Oklahoma Shakes

Four earthquakes in northwestern Oklahoma, one registering 4.6, were felt this morning as far away as Kansas City, MO. Yesterday, another four earthquakes struck in the same region, with one registering 3.7.

In recent years, the oil and gas industry practice of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") -- the high pressure injection of fluids into rock formations to release oil and natural gas -- has been directly linked to multiple earthquakes in areas that have never experienced earthquakes. The U.S. Geological Survey has reported that the earthquake threat level in Oklahoma from fracking activities puts it on roughly the same level as earthquake-prone California.

Before he became the "livin' large" EPA Administrator, corrupt paranoid Scott "Screw It" Pruitt was the Attorney General of Oklahoma widely considered to be in the pocket of the state's oil and gas interests. According to reports, Pruitt and other Rethuglican state officials ignored warnings from scientists and environmentalists about the danger of fracking.

"Johnson Bridgwater, the director of the Sierra Club’s Oklahoma chapter, says that the failure to address the quakes lies with every state official, Pruitt included. 'There are various places where the attorney general’s office could have stepped in to fix this overall problem,' he told me. 'Its job is to protect citizens. Other states were proactive and took these issues on.' He criticized Pruitt for staying 'completely silent' in the face of a major environmental problem for the state’s taxpayers.

Bridgwater’s concerns have been echoed by the national Sierra Club. 'When a 2015 report from the Oklahoma Geological Survey found a direct link between oil and gas mining and increased destruction and property damage from earthquakes, Pruitt did nothing, even though as attorney general he is responsible for protecting Oklahomans,' said a statement from the organization last month.

This allegation is true, as it goes. There was a human-made earthquake epidemic in Pruitt’s home state, and the best thing you can say about his response is that it didn’t exist." (emphasis added)

Now, Oklahoma's former problem is our national problem, as he sets about undermining clean air and clean water standards to benefit his customers in the fossil fuel industry.