Bill Johnson Fights to Protect Jobs in Natural Gas Development

Statement

Congressman Bill Johnson (R-Marietta) released the following statement today along with a letter to Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), calling for a peer review of an EPA Draft Study of hydrofracking to highlight the importance of job creation through natural gas development. (To view the letter click here and to review the EPA study click here)

"I was very disappointed to learn of Administrator Jackson's reluctance to commit to a heightened peer review process to evaluate the EPA's inconclusive report that fracking may have contributed to the contamination of drinking water. The issue of protecting our drinking water is too important to not conduct a thorough review to determine what may or may not have happened in this instance, particularly given Administrator Jackson's admission that there has not been one instance in the 60 year history of fracking that this process has contaminated groundwater. Releasing such explosive and inconclusive information is also an attempt to advance the Administration's war on fossil fuels, and prevent the increase of domestic energy production by harvesting the vast amounts of gas, oil, and coal reserves that America already owns. Rather than continuing with their job-killing policies by attacking domestic energy production, the President should be directing his regulatory agencies like the EPA to partner with American industries and businesses to create jobs and put us back on the path to real economic recovery."

Source