ThinkProgress:
Ohio’s transparency-allergic treasurer and U.S. senate candidate Josh Mandel (R) is finally stepping out on stage by offering a certain type of policy positions: wildly unpopular. Mandel endorsed Gov. John Kasich’s (R) anti-labor law early this summer, insisting that Senate Bill 5 — a bill that was resoundingly defeated by police and firefighters — “is about respecting police and firefighters.” Now, Mandel is demanding that Ohio officials open up a national forest in Ohio to fracking — a policy 70 percent of Ohioans oppose. And he wants it done immediately.....
If Mandel likes fracking so much, perhaps Mandel would like to have some fracking in his yard, in his neighborhood, or in Lyndhurst. ProPublica published this:
For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.
The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks....
....The group tested 68 drinking water wells in the Marcellus and Utica shale drilling areas in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York State. Sixty of those wells were tested for dissolved gas. While most of the wells had some methane, the water samples taken closest to the gas wells had on average 17 times the levels detected in wells further from active drilling. The group defined an active drilling area as within one kilometer, or about six tenths of a mile, from a gas well.....
YouTube has a video from CBS that shows what it is like when methane from fracking is found in your home faucet: http://youtu.be/con8vHdH5fs
It is clear that Mandel hasn't a clue about fracking and knows nothing about the wants and needs of Ohioans. He is just parroting the wants and needs of his far right contributors, and those of Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Jim DeMint, and other extremists.
