Sierra Club Florida News shared a link to the following article:
ALERT! Fracking Disclosure Exemption in Committee 8 AM, Tuesday
CS/HB 1209 – Pub. Rec./High-pressure Well Stimulation Chemical Disclosure Registryby Rep. Ray Rodrigues.
- If this bill becomes law, Floridians will not be able to find out about the worst chemicals frackers inject through their aquifer because they’ll be kept secret.
- There is no federal protection available under the Clean Water Act (which deals with surface waters) or the Safe Drinking Water Act which was amended to exclude fracking from its definition of “underground injection” in the 2005 Energy Policy Act thanks to VP Cheney’s Energy Task Force (§ 300h(d)(1)(B)(ii))
- HB 1209 disguises its true intention by claiming to be about preventing one business from stealing “proprietary business information” (trade secrets) from another. In reality it is designed to gut the disclosure provisions of the bill it is linked to, HB 1205 titled Regulation of Oil and Gas Resources, also by Rep. Rodrigues.
- The bill does an end run around the public interest by misappropriating the rationale for trade secrets for its true purpose of avoiding public scrutiny
- HB 1209 is similar to the relevant parts of an ALEC model bill that can be seen here: http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/the-disclosure-of-hydraulic-fracturing-fluid-composition-act/ The ALEC bill includes the disclosure and trade secrets language in one bill, but the Florida version requires two bills because of Florida’s Constitutional requirement that public records exemptions be in a stand-alone bill.
Read the original post at http://www.sierraclubfloridanews.org/2015/03/alert-fracking-disclosure-exemption-in.html.
Visit Sierra Club Florida News at http://www.sierraclubfloridanews.org/ Posted via IFTTT