There will always be challenges at Town Meeting, as there should be. Bumpy though it sometimes feels during town meeting, the town gets to the right place in the end.
This study demonstrates that we do not need increased gas capacity to meet electric reliability needs, and that electric ratepayers shouldn’t foot the bill for additional pipelines.”
-- Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey
The clean energy think-tank, Acadia Center, released a three-part report in June concluding that New England is not facing an energy crisis. And the Maine PUC is investigating whether a publicly-funded interstate pipeline, such as the Kinder Morgan pipeline, is legal.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 specifically exempts oil and gas hydrofracking from the Act under the provisions of the Halliburton Amendment, so-named because Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton, and, in 2005, Chairman of the National Energy Policy Development Group, advocated the amendment. Under its terms, EPA is barred from regulating any activities associated with well construction, fluids injected undergound into the drilling well, and other activities at the wellpad.
By any number of measures – state accident reports, scholarly studies, in-depth reporting, and filed lawsuits -- hydrofracking operations are endangering the health of people who live in the vicinity, and degrading the air and water.
