The Smith Commission Report – a deal among parties, ignoring the greater powers that polls show most people want

The dispute over the Smith Commission report turns on whether additional powers should be decided by negotiations between political parties on what powers they are willing to concede, or the views of the majority of the people of Scotland (1).

The “vow” didn’t refer to Home Rule, Devo Max or federalism, but Gordon Brown did, in widely reported comments in the last few weeks of the referendum. Opinion polls show majorities for devolving far more powers than Smith recommends.

A recent ICM poll found 63% want all welfare powers and  taxes devolved to the Scottish parliament. This would have to exclude Scotland’s share of Defence and Foreign Policy funding, but goes far beyond Smith’s recommendations of only devolving disability and carers’ benefits and the bedroom tax (2) – (3) .

A poll just after the referendum reported by STV found that ‘80% …supported Scotland having control over welfare, with 62% saying it should be in charge of pensions. Almost three quarters (71%) of people back the devolution of income tax while 62% want to see Scotland get control of corporation tax and 61% say Holyrood should be in charge of VAT.’ (4).

Smith only recommends devolving income tax, air passenger duty, the Aggregates levy and the first 10% of VAT. The UK government retains all corporation tax, capital gains tax , national insurance, oil and gas revenues, vehicle excise duty and other revenues raised in Scotland (5).

The UK parties’ argument that the power to set corporation and VAT tax rates couldn’t be devolved as it could lead to different parts of the UK competing to have lower rates was understandable. However their willingness to devolve income tax, which could similarly lead to competitive tax cutting, suggests their motives there are party political.

No UK government has raised the basic rate of income tax in decades because it’s political suicide to do so. It seems likely that, with the SNP having a majority in the Scottish parliament, the UK parties want to force the Scottish government into either income tax rises or spending cuts to try to lose it votes.

And there’s no reason why most of the revenues from income and corporation taxes raised in Scotland couldn’t be assigned to the Scottish government and parliament to decide on how to spend them, while leaving the power to set the rates  of these taxes set by the UK government, and so uniform across the UK.

It would be wrong not to acknowledge that there are a few other positives in the Smith commission. The report recommends the devolution of the power to issue or refuse onshore oil and gas (paragraph 69), which would give the Scottish government the power to block fracking (assuming the Scottish public put enough pressure on it – so far Scottish ministers’ responses on fracking have been very evasive). The power to scrap the bedroom tax and provide benefits for carers and the disabled are important, but they are not close to control over all welfare powers and the budget for them.

The power to allow the public sector to bid for rail franchises (paragraphs 25 to 26, page 21) is positive too, but a long way from allowing renationalisation.

However it’s equally wrong to pretend that the Smith recommendations are anything approaching the “home rule” , “devo max” or federalism which Brown talked of. The usual definition of these is that most domestic policy and most of the budget for it is devolved. Nor do the powers Smith offers come close to the ones polls show most Scots want.

And equally some of the recommended devolved powers are so limited as to be almost non-existent – see those over Crown Estates in Scotland for instance, which allow sweeping exceptions by the UK government on extremely vague and general terms (paragraphs 32 – 34, page 16). Similarly for those over Energy Efficiency and Fuel Poverty measures (paragraph 68).

One telling line is Paragraph 24,  page 13 ; ‘the Scottish Parliament will have no powers over the regulation of political parties (including donations)’.

This indicates a deal in the interest of parties, not voters. The major UK political parties rely heavily on donations from banks, hedge funds, big firms and the super-rich – particularly the Conservative party.

It also ensures no requirement for more internal democracy within all political parties in Scotland. So Miliband can keep imposing his policies on the Scottish branch of his party.

One month was long enough for horse-trading between the main UK parties on what level of devolution they’d tolerate. It wasn’t long enough to receive or read submissions from thousands of members of the public. Nor should we be presented with a take-it-or-leave-it package decided only by parties. Opinion polls and consultations, and/or a second elected constitutional convention, could be used to draw up a list of possible additional powers, with a multi-question referendum allowing voters to vote for or against each.

Brown might want Scottish politics “reset” with constitutional issues labelled “dealt with”, but opinion polls suggest many voters disagree (6).

Opinion polls suggesting a massive rise in the SNP vote in the next General election, combined with those on additional powers, may force the next UK government into offering considerably more devolved powers than the Smith negotiations resulted in (7).

 

Sources

 

(1) = https://www.smith-commission.scot/ and https://www.smith-commission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Smith_Commission_Report-1.pdf

(2) = STV 30 Nov 2014 ‘Poll finds majority want Holyrood to control all taxes and benefits’,
http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/301542-icm-poll-finds-majority-want-holyrood-to-control-all-taxes-and-benefits/

(3) = https://www.smith-commission.scot/ and https://www.smith-commission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Smith_Commission_Report-1.pdf , paragraphs 42 – 54, pages 18 - 19

(4) = STV 21 Sep 2014 ‘SNP on course to win third Holyrood term, according to new poll’,  http://news.stv.tv/scotland/292917-snp-on-course-to-win-third-consecutive-holyrood-term-says-new-poll/

(5) = https://www.smith-commission.scot/ and https://www.smith-commission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Smith_Commission_Report-1.pdf , paragraphs 75 - 92, pages 23 - 25

(6) = BBC News 29 Nov ‘Gordon Brown calls for Scottish politics 'reset'’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-30256101

(7) = Guardian 30 Oct 2014 ‘Labour faces massive losses to SNP at UK general election, poll shows’, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/30/scottish-labour-snp-general-election-poll

Independence for Scotland will be pointless if we destroy our country with incinerators, fracking, deregulation and government acting in the interests of billionaires and big firms who only want short term profits at everyone else's expense

Unfortunately I didn't get enough votes to be elected ( I got 246 first preference votes and 353 votes - about 6% of those cast , including 2nd and 3rd and 4th preferences before I was eliminated). Not bad on 3 weeks campaigning and a budget of £600. (I was standing as a candidate to be a councillor in the Clydesdale West ward of South Lanarkshire Council).

I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me and campaigned for me and everyone who took the time to talk to me while I was canvassing. I will pass on all the issues you raised to the four candidates who were elected Councillors for the ward - Eileen Logan (Labour) , Lynsey Hamilton (Labour), David Shearer (SNP) and Pat Lee (SNP).

I want to thank retiring SNP Councillor Ian Gray for leading opposition to the incinerator on the planning committee and all the other councillors who voted against it, plus the AGADI organisers and volunteers and objectors and the Lanarkshire Green Party who also continue to campaign hard against it.

Though I was against Conservative councillor Alex Allison's vote in favour of the incinerator and have little time for his party or it's policies, residents in Crossford told me he worked hard for them on other issues, before losing his seat in this ward in the recent election.

I'd also like to congratulate Independent candidate Ed Archer, who was elected a councillor in neighbouring Clydesdale North ward, centred on Lanark; and who is also opposed to the incinerator and to the wind farm at Cartland.

I will be among many people launching campaigns to demand to know why the SNP Scottish Government, led by Alec Salmond, are not using the huge powers they have over council decisions, through control of around 80% of councils' budgets, to get Dovesdale and other wasteful, expensive, toxic, incinerators closed down and replaced with recycling and anaerobic digestion plants - and ditto on stopping fracking and on opening old railway stations (including in Law, where many residents asked for this).

The Scottish Government have demanded a Council Tax freeze from local councils in return for granting them funding (unwisely in my view) and could use the same kind of pressure to get Dovesdale and other Incinerators closed.

They have stepped in to over-rule local council planning decisions on Donald Trump's white elephant golf course (built over an SSSI full of endangered species and also including attempts to force people out of their homes by bully-boy tactics).

Residents in Kilncadzow tell me the Scottish Government also granted appeals to allow wind farms to be built at Kilncadzow and Cartland within 500 metres of peoples' houses, after the local council for once listened to residents and refused planning applications in each case. (Like the residents i'm in favour of turbines sited correctly - but not that close to houses.)

So Salmond and the SNP Scottish Government will intervene to help billionaires and big firms do things that are wrong and harmful, but not to cut funding to South Lanarkshire Council until it closes a toxic, over-priced incinerator? If so what's the difference between them and the other big party leaders?

I love my country and it's people. Alec Salmond and the other big party leaders say they love them too (whether they define them as Scotland or Britain). If you love your country and it's people why would you expose them to over-priced, deadly, wasteful incinerators ; to fracking which will poison our fresh water supplies (an increasingly valuable commodity worldwide with shortages growing in much of the worldwide) and our air and people ; and why would you over-rule local residents and councillors to let arrogant, incompetent billionaires like Trump get their way?

If you really love your country Alec, prove it. Close down the incinerators. Stop the fracking. Open the old railway stations. Regulate the banks. Listen to the people, not to big firms and billionaires who only want short term profit for themselves.

I'll also campaign for independence for Scotland when the referendum comes - i'm all for it to keep us out of Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe more Falklands and Iran wars and financial crises caused by deregulation in which ordinary people die or suffer for the profits of arms and oil firms and banks, and the careers of politicians; plus getting rid of tax havens that impoverish the majority to avoid the wealthiest and big firms paying their share.

But independence will change nothing if we become an independent Scotland destroyed for it's people, because it's run for big business and billionaires' short term profits at the expense of suffering for the vast majority. That would be no better than being part of a UK which is being destroyed in the same way.

Independents, Greens and socialists may not have been able to beat the big parties yet, but by god, if you big party leaders are in office and keep behaving like you are now we'll point up your hypocrisy constantly enough in one campaign after another (at elections and between them) that you'll have to change to more decent policies or else risk losing to one of the other big parties- and then do the same to whichever big party is in next until we get decent policies from them or else win ourselves and bring decent policies in ourselves.

I'll leave the last word to Dougie Maclean.

Texas study actually shows fracking industry does contaminate water - and Institute which conducted it is funded by fracking company

Much of the media are reporting that a new study has supposedly shown that there is no evidence of fracking contaminating water. If you read the full study it says ‘no direct evidence’ (implying there is indirect evidence) and is also playing with words by pretending that drilling the well for fracking, lining it and transporting chemicals used in fracking above ground are not fracking – as they are separate stages of the process. This is like arguing that the BP / Halliburton DeepWater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico was nothing to do with the oil drilling industry because it was the result of the casing of the well being done imperfectly. It’s just playing with words. The reality is the fracking industry does contaminate water (and also air through flaring).

You can even find out half of this from the press release from the University, never mind the original study (1).

On top of that the people quoting this study are ignoring the fact that it was done by the Energy Institute of the University of Texas, which is funded by ConocoPhillips with at least $1.5million, ConocoPhillips being an oil and gas company currently facing law suits relating to it's fracking activities. That’s only the money we know about, because many American universities are refusing to say whether particular studies were funded by private companies or not, let alone which companies or by how much (2) – (3).

Even leaving aside the bias and conflict of interest in the study due to it's funding by a company involved in fracking (which means it has no credibility anyway), if you actually read the whole study, it's full findings are very different to the carefully misleading wording used in claiming that there's "no evidence that fracking contaminates water"

Time magazine reports that the study found that "Instead, researchers concluded that the problems associated with fracking tend to be due to mistakes made in other parts of the drilling process, like casing failures that allow drilling fluids and gas to escape from a well, poor cement jobs and spills on the surface. “These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing,” Charles Groat, an Energy Institute associate director and the lead author of the study, said in a statement." (4) So in other words fracking does cause these problems – but so does drilling for oil on land (something everyone knows already, so redundant).

It found that fracking does contaminate water in practice, because mistakes are made and short-cuts taken, leading to breaches in the casing during fracking and spilling of fracking chemicals above ground just as with drilling for oil, except that fracking pollutes ground water on land and so our drinking water.

Additionally the study admits that methane and various toxic materials present in the earth before fracturing begins may be released into wells and ground water due to fracturing, contaminating it - which shows how dishonest the summary claiming 'no evidence of contamination due to fracking' is.

See page 19 of the original study on this, which says "It appears that many of the water quality changes observed in water wells in a similar time frame as shale gas operations may be due to mobilization of constituents that were already present in the wells by energy (vibrations and pressure pulses) put into the ground during drilling and other operations rather than by hydraulic fracturing fluids or leakage from the well casing. As the vibrations and pressure changes disturb the wells, accumulated particles of iron and manganese oxides, as well as other materials on the casing wall and well bottom, may become agitated into suspension causing changes in color (red, orange or gold), increasing turbidity, and release of odors." (5)

Also note the ‘may’ – not very definite language.

So saying fracking doesn't cause it is misleading if the drilling to prepare for fracking the transportation of chemicals for fracking and the lining of the drilled wells does.

When this study and other proponents of fracking claim that water or air contamination is “not caused by fracking” it’s like claiming that the BP / Halliburton DeepWater Horizon oil spill was not due to drilling for oil because it was due to faulty capping of the well with concrete – it’s playing with words. In fact the fracking industry’s activities do cause water and air pollution just as oil drilling does cause oil spills and water and air pollution. The difference with fracking is that it's on land where spills can pollute water supplies and gas from flaring is likely to have dispersed less than gas flared on oil rigs by the time it reaches land, meaning it will affect more people breathing it in.

(1) = Energy Institute of the University of Texas press release 23 Mar 2012 'Study Shows No Evidence of Groundwater Contamination from Hydraulic Fracturing', http://energy.utexas.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=154:study-shows-no-evidence-of-groundwater-contamination-from-hydraulic-fracturing&catid=34:press-releases&Itemid=54

(2) = University of Texas ‘ConocoPhillips Gives $1.5 Million to Fund Cutting-Edge Energy Research’, http://giving.utexas.edu/2010/11/01/conocophillips-energy-research/

(3) = BreakingLawSuitNews.com 23 Jan 2012 ‘Lawsuit Filed Against ConocoPhillips for Alleged Fracking-Related Water Contamination’ http://breakinglawsuitnews.com/lawsuit-filed-against-conocophillips-for-alleged-fracking-related-water-contamination/

(4) = Time 17 Feb 2012 ‘Shale Gas: It’s Not the Fracking That Might Be the Problem. It’s Everything Else’, http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/02/17/shale-gas-its-not-the-fracking-that-might-be-the-problem-its-everything-else/#ixzz1pKQpiwwM

(5) = Groat, Charles G. & Grimshaw, Thomas W. ( 2012) ‘Fact-Based Regulation for Environmental Protection in Shale Gas Development’,  Energy Institute of the University of Texas, February 2012, http://www.velaw.com/UploadedFiles/VEsite/Resources/ei_shale_gas_reg_summary1202[1].pdf (seems to download ok after a couple of refreshes on Internet Explorer, but won’t download on Firefox)

Fracking Insane - scientific evidence shows fracking causes illness by contaminating water and air with methane gas and toxic chemicals

The only reports saying it doesn’t are funded by the companies involved in fracking

Fracking or ‘hydraulic fracturing’ for shale gas has been being carried out for decades in the US and has now been approved by the British Coalition government (including Lib Dem minister Chris Hune) in Lancashire, including near Blackpool and by the Scottish SNP government in Scotland near Dumfries – with plans for more elsewhere (1) – (2).

 This is either a major mistake due to governments being taken in by propaganda and supposedly objective scientific studies funded by the companies involved; or else they are selling out the people they're meant to represent.

Oil companies who want to carry out ‘fracking’ (hydraulic fracturing) for gas are constantly claiming that there is ‘no evidence’ that fracking causes pollution of ground water or drinking water and no evidence it causes illnesses due to chemical and methane gas poisoning.

That claim is completely false. There’s lots of evidence of methane gas pollution of drinking water and ground water caused by fracking, found over decades, right up to the present ; and some recent evidence of chemicals used in fracking polluting water supplies.

The Evidence that Fracking causes air and water pollution with methane gas and fracking chemicals and serious illness

There’s a 1987 US environmental Protection Agency report on methane pollution of water supplies due to fracking in the mid-1980s in the US (3).

Those details of that report were not publicised by the EPA at the time for the same reason that most investigations of the effects of fracking are withheld for decades in the US - because big companies involved in fracking threatened people with law suits and legal bills they couldn’t afford if they continued to mention it ; and offered massive pay outs for ‘sealed court’ settlements on the other hand.

There are also recent scientific studies of dozens of fracking operations which found that ‘In aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we document systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale-gas extraction.’ (4)

There are also studies from 1999 to the present showing levels of methane in well water in areas where fracking has taken place being vastly greater than in other areas – often high enough to cause explosions (5) – (7).

The US EPA has also recently found evidence of pollution of water in Wyoming with chemicals used in fracking there (8).

The documentary film ‘gasland’, which showed people made seriously ill by air and water pollution and tapwater which could be set on fire as a result of fracking, is constantly attacked as ‘propaganda’ and ‘unscientific’ by the oil and gas companies and their lawyers. In fact it is supported by all of the above scientific evidence; and the main critics of Gasland have been revealed as industry front groups – especially Energy in Depth, whose funders are all companies involved in fracking (9) – (10).

BBC reports from Pennsylvania show the same problem – tapwater so full of methane and other chemicals that it can be set on fire – as the Gasland documentary did , as well as the same serious illnesses among residents within days of fracking beginning, including barium poisoning (11).

Many of the supposedly objective scientific studies of fracking which claim there’s no evidence it pollutes water supplies are directly or indirectly funded by the oil and gas companies involved in fracking.

Even one of these studies (by the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh) admits that ‘Air pollution is another factor that must be taken into consideration. Near the end of the well development, there is a practice called flaring that is used to get rid of the waste gas that is not able to be used. The excess gas is essentially set ablaze, leaving flames spewing far into the sky, burning for days on end, and emitting a significant amount of noxious gases.’ (12)

The Swanson study quotes it’s ‘additional resources’ as including  another supposedly objective academic study ‘The Economic Impacts of the Marcellus Shale: Implications for New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia’ which was a study funded by the ‘Marcellus Shale Coalition’, which factcheck.org found is in fact a trade association of companies involved in fracking for gas in the US (13) – (15).

A look at the full members of the Marcellus Shale Coalition and the funders of Energy in Depth shows they are the same companies (16) – (17).

Reports by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette found the Universities of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania are among those who refuse to provide details on what departments and studies were funded by private companies, let alone which private companies; and that campus associations and other proxy groups of these universities are taking money from the oil and gas companies for fracking operations on land owned by the universities, giving their studies of fracking another source of bias and conflict of interest (18) – (19).

Unsurprisingly the Swanson report  ends with the standard (and false) industry line that ‘It is important to note that not one case of pollution due to hydraulic fracturing has ever been recorded, though there have been occurrences due to other stages of the drilling process’ (my emphasis) (20)

The second part of the sentence seems to be making a distinction which in practice reveals how dishonest the first part of the sentence is. It’s just a semantic trick - playing with words by pretending that the stage of the fracking process which causes methane gas or chemical pollution of water supplies makes any difference.

The costs of fracking vastly outweigh the benefits

What will the costs be in terms of polluting farmland and drinking water supplies if fracking is allowed to continue? What will the cost be to the NHS and in lives of making large numbers of people ill , requiring treatment and unable to work, from methane and chemical pollution of drinking water and air due to fracking? What will be the cost in lives as people start dying due to fracking pollution of air and water supplies? How can jobs for some justify illness and death for far more people?

Is the plan perhaps that the number of people who die will reduce the unemployment statistics in the long run and that any who become too ill to work in the meantime will be classed as disabled rather than unemployed?

Any local council or national government giving permission for fracking is failing to protect the health and lives of it’s own people and is opening itself up to legal action and massive costs in the future, plus the responsibility for allowing the illness and death of large numbers of people and pollution that may last long after any jobs provided by fracking are gone. We have other industries we can create jobs and provide energy with – wind power, wave power and tidal power.

The economic benefit of the jobs created will be cancelled out by the bill in illness, death and increased food costs as polluting ground water will also reduce food production by killing crops and animals.

With climate change increasing droughts and the spread of desert and water use draining acquifers and rivers to the point they can’t recover across the world from California to the Middle East, water may be the ‘blue gold’ of the twenty first century (21) – (23). Permanently polluting it for gas supplies that may last only a few decades is not wise either.

What You Can Do

In Scotland:

Email First Minister Alec Salmond on this address -  Alex.Salmond.msp@scottish.parliament.uk and the Scottish cabinet scottish.ministers@scotland.gsi.gov.uk citing the scientific evidence from the US that fracking causes air and water pollution and serious illnesses and asking them to ban fracking in Scotlandon those grounds .

Please also forward this email,  or send an email with a link to this blog post to everyone you know who might sign.

In Wales:

Email the First Minister carwyn.jones@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Please also forward this email,  or send an email with a link to this blog post to everyone you know who might sign.

In England or anywhere in the UK

Sign the  UK government e-peitition calling for total ban on fracking in the UK, and/or the petition for a moratorium until further study .

You can email Prime Minister David Cameron on this link or write to him by post on the address on this link.

You can email UK Energy Minister Chris Huhne at this address ps.chris.huhne@decc.gsi.gov.uk.

To contact your local councillor, MP, MSP or member of the London, Welsh or Northern Ireland Assemblies go to this link.

Support the campaign to get 38 degrees to start a campaign against fracking in Scotland, England and Wales – add a comment and give 3 votes to the suggestion (this is not vote rigging – 38 degrees allows people 7 votes on what campaign suggestions it should take up at any time).

Please also forward this email, or send an email with a link to this blog post, to everyone you know who might sign.

In the US

You can contact your elected representatives at any level of government through the contact details on this website , refer them to the studies showing fracking causes air and water pollution and serious illnesses and ask them to call for a ban on it.

There are also petitions you can sign up to including Save the Water Table’s petition to ban fracking.

Please also forward this email, or send an email with a link to this blog post, to everyone you know who might sign.

Sources

(1) = Guardian.co.uk 02 Nov 2011 ‘Fracking 'probable' cause of Lancashire quakes’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/02/fracking-cause-lancashire-quakes

(2) = Scotland on Sunday 05 Nov 2011 ‘Fracking’ for gas given the green light’,  http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/fracking_for_gas_given_the_green_light_1_1950654

(3) = US Environmental Protection Agency 1987 ‘Report to Congress – Management of Wastes from the Exploration, Development and Production of Crude Oil, Natural Gas and Geothermal Energy – Volume 1 of 3 – Oil and Gas’,http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html

(4) = Osborn, Stephen G et al (2011) ‘Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing’in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 17, 2011 vol. 108 no. 20 8172-8176http://www.pnas.org/content/108/20/8172.short

(5) = Holzman, DC (2011) ‘Methane Found in Well Water Near Fracking Sites’ in Environ Health Perspectives 119 (01 Jul 1999),http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.119-a289

(6) = AP 5/9/2011 ‘Methane in water near gas drilling sites, study finds’,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42964307/ns/us_news-environment/t/methane-water-near-gas-drilling-sites-study-finds/#.TuPXPHpU2uI

(7) = CNN money 10 May 2011 ‘Tainted drinking water found near gas wells’, http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/09/news/economy/natural_gas_fracking_duke/index.htm

(8) = Bloomberg 12 Dec 2011 ‘Wyoming’s Tainted Water Puts Pressure on EPA to Act on Gas Fracking’,http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-12/wyoming-s-tainted-water-pressures-epa-on-to-act-on-gas-fracking.html

(9) = http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

(10) = The Independent Petroleum Association of America 05 Jun 2009 ‘Hydraulic Fracturing under attack’,http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/HFUnderFire.pdf , ‘The "Energy In Depth" project would not be possible without the early financial commitments of: El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, IPAA, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.’

(11) = BBC news 28 Nov 2011 ‘How fracking affects a community in Pennsylvania’,  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15919248

(12) = Korey A. Kirker & Ryan N. Burger (2011) ‘JUST THE FRACKING FACTS’, Swanson School of Engineering 9 April 20011, University of Pittsburgh , Eleventh Annual Freshman Conference, http://region8water.colostate.edu/PDFs/1267.pdf

(13) = see (10) above)

(14) = Condisine, Timothy J et al (2011) ‘The Pennsylvania Marcellus Natural Gas Industry: Status, Economic Impacts, and Future Potential’, Pennsylvania State University College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering http://marcelluscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Final-2011-PA-Marcellus-Economic-Impacts.pdf , p ii ‘Acknowledgements The authors of this study acknowledge that the Marcellus Shale Coalition provided the funding for this study.’

(15) = Factcheck.org 14 Oct 2011 ‘Just the Fracking Facts’, http://www.factcheck.org/2011/10/just-the-fracking-facts/

(16) = Marcellus Shale Coalition – Full Members, http://marcelluscoalition.org/about/full-members/

(17) = See (10) above

(18) = Pittsburgh Post Gazette 07 Nov 2011 ‘Corporate funding of Marcellus Shale studies at universities raises alarms’http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11311/1188150-503.stm#ixzz1gApAdRyG  (details companies involved in fracking funding studies of fracking at American universities, some of whom refuse to provide details of who funds research – including Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh)

(19) = Pittsburg Post Gazette 06 Nov 2011 ‘Drilling on Campus: Marcellus Shale boom puts colleges at crossroads’, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11310/1187594-113.stm#ixzz1gB2BK1jO (details how students associations and campus groups in Pennsylvania university are selling drilling rights for fracking operations to companies on campus)

(20) = See (12) above

(21) = Reuters 14 Dec 2009 ‘California aquifers seen rapidly losing water’, http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/15/us-water-california-idUSTRE5BE0FP20091215

(22) = US geological survey ‘Groundwater depletion’, http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html

(23) = BBC News 06 Oct 2009 ‘Jordan faces up to water crisis’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8292228.stm