The Gaia Reports By Theodora Filis - Environmental Journalist

  By Theodora Filis As of 2023, from rural Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, more than 17 million Americans live within a mile of at least one oil or gas well. Since 2014, most new oil and gas wells  have been fracked . The Safe Drinking Water Act, enacted in 1974,  regulates the underground injection of chemicals  that can threaten drinking water supplies. However, Congress has  exempted fracking from most federal regulations  under the law. As a result, fracking is regulated at the state level, and requirements  vary from state to state . The “Halliburton loophole” was created by Congress in 2005, at the “urging” of then, Vice President, Dick Cheney. Despite serious concerns, from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that chemicals used in Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking) demonstrate spoiling and contamination of drinking water, Cheney's “energy task force” promoted the benefits of fracking and disregarded any references to human health hazards. Halliburton, previously led

By Theodora Filis NOTE: The original post was in 2012 Josh Fox, writer, and director of Gasland, a documentary that focuses on American communities that have been impacted by the increase in natural gas drilling, specifically hydraulic fracturing or fracking, was arrested when he tried to film a hearing on fracking, in the House Energy and Environment subcommittee examining the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) findings that hydraulic fracturing fluids had contaminated groundwater in the town of Pavillion, Wyoming. During the McCarthy era, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations, questioning, and arrests. McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence.                                                      “McCarthyism” After his arrest on We