Mark Ruffalo / MoveOn – 2014-04-08 02:19:49

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/urgent-stop-congress

Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo has I started a petition along with the organization Food & Water Watch to the United States Congress, which says:

The oil and gas industry is using the crisis in Ukraine as an excuse to pressure Congress to rubber-stamp approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

But gas exports won’t help the situation in Eastern Europe. It’s just a ploy by the oil and gas industry to increase fracking and export US fracked gas to the highest bidder abroad, while causing irreparable damage to our climate and to water, air and health here at home. Protect our communities and climate — not big oil and gas industry profits.

The oil and gas industry has created a massive PR campaign to convince the public that fracking will create American energy independence, while working behind closed doors to open up export facilities to ship gas abroad. This would drive up gas prices for US consumers and create huge oil and gas profits, all at the expense of US communities.

And now, the industry is trying to use the recent crisis in Ukraine as leverage to get Congress to rubber stamp approvals for new export facilities, even though the gas would be sold to 158 World Trade Organization (WTO) countries on the open market.

Bills to allow these exports have been introduced in the House (H.R. 6) by Cory Gardner (R-CO) and in the Senate (S. 2083) by Mark Udall (D-CO). However, the ploy is a complete sham by the oil and gas industry to take advantage of a foreign crisis.

Exporting natural gas spells disaster at all points.

First, it requires more fracking — a process that is poisoning American’s — water, air, and health while dramatically increasing methane emissions into the atmosphere.

Second, it entails enormous, multiple, football-field-sized facilities along our coasts, facilities which pose grave threats if they explode as they have in the past. Third, the liquefied gas must be shipped overseas in huge tanker ships, re-gasified, compressed, transported and ultimately burned. The climate implications of the entire process are extreme.

It is irresponsible to push for more fracking and an extremely dangerous export process that is contributing to climate change, leading to more global instability and, in the long run, undermining any national security goals that proponents claim will be achieved. The real solution is to transition off of fossil fuels through proven clean-energy solutions.

Tell Congress: Don’t fast-track fracked natural gas exports!