for Sustainability, League of Women Voters of Maryland, Maryland League of Conservation Voters, Maryland Sierra Club, Maryland Student Climate Coalition, and the NAACP Maryland State Conference.
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With 90,000 members in the Chesapeake Bay region, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to build and mobilize a powerful grassroots movement to call for state, national and international policies that will put us on a path to climate stability. Learn more at www.chesapeakeclimate.org.
