The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced yesterday they are dropping plans to have independent scientists review its earlier findings that fracking is linked to groundwater pollution in Wyoming.
“We stand behind our work and the data, but EPA recognizes the state’s commitment to further investigation,” said agency spokesman Tom Reynolds in Washington, D.C. The EPA will let state officials carry on the investigation with the federal agency’s support, he said.
Possible translations:
-Pressure by the oil and gas industry has trumped science again.
-Cutting the domestic budget worked out for corporate giants. The EPA can no longer follow through on protecting the environment so long as giant businesses have the money to slow down the process.
But don’t worry. Wyoming “officials” will launch their own study funded in part by a $1.5 million grant from an oil and gas company that owns the gas field in question. Why go through an independent scientific study when corporations can buy the answer for us?
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