To: Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior and President Donald Trump

President Obama: New York Wants Fracking Banned, on Public Lands and Everywhere!

Fracking and unconventional gas and oil extraction is inherently dangerous, and cannot be regulated, and therefore should be banned on federal lands, and everywhere else. Toxic energy policies with catastrophic climate change implications have no place in our energy future!

Why is this important?

The Obama Administration recently proposed new, woefully inadequate, rules for oil and gas fracking on federal lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. By doing so, the BLM will pave the way for drillers to amass corporate profits at the expense of our American treasures and essential resources.

Stand with the people of New York in calling for a National Ban by signing this petition to submit comments under protest for drilling on public lands. No amount of rules will fix the industry's well-documented chronic well casing failures, nor mitigate the gross amount of chemicals, volatile organic compounds, or methane contamination in groundwater.

New Yorkers have long been embroiled in an epic struggle with the oil and gas industry, fighting for basic necessities and resources that are often repeatedly compromised by the drilling and fracking process such as clean water, air, and food, not to mention good health and a sustainable future. New Yorkers know that not only do we need to protect our pristine public lands by banning fracking in those areas, but we also need to protect all Americans from this dubious practice which involves the injecting of millions of gallons of water laced with toxic, cancer causing chemicals in order to shatter bedrock.

Studies show that the process of drilling, fracking, processing and transporting natural gas results in a tremendous amount of methane being released into the air. Methane is 70-100 times more potent than CO2 over a 20- year time frame. Recently published peer-reviewed studies on methane emissions show that, at present, gas extraction and combustion significantly contributes more greenhouse emissions than burning coal.

So not only is fracking dangerous, but the methane emissions from fracking accelerate climate change and spell disaster for our country.

The best way to protect our revered public lands and the rest of our country – including our air, water, food, health and climate - from fracking is to prohibit this inherently dangerous form of fossil fuel extraction entirely. This comment is submitted under protest the question isn't how we should be fracking, but if we should be doing it at all.