John Hanger Wants To Be Your Big Gas Greenwash Governor: A Gander at His Gubernatorial Campaign Donors

When I came upon this campaign advertisement for John Hanger's run for the Democratic Party's governor's race nomination, I had to laugh--in that dark "this is just surreal" kind of way. It's not just that Dimock resident, "Gasland Starlet," now welcomed to the pro-gas fold ( http://marcellusdrilling.com/2013/10/gasland-ii-starlet-leaves-anti-drilling-behind-adopts-realism/) Victoria Switzer, has gone "total commitment" for Hanger. It's not even that the language of the ad is grammatically awkward, "I do not want the candidate that is given a thumbs up by the industry" (http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/01/realism-is-frack-speak-for-so-long-as-i.html).

It's that the ad's claim that "For sure, the gas companies do not want Hanger" is patently, demonstrably, laughably false.

The gas industry would love a Hanger governorship. Let's ask, for example, Hanger's campaign donors:

1. Eckert Seamans, for whom Hanger is employed as "special council," has donated $5,000. But, among other endeavors, Eckert Seamans makes a very tidy sum defending the natural gas industry. Here's just one example of Eclert Seaman's devotion to the continuing development of natural gas:

Eckert Seamans’ Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) practice group is dedicated to the development of a growing, sustainable and profitable market for vehicles powered by natural gas and hydrogen in the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic regions. We are focused on assisting and representing companies interested in the promotion and use of natural gas and hydrogen as transportation fuels or energy sources, including: local port authorities, trucking companies and transporters, vehicle and equipment manufacturers; fleet operators and service providers; natural gas distributors and producers. We will strive to help industry create and develop a profitable, sustainable and growing market for vehicles powered by natural gas and hydrogen.

Our Mission:

To be the primary "go-to" law firm for the NGV industry who reaches positive solutions through collective action; to provide sophisticated, innovative and high quality legal services, serve as a trusted advisor who will facilitate development, seek incentives for clients and successfully navigate the regulatory morass at both state and federal levels; to leverage our interdisciplinary skills, knowledge and experience from a wide variety of legal disciplines to address the broad spectrum of issues facing the dynamic natural gas vehicle industry; and to effectively guide our clients through strategic decisions, policy initiatives, commercial transactions, project financing and development, state and federal regulatory proceedings and litigation.

Clearly, a Hanger election is a win for Eckert Seamans' natural gas vehicle "mission."

In fact, when you read Eckert Seamans' "Environmental Practice" page, what you discover is that what these folks mean by "environmental" is defending its "heavy industrial and manufacturing clients against, well, folks from places like Switzer's Dimmock. Cue the dark, just surreal, laugh here:

The Environmental Group of Eckert Seamans is national in scope and is as diverse and broad-based as the subject matter itself. In addition to the firm’s traditional heavy industrial and manufacturing clients which include steel, glass, aluminum, chemical, coal, natural gas and other industries and manufacturers, as well as electric, gas, water and waste water utilities, the firm also represents financial institutions, real estate developers, food processors, construction and high tech companies. The firm’s clients range from closely held businesses to large publicly held companies.The firm’s environmental lawyers assist and counsel clients with compliance, enforcement, self disclosure, permitting, government rulemaking, responding to information requests, strategic planning and other matters that are subject to the major environmental regulatory programs, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and their state and local counterparts in numerous jurisdictions across the country.

In other words, Eckert Seamans helps keep companies like Cabot from being sued, and their lawyers like John Hanger get paid good money (say, like the 430,000 Hanger donated to his own campaign) to insure minimal compliance--what groups like Breathe Easy Susquehanna County want to sucker us into believing is a company's employ of "best practices." Then they greenwash it all by calling "compliance" environmental.

How surreal is that?

Only slightly more so than the "Practice Area" Energy page:

The Energy Group represents every segment of the natural resources industry, including renewable energy companies, traditional utilities, domestic energy companies, foreign energy companies, mineral companies, exploration and extraction companies, financial institutions, private equity firms, government entities, and other companies associated with the natural resource industry.

In other words, pay us, and we will defend whatever form of extraction you're into.

Even better:

As the domestic and international market for energy becomes more diverse and globally connected, it is important to select counsel that has the depth of knowledge, understanding and multidisciplinary experience to provide efficient and cost-effective representation.

Translation: We can't wait for those export depots like the one Dominion has planned at Cove Point Maryland goes into LNG transport.

But the real kicker is the Eckert Seamans "Marcellus Shale" "Practice Area" page where they announce right at the top their proud membership in the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry funded trade group whose membership includes not only some of the worst polluters and human rights violators on the planet, for example, Chevron ( http://ran.org/chevrons-toxic-legacy-ecuador), but the very companies responsible for the gag order agreed to by Switzer concerning water contamination (http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/30/silenced-critic-of-dimocks-water-problems-switches-to-air-pollution-concerns/).

So: Switzer (and Breathe Easy Susquehanna County) are supporting for governor an attorney who works for a powerful law firm that actively defends the gas companies against people just like her, and belongs to an organization--the Marcellus Shale Coalition--whose membership includes the company--Cabot--who is not only responsible for massive ecological and water damage in Dimock, but has somehow persuaded her to never talk about that fact. And to add surreal insult to injury--Hanger was head of DEP all the while Cabot was converting Dimock into a frack-gas extraction colony (http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/nearly-a-year-after-a-water-well-explosion-dimock-twp-residents-thirst-for-gas-well-fix-1.365743).

Talk about your facts of the day. Sheesh!

But the gas-soaked campaign donations don't stop with Eckert Seamans.

2. There's the $1,000 from discredited Penn State Professor Terry Engelder, the self-styled "father" of the shale gas boom (http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/02/15/the-unholy-alliance-of-big-energy-big-university-big-state-my-exchange-with-terry-engelder/)

3. There's Seth Obitz, $5,000 of Worley and Obitz (http://www.worleyobetz.com/):

We offer a wide array of energy products and services for your home, business and fleet, including AMERIgreen Energy products, 100% American Fuels, propane, farm propane, electricity, natural gas and natural gas conversions, heating oil, biofuels, renewable energy, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) service and HVAC installations, fleet fueling, and wholesale transport trucking.

4. There's the $1,000 from EQT:

EQT has poured nearly $328,000 into Pennsylvania elections since 2001 and $281,000 into statewide races across the country since 2003. On the whole, the fracking industry has spent $23 million to influence Pennsylvania politics since 2003. What do EQT and the rest of the industry reap from this political spending? On the national level, the industry’s influence has resulted in fracking– the process of injecting millions of gallons of toxin-laced water deep underground in order to break up shale rocks and extract “natural” gas – being exempt from major environmental regulations, including the Safe Drinking Water, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. In Pennsylvania, 47 percent of state forestlands have been leased to shale drillers and 80 percent of state park mineral rites have been privatized. The influence is also obvious when you look at EQT’s tax receipts. EQT’s effective federal tax rate over the past five years was -1 percent – meaning that, instead of paying, the corporation actually received $2 million back from the IRS. In Pennsylvania – where EQT is headquartered – the corporation’s five-year effective tax rate was only 0.1 percent. (http://www.citizenvox.org/2013/04/18/activists-to-fracking-corporation-eqt-elections-are-not-for-shale/).

5. There's the $1,000 from Joseph Dworetzky, an attorney from Hangley, Aronchick, Segal, Pudlin, Schiller:

We have been involved in projects to assist clients with both traditional and alternative energy projects. For example, we have assisted clients with myriad permitting aspects of wind farms, as well as permitting issues associated with the build-out of new pipeline systems. We have also been involved in representing landowners in negotiating agreements for the development of natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale region. (http://www.hangley.com/Energy/)

6. There's $2,000 from Steven Kean, Kinder Morgan, the folks who'd build the Tennessee Pipeline that could effectively end the fracking moratorium in the Delaware River Basin:

The Tennessee Gas Pipeline—the Northeast Upgrade Project—is essential to Kinder-Stiltskin’s vision: “The 13,900-mile Tennessee Gas Pipeline serves the Northeast with access to the Marcellus and Utica shale plays” transporting natural gas from “Louisiana, the Gulf of Mexico and south Texas.” (Kinder Morgan – Tennessee Gas Pipeline). KMEP promises a myriad array of benefits including the hire of local union-shop workers, revenue for local businesses, and an energy source that is “versatile, clean, and abundant” (Benefits of Natural Gas | Northeast Upgrade Project). The KMEP strategy is clear: amass as much pipeline infrastructure as possible across a wide array of extraction ventures (including, but not limited to, shale plays), distributing both risks and gains across that array, thereby defraying against production declines, and limiting competition. Then, via the advantageous corporate structure provided by the MLP, utilize incoming revenues to acquire additional pipeline. For example, KMEP “operates the only pipeline that carries tar sands crude out of Alberta over the Rocky Mountains to its tanker terminal in Vancouver. Kinder acquired the Trans Mountain Pipeline in 2005 and now seeks to expand it from 300,000 barrels per day to 750,000 bpd by building a new $4 billion pipe alongside the first. He’s already signed up nine oil companies eager to fill the proposed line with their crude.” Kinder is also gearing up for the Northern Gateway Project as well as part of the action in the Keystone XL Pipeline “to bring more oil sands crude into the U.S. and ultimately down to Gulf Coast refineries,” much to the discontent of environmentalists, (Rich Kinder’s Energy Kingdom – Forbes) (.http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2013/03/16/kinder-morgan-energy-partners-a-new-rumpelstiltskin-tries-to-cash-in-on-the-last-gasp-of-industrialized-extraction/).

In other words, Hanger takes campaign donations from a corporation invested and committed to the Keystone XL Pipeline (http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/07/youth-plan-mass-civil-disobedience-to-protest-keystone-xl/).

7. There's $5,000 from Charif Souki--WOW! Here's just a tiny sample, "The Export King: Meet America's Unlikeliest Gas Mogul":

Souki and his top executives were becoming more committed to the idea of exporting natural gas. They were convinced that they could retrofit the Louisiana terminal to make it capable of turning natural gas into LNG for selling abroad. In the early spring of 2010, Souki and his team received an estimate from Bechtel, the global construction firm, with a cost to reconfigure their plant. Bechtel judged it would cost about $450 for each ton of LNG it wanted to export. At that price, it would cost over $8 billion to convert the terminal into one that could export natural gas using four “trains,” or liquefaction and purification units. That would be enough to ship 18 million tons of gas a year. (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140250/gregory-zuckerman/the-export-king).

In other words, Hanger is taking money from folks committed to shipping natural gas overseas. So much for his stake in "American, cheap, natural, and abundant."

8. There's $10,000 from Steve Huntoon, Florida Power and Light--also, WOW!. I'll let you read the FERC decision for yourselves: https://www.ferc.gov/whats-new/comm-meet/2007/041907/G-1.pdf.

9. There's the $3,000 from Nora Meade Brownell: "Nora Mead Brownell is the co-founder of Espy Energy Solutions, LLC, an energy consulting firm and a former Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 2001–2006 under the administration of President George W. Bush."

Nora currently serves on the boards of the following public companies: Comverge, Inc. as the chair of the nominating and corporate governance committee and Spectra Energy Partners LP (http://www.forbes.com/profile/nora-brownell/).

Spectra Energy Partners, LP (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=211014&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1729456&highlight=):

The Spectra pipeline, a high-pressure natural gas delivery system that aims to bring hundreds of millions of barrels of hydrofracked gas directly into New York City, has sparked controversy just a few short months before its scheduled completion . The $1.2 billion project will pipe 800 million barrels of natural gas a day directly underneath Manhattan's iconic West Village neighborhood. The pipeline is an extension of Houston-based Spectra Energy's Texas Eastern gas delivery network, which exploits the huge Utica and Marcellus shale natural gas resources in western Pennsylvania and Ohio. But now, with the pipeline nearly complete (construction started almost a year ago and is expected to be done by November), activists are up in arms...High-pressure pipelines are also liable to explode, as the video points out. In 2012 alone, there were 244 significant incidents on U.S. pipelines that caused a total of 10 deaths and more than $180 million of property damage, according to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA.)...Spectra's safety record isn't exactly pristine. An explosion at a large underground Texas gas facility that was owned by Spectra's parent company, Duke Energy, caused a 1,000 foot-high fireball in 2004 that led to the evacuation of hundreds of residents within a three-mile radius of the storage facility, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time. (The explosion, caused by a faulty valve, was followed by a second explosion that prompted a second, wider, evacuation.) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/spectra-pipeline-fracking-new-york-city-activists_n_3209242.html).

So here's the simple upshot:

John Hanger could not be more in the tank for the gas. While he takes other money (from EverPower Wind, for example: http://www.everpower.com/), there simply is no denying that he solicits--and gets--donations from folks who will certainly expect Hanger to be every bit as frack-friendly as his predecessor.

And we have every reason to think he will be.

The only interesting question (and not very) is why all these Big Gas Companies haven't donated more. but that's actually pretty easy: they're hedging their bets. After all, they've got a pretty full slate on the Democrats side of candidates happy and willing to do their bidding. In fact the only two who won't are Paul Glover, Green Party (http://www.paulglover.org/) who, if tradition sets the standard, may get to act as a spoiler, or Mad Max Myers, whose religious affiliations and apparent anti-gay beliefs have likely already sunk his candidacy (http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/02/mad-max-myers-is-not-my-anti-fracking.html).

Nope, what this sad story points to--even beyond fracking--is the sheer vacuity of the political process, especially with respect to elections. I am tempted to conclude that this means we've got nobody. But the truth is just the opposite:

We have our collective will, our capacity to build community rights organizations, our commitment to stand up against both corrupt politicians who'd sucker us into believing--like the sad folks at Breathe Easy Susquehanna County (http://www.shalereporter.com/blog/tara_zrinski/article_20748998-3a98-11e3-8f50-0019bb30f31a.html)--that there's some magical causal powers attached to phrases like "best practices," and "being realistic."

As I have said many times now, "To hell with being "realistic."

No movement for anything worthwhile got a damn thing done by being "realistic." Better that we should do a little real work--as I have done here--vetting a candidate.

Better that we should risk practically everything, as Socrates advised, than lose it all to the cowardice that "being realistic" really means.

A primary vote for John Hanger is a vote for the continued march to 100,000 frack gas wells in Pennsylvania, with all the bells and whistles--pollutions and explosions and disease--that go with them. It's a vote for frack gas export. It's a vote for climate change.

And if you've read this piece, your excuse for remaining self-deluded about what Hanger really stands for is over--and it ain't you.


* Awesome poster by Paul Glover, Pennsylvania Green Party candidate for governor.

"Realism" is Frack-Speak for "So long as I get mine...": Marcellus Drilling News and the Breathin' Easy "Total Commitment" of John Hanger's Good NIMBYs

In October, 2013, Marcellus Drilling News reported that Victoria Switzer, "Starlet of Gasland II," "leaves anti-drilling behind," and "adopts realism" (http://marcellusdrilling.com/2013/10/gasland-ii-starlet-leaves-anti-drilling-behind-adopts-realism/):

What’s this…one of the stars of Gasland II, someone who trash-talked the shale drilling industry in Dimock, PA has changed sides? Yep. Well, sort of. Victoria Switzer has given up what she calls “tunnel vision” and has adopted “realism.” She says, “Realism is good.” She no longer calls for a halt to drilling in PA and instead wants to ensure it’s done safely–by working with industry and regulators. Welcome to logic and sanity! Glad to have you on our side. Watch out Josh Fox: Switzer is not the only former anti-driller now whistling a different tune…

What's immediately remarkable about this quote is the reference to "trash-talking" the shale gas industry--as if Switzer, who MDN now refers to affectionately as "Vickie," and Gasland/Gasland II maker Josh Fox never really had a leg to stand on with respect to the claim that Cabot Oil and Gas was responsible for, say, an 8,000 gallon drilling fluids spill along with the contamination of drinking water wells in Dimock, Susquehanna County.

Let's review:

Pennsylvania environment officials are racing to clean up as much as 8,000 gallons of dangerous drilling fluids after a series of spills at a natural gas production site near the town of Dimock last week.

The spills, which occurred at a well site run by Cabot Oil and Gas, involve a compound manufactured by Halliburton that is described as a "potential carcinogen" and is used in the drilling process of hydraulic fracturing, according to state officials. The contaminants have seeped into a nearby creek, where a fish kill was reported by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP also reported fish "swimming erratically."

The incident is the latest in a series of environmental problems connected to Cabot’s drilling in the Dimock area. Last winter, drinking water in several area homes was found to contain metals and methane gas that state officials determined leaked underground from Cabot wells. And in the spring, the company was fined for several other spills, including an 800-gallon diesel spill from a truck that overturned. (http://www.propublica.org/article/frack-fluid-spill-in-dimock-contaminates-stream-killing-fish-921).

Apparently 2009 is ancient history for Switzer who, in the name of "realism," conveniently forgets that even John Hanger--Democratic Party contender for the 2014 governor's race--admits that "mistakes caused in gas drilling by Cabot [Oil and Gas] caused methane to pollute the water wells of 18 families" (http://pipeline.post-gazette.com/news/archives/25238-pa-gov-hopeful-john-hanger-upset-with-portrayal-of-dimock-pa-incident-in-gasland-2). Hanger's band-aid solution to the methane contamination, an "extension of a water line to the families," also failed, and as opposed to drawing the right conclusion, namely, that the law clearly favored the gas companies over the rights of citizens and communities, Hanger essentially gave up. The then head of DEP knew that Department of Environmental Protection regulations utterly failed to protect the 18 families in Dimock, and he did nothing to change the law. Indeed, this is as much as John Hanger wanted from Cabot--and this is what John Hanger thinks is enough:

[T]he Consent Order included not issuing for a period any new drilling permits to Cabot statewide; stopping Cabot from drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Dimock area; requiring Cabot to plug or repair gas wells to stop the source of the methane migration; install machines at each of the 18 water wells to get methane out of the water; to provide water deliveries to the 18 families impacted; and substantial fines that eventually added up to more than $1 million. (http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2013/07/gasland-2-and-dimock-water-line-real.html).

A million dollars in fine amounts to nothing more than a light slap on the wrist even if Hanger had achieved it--and of course he didn't. Moreover, absolutely nothing in this Consent Order actually prevents future methane contamination of drinking water. Nothing raises any question whatsoever about the hazards of fracking itself. Nonetheless, "Vickie" Switzer has become one of Hanger's most adoring supporters--and that makes sense since both are "realists," which seems to be code for "not looking beyond the law," "not asking the critical question whether the law is just," and "not paying attention to the fact that the industry has, in flat fact, written the law for themselves."

Both have conceded to living in a world where it is enough that regulation controls--to some very limited and laughably inadequate extent (see Dimock)--the rate of harm from hydraulic fracturing, compressor stations, pipeline, waste tanker, waste pit, truck traffic, etc. Note carefully that "rate" in no way implies "amount."

Fact is, there's no reason on earth to believe that the amount of harm will be one iota different.

Where the consequences are climate change, notions like "amount" don't really even make any sense. We will all be affected by climate change--and just because there are a tiny few who may be in a position to mitigate those effects for themselves, say, by holing up in their "dream homes," does not mean that that smattering bit of mitigation comes free.

It's not. In fact, it's bought directly at your expense. After all, you may not have the time, the leisure--or even the John Hanger--to deploy to get the gas companies to utilize their "best practices" to diminish your chances of cancer or neurological damage or asthma or endocrine disease. Plus, the money they're spending to appease starlets like Vickie is money they'll be looking to make up somewhere else--like cutting corners drilling under your "special place," say, your yard.

While folks like Vickie are chattin' it up with the gas companies, distracting all of our attention away from the real issues, the gas companies are frackin' away--and converting Pennsylvania into a deforested mineral extraction colony for LNG export. While Vickie's busy being "realistic," the gas companies are too--all the way to the very real deposits they're off-shoring, the real moola they're spending to make sure they are protected from the carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, and other toxins to which you and your family may be exposed.

In fact, what Vickie Switzer clearly regards as "realistic" is "controlling the rate of harm to her, her family, her neighbors."

And that ain't you.

My name is Victoria Switzer, and I live in Gasland. I also live in the real world. I am here today to offer my total commitment and support for John Hanger's bid for the Democratic nominee for Governor of my Commonwealth, my Penn's Woods.

But Vickie's Penns Woods aren't your Penns Woods, and while she's retiring to her "dream house" to "paint, write and make jewelry," it's clear that the Not-in-My-Back-Yard--NIMBY--argument that the natural gas industry decries against you when you refuse to sign a gas lease isn't the same NIMBY argument when Vickie--and her "total commitment" friends at Breathe Easy Susquehanna County (BESC) settle down for a cup-o-joe with their new friends at Cabot Oil and Gas.

Except it is exactly the same--with this caveat: when Vickie decides that she doesn't want to fight the gas anymore, and wants to delude herself that John Hanger's interest in her and in Dimock amounts to anything other than political expediency, she forms an entire organization--BESC--to effect her--and Cabot's--vision of the good NIMBY, the NIMBY who, behind the very thin veil of "realism," gets into bed with the same companies that may very well destroy your water wells, your property values, your children's health, your animal's health, your community, and you.

And then, of course, there's Marcellus Drilling News who recognizes that MDN's on "shaky ground" admitting that "there is a growing body of evidence that shows a marked increase in air pollution in heavily drilled areas–mostly from compressor plants, but also from drilling rigs, truck traffic, etc." (http://marcellusdrilling.com/2013/11/the-one-issue-on-which-anti-and-pro-drillers-agree/).

Talk about understatement.

In other words, just like John Hanger, and just like the industry itself, MDN can exploit their recent convert--starlet Vickie Switzer--to simultaneously acknowledge that there is increasing evidence of harm and deny that it really matters. After all, if it's not so serious that it prevents Vickie and the folks of BESC from snuggling up to the gas, it can't really be that bad, right?

Except it really is--and that's the only "realism" that matters.

Put it this way: today, January 6th, 2014 the AP reports that the price of natural gas fell from $4.37 per 1000 cubic feet to $4.30--in just one week. Imagine the pressure to get export facilities on-line and the gas to the global markets to sell to China and to India.

That should put some reality into your realism.

Now imagine just what lengths the gas industry will go to to get the gas to market--think "BP," "Anadarko," Deep Water Horizon," and you get a little closer to reality.

Now consider just how much that gas representative sitting across the table from you with his cup-o-joe is likely to actually give a fuck about your local air emissions or water contamination problems.

Seriously, how daft and self-deluded do you have to be to buy that barrel of bull shit?

Just one more return to ancient history--2009:

According to a Material Safety Data Sheet provided to the state this week by Halliburton, the spilled drilling fluid contained a liquid gel concentrate consisting of a paraffinic solvent and polysaccharide, chemicals listed as possible carcinogens for people. The MSDS form – for Halliburton’s proprietary product called LGC-35 CBM – does not list the entire makeup of the gel or the quantity of its constituents, but it warns that the substances have led to skin cancer in animals and "may cause headache, dizziness and other central nervous system effects" to anyone who breathes or swallows the fluids. (http://www.propublica.org/article/frack-fluid-spill-in-dimock-contaminates-stream-killing-fish-921)

Nevertheless, Vickie insists that she "had to work with the industry."

“We had to work with the industry. There is no magic wand to make this go away,” said Switzer, who recently formed a group that seeks to work with drillers on improved air quality standards. “Tunnel vision isn’t good. Realism is good” (http://nypost.com/2013/10/07/anti-fracking-activists-learn-to-work-with-gas-industry/).

She has that partly right--there is no magic wand to make the damage to Pennsylvania's air and water go away.

But no one has to work with the industry anymore than anyone had to work with, say, the enforcers of Apartheid. No one had to work with those who deliberately contaminated blankets given to Native Americans with small pox. No one has to concede to being silent in the face of animal abuse, child molestation, battery.

No one has to turn their back on the real or potential suffering of others.

She or he just needs a conscience and a courage that tells them when undertaking a risk is warranted--like when the stakes are as high as the planet is round, for example.

Speaking out forcefully against real harm is risky.

But what Switzer--and BESC--have decided is not that they had to work with the industry--that is nothing but excuse. What these folks decided is simply the cost is too high for them, that the welfare of folks they don't know and won't ever know wasn't worth the risk. "Realism" is that case means "puttin' my head in the sand," (or the silica, if you prefer). And that is the NIMBY's "so long as I get mine" "realism."

If we "have to work with the industry," why on earth do we pretend that we are citizens, that we live in a nation of laws designed to protect us, that we are anything other than disposable tools--that is, when we're not irritating obstacles, or, if we've had a really good day in the movement, momentary liabilities to profit?

If we "have to work with the industry," why can't we just call this what it is: corporatist fascism? That's not "radical," that's just an "is what it is."

Why, if he's elected, doesn't this make John Hanger's administration a "kinder, gentler fascism"?

It's no wonder that Marcellus Drilling News took immediate advantage of Vickie's "realism."

The only wonder is that she--the folks at BESC--don't realize they're industry tools.

This year, Switzer and [Rebecca] Roter co-founded Breathe Easy Susquehanna County, an organization that seeks to persuade companies to use advanced technologies to limit emissions. The group has won plaudits for its non-confrontational style ( http://nypost.com/2013/10/07/anti-fracking-activists-learn-to-work-with-gas-industry). /

You bet they did. Hell, following out their "total commitment" to John Hanger, BESC can't even bring itself to support the Democratic party moratorium resolution.

I acknowledge forthrightly that I am taking some real heat from within the anti-fracking movement for calling out what I regard as concession to a real moral evil. I have---not surprisingly--been accused of "dividing the movement."

But if "keeping the movement together" requires we concede to the gas industry--what's the point of having a movement at all?

What's our movement for if not to end the conversion of Pennsylvania--and everywhere industrialized extraction occurs--from a beautiful forested countryside where people want to live into wasteland where "reclamation" means green paint, grass seed, and straw?

How many years did Nelson Mandela go to prison for resisting apartheid? If he'd sat down over a cup-o-joe with the racist government of South Africa, would apartheid have ended?

No.

Was it "realism" that governed Mandela's decision--or was it a conscience that demanded he think beyond his own fortunes?

I think Mandela would have this to say: where the right thing to do is clear, "realism" must take a back seat to conscience--even where that means your dream house and your jewelry making have to wait.

Wendy Lynne Lee

*All photographs taken by Wendy Lynne Lee except photo of Victoria Switzer and logo of Marcellus Drilling News.