By Maura Stephens
Pennsylvania’s state legislature has effectively signed a death warrant for some number of residents, who knows how many. Corbett’s about to make it official.
Pennsylvanians: Fight back — or suffer the consequences.
The fracking industry has written a bill that gives itself legal permission to poison Pennsylvanians-and keeps doctors who treat them once they’re poisoned from telling anyone else what poisoned them. The bill also essentially permits all gas drilling and processing activities anywhere, including in residential areas.
It’s all being sold as an “impact fee” bill. Counties that want the income will sign on — and that probably means most counties will.
The industry was helped in this covert operation by crooks in political office. Those political criminals should be held accountable (more on this below).
The 174-page bill, HB1950, was signed in both the House and Senate of the state’s General Assembly, and on Friday (2/10/12) the Senate passed it to Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett for signature.
This is yet the latest egregious example of industry-state denial of municipalities’ right to protect themselves. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that this is the legal permitting of murder — and legalization of coerced suicide.
There can be no question that the legislators who signed it are in collusion with industry. They are corrupt. There can be no other explanation. These people have an obligation to protect the citizens of Pennsylvania, and not only are they not doing so, but they are also denying citizens the right to protect themselves—and denying physicians and nurses the ability to protect their patients!
And if this outrage does not get Pennsylvanians (and everyone) out in the streets, in Harrisburg at the governor’s mansion demanding a veto, and at the offices of state legislators, demanding a reversal of the bill’s passage, I do not know what will.
As Berks-Mont News reported on January 25, Pennsylvania municipalities currently do “have the legal right to decide where and how gas development occurs. Both the Municipalities Planning Code and the State Constitution vest municipalities with the authority and responsibility to address local environmental and public resources. State Supreme Court rulings have also made it clear that the state Oil and Gas Act allows municipalities the right to use zoning codes to restrict the location of gas wells.”
This law negates those rights and completely strips communities of their rights to self govern. This is a blatant abrogation of the United States constitution and all the hackneyed assertions that We the People have any say any longer in crafting U.S. law.
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