Oil/gas public hearing

The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet has scheduled three public hearings in July 2015 to get input on oil and gas development in Kentucky, including fracking. The input will guide the deliberations of a working group that is advising the cabinet on how to update Kentucky's oil and gas laws, and to prepare for an anticipated boom in high-volume hydraulic fracking.

Though much will be discussed about the particulars of oil and gas extraction, Kentucky needs to back up and ask the more important question – wouldn't it be better to protect people and the communities where we live by banning high-volume hydraulic fracking as other states have done? Simply to regulate the worst impacts of fracking, as the governor and General Assembly seemed inclined to do, legitimizes the harm that will be done to our health and the contaminated communities that will be with us for decades.

More fracking and the accompanying infrastructure (pipelines, waste disposal wells, etc.) is an investment that takes us down the wrong energy path, and denies Kentuckians clean energy jobs, healthier communities, and a more sustainable and less costly energy future. Kentucky has an opportunity, right now, to invest in clean energy jobs and economic growth that comes from solar deployment, wind development, use of combined heat and power, and savings from energy efficiency. We need to make that choice.

We encourage Kentuckians to let state officials know (by attending one of the hearings or submitting written comments) that you support the following path forward:

• Promote the development of renewable and sustainable energy sources and energy efficiency. A good start would be to pass the Clean Energy Opportunity Act and embrace the 28,000 new Kentucky jobs it will create over the next 10 years, and to renew tax credits for renewable energy.
• Do not allow high volume hydraulic fracking in Kentucky that puts all Kentuckians at risk and makes us more dependent on dirty fossil fuels.
• Oppose new construction and repurposing of pipelines that puts Kentuckians at risk and make us more dependent on dirty fossil fuels.
• Protect the Ohio River from becoming a disposal pipeline for fracking wastes.