Yet more dodgy government involvements around fracking

[Paul Mobbs]

Hi all,


I'd heard about this a few weeks ago chatting with some academics --
announcement made today.


Chris Smith feathering nest on leaving Environment Agency. Certainly if
the frackers hadn't got him then either the waste or nuclear industry
would have.


As the old quote from Ephesians says, "For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in
high places."


Certainly my "frackogram" diagram needs updating at the moment.
:-(


Task Force's web site is at -- http://www.shaletaskforce.uk/


P.






<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/21/former-environment-agency-head-to-lead-industry-funded-fracking-task-force>


Former Environment Agency head to lead industry-funded fracking task
force


Lord Chris Smith will lead a new ‘independent’ task force, funded by
shale gas companies, to look into the risks and benefits of fracking in
the UK


Damian Carrington, Guardian On-line, Tuesday 21st October 2014




The risks and benefits of fracking for the UK are to be examined by a
“independent” task force, led by the former head of the Environment
Agency, Lord Chris Smith, and funded by shale gas companies.


“We will assess the existing evidence, ask for new contributions and
lead a national conversation around this vitally important issue,” said
Smith, who as chair of the Environment Agency oversaw key fracking
regulation. “The Task Force on Shale Gas will provide impartial opinions
on the impacts, good and bad, that the exploitation of shale gas will
have on the UK.”


The government is “going all out” for the rapid development of shale gas
in the UK, according to David Cameron. Conservatives say it can increase
energy security, help reduce carbon emissions if gas replaces coal and
be a boon to poor parts of the UK.


But there is fierce and growing opposition to fracking from communities
concerned about environmental damage and campaigners against the
development of new fossil fuel sources.


Recent changes to trespass laws to allow fracking under peoples’ homes
have been particularly controversial. Both sides of the debate
frequently accuse the other of exaggeration and scaremongering.



An initial £650,000 of funding for the task force has been provided by
fracking companies, including Cuadrilla, Centrica and Total. The task
force hopes to find other sources to provide another £650,000 to allow
completion of a report in 2016. “I would not have taken this on if I was
not absolutely certain we could be independent and impartial about what
we do,” Smith told the Guardian. “The funders have no influence over
what we look at or what we do.”


Other groups have already examined fracking, including the Royal Society
and Royal Academy of Engineering in 2012. Their recommendation of their
report, that the government establish a specific set of regulations for
fracking, was not taken up.


An ongoing academic project, called ReFINE and funded at arms-length by
industry, is also examining shale gas exploration. It found in March
that a lack of publicly available data on the UK’s onshore oil and gas
drilling means there are significant “unknowns” about the safety of
future fracking wells.


Smith said the new task force would look at aspects not covered by
earlier academic work, including impacts like noise on local communities
and wider economic and climate issues. “We will look at whether
[fracking] is economically sustainable and whether it locks in another
generation of carbon emissions,” he said. A government report into the
effect of fracking on house prices was heavily redacted before being
released under freedom of information rules.


Friends of the Earth energy campaigner Tony Bosworth said he was
unconvinced by the new task force: “This looks like another attempt by
the shale gas industry to buy respectability. If they think that
opponents of shale gas, nationally and locally, who are rightly
concerned about its impacts, will be convinced by an industry-funded
body then they have badly misjudged. Rather than putting their money
into bodies like this, the industry should engage in genuine debate with
local communities.”


The Environment Agency is responsible for the environmental safety of
fracking and, in 2013 when Smith was chair, he was summoned by former
environment secretary Owen Paterson to resolve a dispute over the
regulation with Cuadrilla boss Lord John Browne. Smith said in June:
“Our firm view [at the EA] is that existing regulations are adequate to
ensure that fracking operations happen safely.” He also said he
“wouldn’t rule out” fracking in national parks.


The two other members of the task force are Baroness Patience
Wheatcroft, a Conservative member of the House of Lords and Professor
Ernest Rutter, a geologist at the University of Manchester. “The issue
of shale gas is hugely emotive,” said Wheatcroft. “The aim of the Task
Force is to sift through the emotion and examine the evidence about
whether or not, and on what basis, if any, the UK should exploit shale
gas.”


Smith, a former Labour cabinet minister, said: “There is no guarantee we
will be able to solve these conundrums, but we will have a good go.”






-- 


"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burrough, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/index.shtml
public key - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/mobbsey_public_key-2013-2.asc


Not sent from my mobile device -- I don't have one! ;-)
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