Gasland Part II Page #12

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have extraordinary influence in Washington,

more than ever,

and that influence

has been propelled by two

Supreme Court decisions:

"Buckley vs. Valeo,"

and the Citizens United case.

That has given corporations

the chance to influence

elections of members

of Congress directly.

With the new majority

that is here,

is that their decisions

have been informed.

It doesn't have to be

that the oil and gas people

are sitting in the audience

or have been visiting.

The mind is set.

I think that's the concern,

is about whether or not

contributions are

influencing public policy

and where they kind of

disconnect selected officials from common sense.

There have been periods

of our history

when our political system has

been entirely controlled

by a tiny economic elite

who really just run the country for their own benefit.

Exxon could write a check--

I'm not saying they would--

for a billion dollars

if they wanted to.

There's no limit.

And there's no reporting.

They can do that without

the same disclosures

that are required

for other contributors,

and they can do that

in a way that gives you

little opportunity to be

able to defend yourself. FOX: Mm-hmm.

That puts, I think,

all of us at risk.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
ExxonMobil

didn't write a billion-dollar check in one election,

but the fossil fuel industries

combined contributed $150 million

to the 2012 election,

and Common Cause tracked lobbying expenditures--

$747 million to gain and keep

the exemption to the Safe

Drinking Water Act, known as

"the Halliburton loophole

for hydraulic fracturing."

Considering that's

just one election and one exemption to one law,

a billion dollars is

actually the low end.

OK, we got it.

Government's bought off.

Time to go home.

Thank you. Roll credits.

It just didn't seem that simple.

There had to be something else

going on under the surface that I couldn't see.

The price of gas in Asia

right now, depending

on the contract,

can be as much as $16,

whereas it's $2.50 here.

So, if you're in the business

to extract hydrocarbons,

you're going to look for

the customer that's going to pay you the most money.

And that is most decidedly Asia

at the moment, and Europe.

Europe's paying about, what,

$9.50, $10, something like that.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

As of December 5, 2012,

the Federal Energy

Regulatory Commission

had received over

20 applications to build

liquefied natural gas ports

to ship American gas overseas.

The EIA--Energy Information

Administration--reported that, as a result of export,

domestic natural gas prices

would rise by more than 50%,

and that developing

20 LNG ports--

at costs of billions

of dollars each--

made fracking

the U.S. at a large scale a foregone conclusion.

And despite the nationwide shift

towards exporting gas,

the DOE refused to look at

environmental impacts from LNG.

FOX:
So what is

happening here?

Well, I think there's

a longer-term thing going on with this.

I personally think

that this is tied to crude oil prices.

This populist argument

that industries used about, you know,

"American gas, by Americans,

for Americans,"

while, in the background,

they're working very hard

to be able to export this gas

out to grow other economies.

It doesn't really play with

the, you know, that populist argument that's been so--

that's worked

so well in this current political environment.

But, you know, again,

is that what we want?

And if we begin to export,

the price of gas is going to move up.

I mean, international

pricing pressures are just going to dictate

that the domestic price

is going to go up.

And wouldn't it be great

for industry

if they get us to be much more

dependent upon natural gas,

and then suddenly

the gas price starts rising?

To me, that's a classic

consumer squeeze,

and we will have done it

to ourselves

and put ourselves

right back in the same boat

that we're in

with crude oil right now.

We'll be much more dependent

upon natural gas, and it will no longer be cheap.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Thousands of miles of pipelines

proposed to connect

shale plays to LNG ports.

Thousands of miles

to connect shale plays

to natural gas-fired

power plants.

WOMAN:
Now, what's the...

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
Pennsylvania's

woods crisscrossed,

fragmented with clear-cut

swaths of pipeline

that could never be

built upon.

Well these trees

have been here forever, you know?

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Meanwhile, the water buffalo was becoming

the fastest-growing

species in the state.

Duke University released a study

that showed that you were

17 times more likely to have

elevated levels of methane

in your water if you were within

3,000 feet of a gas well.

5,000 environmental violations

across the state,

and in one county, Bradford,

close to a hundred reported

cases of water contamination

in the first year of drilling.

That fall, everyone was moving.

TV NEWSWOMAN:

That's part of the reason why the Hallowich family

that lives about 600 yards from

the fire scene this morning wants to move.

Out of frustration,

they carved the words "GAS LAND" in their yard.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Jeremiah Gee's family moved.

All of Jeremiah's meticulous

documentation sealed away,

the way that Shell had

destroyed 4 generations of being on the same land.

If you ask the family,

they're not allowed to tell you.

Lisa Parr--moved;

dozens of other families--

pushed out;

their court cases settled,

their stories sealed away,

non-disclosure agreements

keeping them silent.

When he was going

into radio silence, Jeremiah sent me a note.

It said, "Matthew 6:20."

I looked it up.

"Do not store for yourselves

treasure on earth.

"Store up for yourselves

treasures in heaven,

"where moths and rust

do not corrupt

"and where thieves do not

break in and steal,

for where your treasure is,

there your heart will be also."

As a storyteller,

there was something inhuman

about forcing people

into silence.

If you take away a person's

home, their connection to where they live,

and you take away their ability

to tell their story,

seems to me you've taken away

two of the most fundamental

things about who they are.

And there was one other person

that was being forced out.

[Vacuum cleaner humming]

Calvin and Tiffiney had

to make a painful decision.

With Clay's asthma

and Josh's nosebleeds, and with Calvin knowing full well--

from the air-monitoring stations

that he had fought to get installed--

exactly what was in

the air in Dish,

they decided

to pick up and leave.

You know things are bad when

the mayor moves out of town.

TILLMAN:
This won't do me

any good anymore.

No more free Dish Network.

When we signed up, we're going

to get cable installed,

and it reminded me how much

that stuff actually costs,

so I'm going to miss

free Dish Network.

So these people are

coming out here, spending their life savings on a house,

and then you're stuck.

Nothing you can do.

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