Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett (R-PA) has a lot to thank the oil and gas industry for. It gave him $1,277,550 during his 2010 run for governor, and has given him over $150,000 since then.
This week, Corbett gave the industry a gift in return. He signed into law the “Indigenous Mineral Resource Development Act,” which will allow the state to make and execute contracts allowing for the “mining or removal of coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane and limestone found in or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education.”
Fracking is a new and dangerous method of oil drilling, and Pennsylvania drilling companies have an environmental record that is hardly fit to brag about: “Pennsylvania drilling companies racked up a total of 3,355 violations of environmental law between 2008 and 2011, 2,392 of which posed a direct threat to the environment and safety of communities.”
But for more than a million dollars, you can get a politician to put aside concerns about public safety and the environment. And that’s what Tom Corbett just did when he opened up college campuses to fracking.
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