HotList 02/21/2013

February 21, 2013

Dear Members,

Hard to believe it is already Thursday. Admittedly the Hotlist is a little late this week– sometimes my day job gets in the way of me sitting down and cranking it out, and my night job as a father of a two year old and four year old definitely prohibits me from working on it.

SB 76, Domestic Energy Jobs Act, or the fracking bill, is on its way through the Senate. The bill is said to be about creating an independent energy future for North Carolina and help create jobs. I googled hydraulic fracturing jobs in North Carolina the other day and was surprised that none popped up. Then I went to the Employment Security Commission’s site and searched and also found none. The initial jobs that would come from fracking would be imported from other states where workers already have the experience.

I hope the Senate has a jobs bill in the works that will help North Carolina citizens get back to work now, not 2015. One that does not have the potential to harm our natural landscape and possibly contaminate our drinking water. Fracking is going to happen in North Carolina, but we need to slow down and insure that it is done right.

I have included some points to ponder from my friends at the Conservation Network. I hope you will take the time to look at them and give them some consideration. There are two ways to go about this: one where we impose hard unnecessary deadlines that must be met without time for adequate consideration, and the other where we take our time and make sure we get this right. All we are asking is that we get it right the first time. If one well is contaminated because we moved to fast without adequate protections, it will be one too many.

SB 76 will be a scorecard vote.

Have a good rest of the week.

Best,

Dan Crawford | dan@nclcv.org