The Obama administration quietly granted hundreds of offshore fracking permits in the Gulf of Mexico, allowing dangerous fracking chemicals to pollute the Gulf. Documents have revealed that from 2010 to October 2014, the Obama administration approved more than 1,500 permit applications for offshore drilling plans that included fracking at hundreds of wells across the Gulf of Mexico, according to Truthout. The habitat of loggerhead turtles was also included. RT reports: The administration allowed oil companies to dump over 76 billion gallons of wastewater into the Gulf waters in 2014 alone, the CBD’s press release states. “The Obama administration is essentially letting oil companies frack at will in Gulf ecosystems and dump billions of gallons of oil waste into coastal waters,” said Kristen Monsell, a CBD lawyer. “Every offshore frack increases the risk to wildlife and coastal communities, yet federal officials have been just rubber-stamping this toxic practice in the Gulf of Mexico for years.” Truthout reports that the documents also show offshore fracking is being permitted without conducting analysis of the risk to the environment. Over 300 exclusions were issued to exempt drilling plans from environmental reviews, echoing the 2010 revelations that BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig received such exemptions in the [...]
