http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/06/12/california-officials-want-aquifers-exempted-so-oil-industry-can-dump-toxic-waste

CA Officials Want To Allow Oil Industry To Dump Toxic Waste Into Aquifers, Exempt Them From Federal Protection

By Mike Gaworecki • Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 06:03

California officials announced on Wednesday that they will seek the exemption of as many as 60 underground aquifers from federal protections so that the oil industry can use them to dispose of toxic oilfield wastewater. 

Regulators with the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) said they will submit the necessary applications to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the next four months to exempt aquifers in Monterey, Ventura, Kern and other counties from federal laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act.

In a statement issued in response to DOGGR’s plan, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which has put together an interactive map of the aquifers in question, noted that “Oil wastewater commonly contains cancer-causing benzene and other pollutants, according to [DOGGR]’s own testing. Flowback fluid coming out of fracked wells in California contains benzene at levels as high as 1,500 times the federal limits for drinking water, according to oil companies’ own tests.”

Over the course of late 2014 and early 2015, DOGGR gradually admitted to having improperly permitted thousands of injection wells to operate in aquifers that should have been protected under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

In the wake of the revelations, state senators denounced DOGGR’s handling of California’s underground injection program as “corrupt, inept, and woefully mismanaged.” One senator pointed out that “There has been a serious imbalance between the role [of] regulating the oil and gas industry and the role of protecting the public.”

A very small fraction — a few dozen, at most — of those illegal injection wells have been shut down so far. The EPA has given California until February 2017 to bring oil companies and their injection wells into compliance with the law.

State officials are apparently hoping the EPA will allow the rest of the illegal wells to continue operating by exempting the aquifers from legal protection altogether.

Map of aquifers DOGGR is applying to have exempted from federal safe drinking water laws by the Center for Biological Diversity.

DOGGR announced on Wednesday that it would file up to 60 applications for aquifer exemptions in a conference call with a number of environmental organizations that have been pressuring the agency to release a list of the applications.

“State oil regulators’ disturbing proposal to sacrifice dozens of aquifers to the oil industry is an enormous threat to California’s water supplies,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney with the CBD. “The federal EPA must stop this incredibly foolish plan to let oil companies dump polluted waste fluid into these underground water sources.”

Kretzmann told DeSmog that it’s difficult to count the aquifers that actually overlap with the illegal injection wells already in operation because DOGGR “has been so terrible at making that information available.”

The lists DOGGR has released of the illegal injection wells only list the oil field, not the aquifer.

“For example, there are dozens of wells operating in the ‘Round Mountain’ oil field, but according to the aquifer exemption application, there are at least four protected aquifers in that field, all at different depths, so it’s hard to know which wells are associated with which protected aquifer,” Kretzmann said.

But it is possible to approximate. “It looks like there are roughly 48 oil fields that will be proposed for exemption through 60 applications (some fields have multiple applications),” Kretzmann added.

In other words, DOGGR is pushing for exemptions for the majority of injection wells that DOGGR itself has admitted are illegal.

“Rather than protect these groundwater resources, DOGGR is giving them away to the oil companies,” Kretzmann said.

Image Credit: The San Ardo Oil Field, a large oil field in Monterey County, California. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

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"Homophobia"

Confessions From a Former CIA Covert Agent

Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, FBI report says

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/10/fbi_criminal_investigation_emails_clinton_approved_cia_drone_assassinations_with_her_cellphone_report_says/

FRIDAY, JUN 10, 2016 09:30 AM PDT

FBI criminal investigation emails: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

WSJ: FBI is investigating Hillary's classified emails on State Dept. approval of CIA drone killings in Pakistan

BEN NORTON


U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checks her phone in October 18, 2011 (Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

The FBI has been conducting a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information for months.

An explosive new report reveals just what it is that the FBI is looking to: emails in which then-Secretary of State Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations in Pakistan with her cellphone.

From 2011 on, the State Department had a secret arrangement with the CIA, giving it a degree of say over whether or not a drone killing would take place.

The U.S. drone program has killed hundreds of civilians in Pakistan and other countries.

Under Sec. Clinton, State Department officials approved almost every single proposed CIA drone assassination. They only objected to one or two attacks.

The emails that are at the heart of the FBI’s criminal investigation are 2011 and 2012 messages between U.S. diplomats in Pakistan and their State Department superiors in D.C., in which the officials approved drone strikes.

Clinton’s aides forwarded some of these emails to her personal email account, on a private server in her home in suburban New York.

These are the revelations of a report by The Wall Street Journal, based on information provided by anonymous congressional and law-enforcement officials who were briefed on the FBI’s probe.

The State Department revealed in January that 22 of the emails that were on Clinton’s private server at her home contained top-secret information. These messages were not publicly released, and an investigation was eventually launched.

The White House acknowledged in a press briefing on Thursday that the FBI probe into Clinton’s handling of classified information is a “criminal investigation.” President Obama endorsed Clinton for president on the same day.

Hundreds of civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and more have been killed by U.S. drones.

Pakistan is the site of more U.S. drone strikes than any other country. The Obama administration has carried out more than 370 drone attacks in Pakistan, killing as many as 1,000 civilians, including up to 200 children, according to data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The exact number of civilians killed is unknown, because the U.S. is very secretive about its program, and because it essentially redefines militant to mean any man of military age in a targeted area.

In 2011, some Pakistani officials pushed back against the U.S. drone assassination program, leading the U.S. State Department to ask the CIA to be more “judicious” about the timing of drone attacks. Clinton’s State Department did not oppose the CIA’s specific choice of targets, just their timing.

This led to a compromise in which the CIA gave the State Department some voice in the drone assassination process. Beginning in 2011, CIA officers began notifying diplomats in the U.S. embassy in Islamabad of planned attacks. The diplomats then conveyed the information to senior State Department officials.

This agreement gave then-Secretary of State Clinton and her aides personal say in U.S. drone killings.

The Wall Street Journal report provides more insight into the State Department’s coordination with the CIA on the secretive drone program.

State Department officials were given notice before a planned attack, sometimes with a narrow timeframe of as few as 30 minutes. Officials told the FBI that they used a less-secure system of communication when they had to make a decision quickly before a drone killing and were not at the office.

Roughly half a dozen times, State Department officials sent emails on their smartphones in order to approve a drone assassination when they were away from secure communications systems.

The U.S. is very secretive about its covert CIA drone campaign. Strict U.S. classification rules bar officials from discussing drone killings publicly and outside of secure communications systems.

Given this secrecy, law-enforcement and intelligence officials told the Journal that State Department discussion of the covert CIA drone program should have been conducted via a more secure communications system.

The criminal investigation into Clinton’s emails has often been a right-wing talking point, but the scandal has much wider implications.

Reflecting on the Journal’s report, award-winning journalist Jeremy Scahill, one of the world’s leading experts on the secretive CIA drone program, commented, “So many liberals poo poo the Hillary email scandal for totally partisan reasons. If it was a Republican, they would be going bananas.”

“People claiming emails on Hillary’s private server were not classified do not understand how classification works,” Scahill added. “It’s an HRC talking point.”

“It’s acceptable to mishandle classified info on your bathroom server and share classified info with your mistress, just don’t blow any whistles,” he quipped, referencing the fact that the Obama administration has waged an unprecedentedly harsh crackdown on whistleblowers.

The FBI is expected to interview Clinton this summer about the scandal. Law-enforcement officials told the Journal they don’t think criminal charges will be filed against her after the investigation.

Clinton herself has repeatedly confidently insisted that she is not going to be charged.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner refused to speak about the emails or the investigation.

Ben Norton is a politics staff writer at Salon. You can find him on Twitter at@BenjaminNorton.