Help Us Expose the Fracking Truth and Every Donation Will Go Twice as Far
December 27, 2011
Dear Friend of the Center for Media and Democracy:
Over the past two years, CMD has been exposing the gas industry's PR campaign to gloss over the real costs of the boom in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for "natural" gas across the U.S. We've been at the forefront of debunking swift-boat smear funder T. Boone Pickens and other gasbags that new drilling operations in people's backyards are all about "national security" when in reality the gas industry is exporting more of America's gas to other countries than ever before, while spoiling more and more wells and waterways with the toxic waste of their largely unregulated drilling and distribution operations.
Click here to support our investigations of the gas industry.
CMD has received a special challenge grant in which every donation, up to $50,000, will be matched dollar for dollar to help expose the facts about fracking. We need your help to dig even deeper into fracking game. To help tell that story, we've created dossiers on the biggest fracking companies and the money they've been spreading around to politicians to limit regulation of fracking. We've been tracking corporate-funded groups, like "Energy in Depth," which has attacked those who object, as well as the astroturf activities of so-called "Energy Citizens," corporate employees dressed up to look like a grassroots movement demanding that we basically "drill, baby, drill" with even fewer protections for health and safety.
Click here to have your donation to investigate energy front groups doubled through this matching grant.
We've also been analyzing the Koch connection with their massive pipeline business and history of pipeline leaks. CMD's historical analysis of the billionaire Koch Brothers has been featured in The Nation magazine, on Democracy Now!, and in the work of Brave New Films and other outlets. Our breakthrough coverage of the Wisconsin protests and the corporate players, like David Koch's greed-is-good group, "Americans for Prosperity," helped open people's eyes across the nation. We need your support to document more about the role of the Koch brothers in the industry, in energy speculation, and in influencing politicians.
Click here to help us expand our efforts to expose the Kochs and their buddies in the global gas and oil industry.
As you know, in 2011, we also launched the unprecedented effort to expose the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by analyzing and making available nearly 1,000 "model" bills secretly voted on by global corporations and politicians behind closed doors. The way we approached this investigation has inspired hundreds of news stories illuminating this secret distortion of our democracy. We have new reporting coming in January about the focus of ALEC corporations and politicians on fracking. Major funders of ALEC's recent conferences that have a stake in this big business include BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chesapeake Energy, EnCana Corporation, and CN (Canadian National Railroad).
Click here to have your support matched $1 to $1 for our future investigations of the fracking corporations.
We're also examining how ALEC politicians in Wisconsin and elsewhere are pushing to mine fracking sand akin to mountain-top removal in which whole hills are destroyed. ALEC by the way, has promoted the "blueprint" to pre-empt local democratic efforts to regulate companies, in addition to its efforts to strip the EPA of key regulatory powers. And, now in Pennsylvania, we even have seen an effort to pre-empt the Pittsburgh city council's ban on fracking based on its in-depth examination of the impact of the drilling.
Will you help us expose the facts about fracking by donating today?
Every dollar you contribute will be doubled, up to $50,000.
Sincerely,
Lisa
Lisa Graves
Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy
P.S. Citizens across the country, in New York and elsewhere, are waking up to the devastating consequences of gas leases they signed filled with fine print that leaves them, and us, with spoiled water and spoiled land. In some states, like Pennsylvania, the government has even used "homeland security" powers and dollars that were supposed to protect against foreign terrorists instead to investigate law-abiding citizens who dare to speak up. Some in the gas industry have even launched PR counter-offensives to use "counter-insurgency" strategies against concerned Americans, treating them like enemies in warzones. That's why investigative journalism on these issues is even more crucial than ever. Please click here to make a donation in any amount.
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