New technologies like fracking––along with government subsidies––have ushered in an energy boom reliant on extreme extraction methods to produce oil and natural gas. Now the Uinta Basin is ground zero for what threatens to become the next phase in extreme energy extraction: strip mining for tar sands and oil shale.
Through public land leases, infrastructure subsidies, and some very expensive tax breaks, taxpayer money is supporting what could become one of the dirtiest, most destructive chapters in American energy history.
Where we played our game -- a game of communities rising up, of organizing, of using facts to guide us, of running straight at our progressive values and being unashamed of them -- we won. And those wins were beautiful.
It was a day of huge roars but also small whispers, small moments and momentary glimpses of a beautiful future. Seconds-long reminders that we’re not alone, that we’re in this together, that the world is small and big and diverse and unified all at the same time.
The BP gulf oil spill may not have happened without government subsidies. In fact, at least two major subsidies were used both before and after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon to support BP.
On average, Senators voting against the moratorium have received nearly 3 times as much in Big Oil contributions than those voting for it.
