Photo: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune

A major political group says that to solve America’s environmental problems, we must let Big Oil Have more control over public policy. That group is Big Oil.

Indeed, such giants as Exxon and Shell Oil have long complained that environmentalists, consumers, and other busybodies, keep using legislation and lawsuits to interfere with their environmental “innovations.” But now, top state officials in (where else?) Texas have found a solution: Just ban the public from meddling in oil industry business.

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At issue is a scheme by oil barons to sell the wastewater they use in “fracking,” a notoriously destructive way of forcing oil out of the ground. It’s also terribly wasteful, requiring five barrels of water to get one barrel of oil. But, “Eureka!” cried industry profiteers – we can treat that “backwash” with some chemicals and market it as “produced water.” Letting us pump this fracking product right into the state’s lakes, rivers, aquifers, and other waterways, they say, will replenish the state’s dwindling water supply.

But is that safe? Rather than answer, the corporate powers rushed to the governor and legislature – not seeking protections for the people, but to protect themselves and their profits from the people. Sure enough, the state’s corporate corrupted politicos dutifully passed a law decreeing that companies producing, selling, or transporting recycled fracking water cannot be held liable for any “consequences” suffered by those using the product. Consequences? Yes, like poisoned crops, illnesses… and death!

When the Sierra Club demanded safety studies on the obvious dangers of spewing oil wastewater on and in everything, an industry functionary scoffed, declaring: “We’ve studied this problem to death.” Ooooo – bad choice of words!

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