Obama Admin Adopts ALEC Model Bill for Fracking on Public Lands

Miles Kampf-Lassin

Over at DeSmogBlog, Steve Horn has alarming news about ExxonMobil-written language making its way into Obama's proposed fracking regulations: On May 16, the Obama Interior Department announced its long-awaited rules governing hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") on federal lands. As part of its 171-page document of rules, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of the U.S. Dept. of Interior (DOI), revealed it will adopt the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bill written by ExxonMobil for fracking chemical fluid disclosure on U.S. public lands. ALEC is a 98-percent corporate-funded bill mill and "dating service" that brings predominantly Republican state legislators and corporate lobbyists together at meetings to craft and vote on "model bills" behind closed doors. Many of these bills end up snaking their way into statehouses and become law in what Bill Moyers referred to as "The United States of ALEC." Read the rest here, and read the back story on the insidious work of ALEC here.

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Miles Kampf-Lassin, a graduate of New York University’s Gallatin School in Deliberative Democracy and Globalization, is a Web Editor at In These Times. Follow him on Twitter @MilesKLassin

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