Allegheny County

It now becomes crystal-clear (as if there were ever any doubt) about why the Heinz Endowments, under the direction of Teresa Heinz Kerry, fired its president Bobby Vagt and a couple of other senior members of the Endowments team: Heinz herself is through and through anti-drilling. Attempting to spread a thin veneer of euphemistic language, the Heinz Endowments admits that last year they provided $3.3 million of their considerable warchest to support anti-drilling organizations and causes. Oh, they don’t call it that, but that’s exactly what it is: Every single “cause” they funded took aim at shale drilling–to stop it, not make it better. With people like the Heinz’s there is no attempting a reasoned, considered “how can we improve this” approach. Instead, it’s a “how do we eliminate these evil, nasty drillers–eradicate them from the face of the earth” approach.

Some of the recipients of Teresa’s largess last year include anti-drilling “studies” at Ivy League schools like Yale, Harvard and Cornell, and anti-drilling “activities” at non-profits like FracTracker Alliance. Contrast that with the tiny bit of money Vagt tried to spend to help create the very strict (too strict in our opinion) Center for Sustainable Shale Development–an alliance between drillers and environmental groups–getting both sides to the table and to agree. That one made mamma Teresa really mad, so Bobby had to go bye bye. We can’t have any talk of a “third way” and cooperation in shale exploration. It’s “no way” for the Heinz clan when it comes to shale…
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Whether or not drilling under county parks is a good idea or not, we’ll leave for another post. We’re not at all concerned about safety or pollution–it’s safe and it doesn’t pollute. It’s just a PR headache, though, to keep pushing the boulder uphill all the time–fighting rank ignorance and outright lies. At any rate, such proposals do exist including a proposal to drill under some of the parks in Allegheny County, PA (Pittsburgh area). The energy company in question, Huntley & Huntley, has floated a proposal to county officials. They want to drill under, not on, the parks–drill under them from adjacent non-park land.

Well known anti-driller PA State Sen. Jim Ferlo convened a *@#!%-fest to complain about it. Nothing new there. What caught our eye about meeting, however, is the shameless way some anti-drillers use their own children as props–like pushing an 8 year-old in front of the cameras and microphones after filling her head with lies about how drilling will poison precious Mother Earth. It was on full display at yesterday’s Ferlo’s Follies…
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