Publication Items

The Ohio legislature cleared a fracking bill May 24, 2012 that increases inspections of wells and requires drillers to hold liability insurance. But Reuters reports: "Many Democrats said the bill paves the way for the industry to hide information about toxic chemicals that could contaminate groundwater."

Environmental reporters with ambitions to do investigative projects using databases will find an enormously rich collection of ideas, tips, examples, and tools in the new book released by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the European Journalism Centre.

After backroom lobbying by gas and oil industry groups, the Obama White House watered down the promised fracking-fluid disclosure requirement promised earlier this year — imposing it only after completion of the fracking operation, when the information may have little effect (such as public pressure on BLM to deny a drilling permit).

OMB sat on the Office of Government Information Services recommendations for over a year, until a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in March 2012 demanded OMB release the recommendations, which finally happened April 24th. However, no recommendations for legislative change were included. Nobody knows what, if any, legislative recommendations OGIS may have originally proposed.