{"id":14851,"date":"2013-02-14T20:31:35","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T20:31:35","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-02-14T20:31:35","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T20:31:35","slug":"if-the-president-wants-cleaner-safer-gas-and-oil-give-consumers-knowledge-and-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2013\/02\/14\/if-the-president-wants-cleaner-safer-gas-and-oil-give-consumers-knowledge-and-power\/","title":{"rendered":"If the President Wants Cleaner, Safer Gas and Oil, Give Consumers Knowledge and Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fracking<\/a><\/p>\n

It was a relief to hear more than a passing reference to climate change in President Obama’s State of the Union Speech, including promises of more support for wind and solar power. But the oil industry heard nothing to even cause even a smidgen of concern.<\/p>\n

Asking Congress to “get together to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change” should have been marked in the transcript<\/strong><\/a> as a laugh line.  And the presidential promise to “keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits” was an emergency alert for communities under siege<\/a><\/strong> from natural gas fracking and states–particularly California–whose dwindling supply of clean water is being sucked away<\/a><\/strong> by both oil companies and climate change.<\/p>\n

While the president pledged support for “research and technology that helps natural gas burn even cleaner and protects our air and our water,” technology is only as good as the corporations willing to pay for it as well as put safety above profit. What citizens want is information and a say in the process. Right now they have precious little of either. <\/p>\n

So the citizen’s challenge to President Obama and Congress has to be this:
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