As you may remember, the EPA put out a report on the health effects of fracking back in June, a report fracking proponents said justified their support, but a report which also failed to get data from oil and gas drillers (because why would they provide information that could prove their works pollute our air and water?) and was also hamstrung in its information-collecting efforts by that notorious 2005 energy bill that allowed frackers to keep the chemicals they use a secret. But now the EPA wants to know how it can improve its methods in evaluating the dangers of fracking, and the the Union of Concerned Scientists and Food and Water Watch help you tell the EPA to study the health effects of fracking with more scientific vigor. If nearly 10 million Americans live within a mile of a fracking well, as the EPA tells us, then it shouldn't be that hard to get someone's cooperation to test water before, during, and after gas and oil drillers frack in their neighborhood. Indeed, I'd bet quite a few folks would be very enthusiastic to help. Much more so than oil and gas drilling corporations, certainly.
Meanwhile, Comcast has withdrawn its plan to buy Time-Warner Cable after a massive backlash from the American public made the whole idea toxic -- this, after at least one Comcast lobbyist labored to convince everyone that folks who opposed the merger were stupid and that Comcast's real competition came from wireless, an idea anyone who's ever used wireless would find laughable -- but now America's fourth-largest big telecom corporation, Charter, wants to buy Time-Warner (as well as Bright House Cable), and thus become the second-largest cable corporation behind Comcast. Perhaps Charter thinks it can slip underneath the radar since a lot of folks who only have Comcast in their neighborhoods have never heard of Charter (whereas just about everyone's heard of Comcast), but this deal would allow Comcast and Charter, between them, to control two out of every three broadband accounts, with neither Comcast nor Charter particularly well-known for outstanding customer service. Hence Demand Progress helps you tell the FCC to block the Charter/Time-Warner merger.
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