Onshore gas drilling to resume as Victoria scraps years-long ban

Drilling for gas reserves underground will once again be allowed across Victoria as the state moves to lift its years-long moratorium on conventional onshore gas exploration.

A moratorium on onshore gas exploration in Victoria will be lifted. 

Surprising many, as a decision was not required to be made for another three months, the Andrews government unveiled legislation allowing an "orderly restart" of conventional gas exploration and development onshore from July 1, 2021.

Oil and gas producers, unions and heavy gas-users such as manufacturers have been calling for the years-long moratorium to be abolished, but environment groups have railed against the possibility arguing it will drive up greenhouse gas emissions and threaten state ecosystems.

Read the story from The Age by Benjamin Preiss, Nick Toscano and Miki Perkins - “Onshore gas drilling to resume as Victoria scraps years-long ban.”

(This is a tragedy for those of us concerned about Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions as “onshore gas” means fracking and while that means many things, it is fundamentally about removing a fossil fuel from where it presently safely resides and letting it loose into our atmosphere, something we simply should not be doing - Robert McLean)

Trump EPA Sued Over Refusal to Release Heartland Institute Communications.

Two environmental groups filed suit Thursday to force the Environmental Protection Agency to disclose its correspondence with the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that has led a years-long campaign to discredit climate science.

The lawsuit suggests that contact between the EPA
under Scott Pruitt and the Heartland Institute is more
extensive than previously known.

The complaint by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) suggests that contact between the EPA and Heartland has been far more extensive than previously known. An EPA Freedom of Information Act official told EDF last year that an agency search had yielded "between 200 to 600 records" of such correspondence, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Virginia.

"EPA's efforts to promote climate change deniers and undermine peer-reviewed science behind closed doors is not only a failure of its mission, it is illegal," said Kym Hunter, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. "The public has a clear and protected right to know what the EPA is doing and with whom they are communicating, including those pushing a climate-denier agenda.”

Read the Inside Climate News story - “Trump EPA Sued Over Refusal to Release Heartland Institute Communications.”