Second in a series
Re “Looking for Help on Fracking Rules? Find the Nearest Mirror”
[img]1849|right|Mr. Shields||no_popup[/img]Despite lightning, thunder and megaphoned pledges in numerous cities, Vermont is the only state in the union to ban fracking, and Doug Shields, a politician/attorney steeped in drilling research, ardently, vociferously, is trying to change that.
He spent last week in Culver City helping to educate like-thinking leaders and activists.
A native of Pittsburgh and the coal country of western Pennsylvania, Mr. Shields said that opponents of the disputed method of oil drilling ought to emulate the example he has set since the early ‘90s:
Educate themselves.
Don’t count on any out of town help.
Deftly blending the discipline and fire, staccato-style, of a determined, effective activist who has traveled the country, the opening thrust of his message is, “Local officials need to begin to really dig in.
“No. 1, study the stuff. Read up on it. Get familiar with the terms. The 101 stuff. Know it. How does it work? What’s going on with fracking? Look beyond Culver City.
“Talk to somebody from Washington County, Pa., or Pittsburgh or me or others who have gone through this process already.
“It is nice to know what is coming at you,” said the former Pittsburgh City Council member. “We didn’t.”
Mr. Shields vigorously says that the most powerful political leaders in the main oil drilling states, and in Washington, cuddle in the lobbyist pockets of the oil and gas industry.
Therefore, action reverts to hometowns.
“Local officials really have become the backstop to this. This is where the policy meets the reality of the road.
“While someone in D.C. may be sitting in a cozy club room, if you are out in North Dakota or up in Butler, Pa., where 50 families don’t have water, guess who they are going to call. Not a United States senator, I will tell you that. They may drop a letter. But everybody is going to gig you, the local guy. You go to the store to buy a gallon of milk, and it takes you an hour to get home.
How should hometown politicians become informed?
“With the advent of the internet, a lot of information is available that once would have been isolated, and opposition would have been easily managed by the industry,” Mr. Shields says.
“But now we have Facebook and the internet.
“We have networks around the world so that if somebody screws up in Oklahoma, I know about it the same time they do.
“So now there is a consciousness that wasn’t available to us, and there is information that wasn’t available to us to see the bigger picture.
“If you are stuck on what you are doing in Culver City, or in Baldwin Hills, it tends to limit you.
“But when you step back and see the bigger field, you say to yourself, ‘Oh, I see what the game is now.’”
(To be continued)
