Environmental groups enlist Bob Graham to help stop bills

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A pair of bills now steamrolling through the Florida House and Senate have drawn such strong objections from environmental groups that former Sen. Bob Graham flew to Tallahassee this week to lobby against them.

The two bills — HB 999 sponsored by Rep. Jimmy Patronis and SB 1684 by Sen. Thad Altman — are packed with provisions relating to sugar company leases in the Everglades, making it easier to wipe out wetlands and limiting the power of water districts to control pumping.

Why bring in Graham? Because "there's a whole big army of 40 or 50 lobbyists working on the other side," explained Estus Whitfield of the Florida Conservation Coalition. By comparison "the environmental voice has been a little chirp in the distance."

Read more here.

Legislators prepare for potential fracking in Florida

TALLAHASSEE — No one knows if Florida is going to be the next frontier for the new generation of oil and gas drilling known as fracking, but state legislators say — just in case — it's time to write rules to require disclosure of the controversial technology.

The Florida House on Wednesday is expected to pass a bill that will require companies to disclose what chemicals they use when they explore for oil and gas using the controversial extraction process.

Fracking uses hydraulic fracturing technology to inject water, sand and chemicals underground to create fractures in rock formations. Oil and gas is released through the fissures and is captured by wells, built at the sites. Environmentalists warn that the chemical makeup of the fluid that is pumped into the ground could contaminate groundwater and release harmful pollutants, such as methane, into the air.

"The Fracturing Chemical Usage Disclosure Act," sponsored by Rep. Ray Rodriques, R-Estero, would require the state Division of Resource Management to set up an online chemical registry for owners and operators of wells, service companies, and suppliers that use hydraulic fracturing.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/legislators-prepare-for-potential-fracking-in-florida/2117017

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT THE LINK ABOVE...

Wise Women Media for 4/26/13-Pat LaMarche, Politico, Radio Maven, Huffington Post Blogger, Homeless Advocate

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Pat LaMarche's experiences working with the nation's poor -- most recently as Vice President of Community Affairs at Safe Harbour, Inc., Cumberland County Pennsylvania's largest homeless shelter -- make her uniquely suited to answer the tough questions about how welfare, social services, inadequate education and societies other challenges effect the economy and the nation as well. As a former journalist and award winning broadcaster Pat spent more than two decades studying and reporting on poverty issues both in the U.S. and abroad. During her 2004 Green Party Campaign for U.S. Vice President, Pat took to the streets to uncover the lives of the homeless in what she called the "Left Out Tour." Pat traveled the nation living in homeless shelters and on the streets. The book she wrote about those experiences is called, "Left Out in America; the State of Homelessness in the United States."
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