Bobby Hurt again

I notice gas prices lately have not given you an opportunity to demagogue.  Though perhaps you're tempted to gloat, as lives have been jeopardized and communities ruined for tertiary recovery of fossil energy.  I remember the days, in Nixon's administration, and Ford's, when I worked as a summer intern for what was then ERDA, I believe, predecessor to the DoE, abstracting proposals for such technologies.  I'm delighted to see them brought to fruition.  I'm not so delighted at the methane cloud above New Mexico and contaminated well water in other communities.  Perhaps even aquifer depletion is occurring.  (I forgot about earthquakes when writing Bobby Hurt).  All these externalities by which we are subsidizing the current cheap price of gas.  These externalities must be internalized into the price of crude and methane and gasoline, by regulated compensation and strict tort liability for the extractors.  Let's pay at the pump for their increased direct and underwriting expenses.

I've said as much in the past.  Why I write now is because I got an email from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the issue of proprietary formulations of fracking chemicals as an impediment to community and plaintiff action.  I call on you to set low thresholds for presumptive evidence of harm, sufficient to subpoena and force disclosure of chemicals used, and as I've said in the past, to create a rebutable presumption that such chemicals in groundwater both originate from the fracking operation and contribute to illness if such contribution is evident in laboratory animals.  Underwriting costs will likely soar in a just legal and regulatory system for tertiary extraction.  SO BE IT!!  PAY AT THE PUMP!!!