Environmental Groups Praise EPA’s First-Ever Clean Air Protections for Fracking

Agency Takes Important First Step to Protect Air Quality and Public Health

Washington, D.C.—On April 18 environmental groups praised the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) vital updates to nationwide air quality protections to include oil and natural gas production.  This is the first federal safeguard aimed at curbing air pollution from hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking.’

Fat Cat takes photos with car drivers calling on end to taxpayer handouts to Big Oil

Car and truck drivers filling up at the pump had a chance to fight back against high gas prices – by taking part in a photo petition with their gas receipts and a costumed “Fat Cat” calling on an end to special tax breaks and subsidies to the oil and gas industry.

Clean Water Action and Colorado Conservation Voters crashed gas stations in Aurora, Denver, and Pueblo in an effort to highlight the more than $9.4 billion in annual oil and gas subsidies. Coloradans shoulder more than $157 million of the burden for oil and gas tax breaks.

“It’s high time Coloradans stop paying twice for gas – once at the pump and again on Tax Day,” said Gary Wockner, director of Clean Water Action. “We should end the billions in taxpayer handouts to Big Oil fat cats, but Reps. Mike Coffman and Scott Tipton have voted a half dozen times to protect Big Oil tax breaks. Where’s my subsidy?”

Colorado Oil and Gas Association Statement Not Correct, Again
Contamination of Laramie-Fox Hills Aquifer and Residential Water Well Occurred in 2009

Fort Collins, CO -- In the February 28, 2012 online version of the Denver Post, the President of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association is quoted as making this statement: 

Colorado's rules include provisions addressing "cementing and casing of wells," Schuller said. And since 2009 "there has not been a drilling or hydraulic-fracturing incident that has affected groundwater, and there have been no incidents which have affected a family's or community's drinking water," she said.