Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Clinton’s Salazar Pick Undermines Her Climate Promises, Putting Fracking Industry Before People Greenpeace Greenpeace

At a time when Secretary Clinton should be strengthening her progressive policies, it does not make sense to pick an industry insider who supports fracking to lead her transition team. Unfortunately, that's the exact move that Clinton made this week in appointing former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to that post.

A flare burns near a hydraulic fracturing drilling tower in rural Weld County in northern Colorado, the most intensively fracked area in the U.S.

Image of fracking site in Colorado: © Les Stone / Greenpeace

Though not an official lobbyist, Salazar took a job as partner at WilmerHale after leaving the Department of the Interior in 2013, a law and lobbying firm working on energy and environmental issues amongst other things. Salazar's track record has illustrated time and time again that he is on the side of big industry, and not the people. He is pro-Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), pro-fracking and pro-Keystone XL pipeline. If Clinton plans to effectively tackle climate change, the last thing her team needs is a fossil fuel industry friend like Salazar.

A NASA study released this week identified fracking as responsible for a methane 'hot spot' in the Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, the largest concentration of the potent greenhouse gas in the country. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide, yet Salazar has actually made the statement that 'there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone.' The truth is fracking is devastating his home state of Colorado, yet he has chosen to side with industry.

Most recently, Salazar came out in opposition to ballot initiatives to restrict fracking in Colorado. Communities throughout the state spent months collecting signatures for the ballot measures that would establish setbacks for drilling operations from schools and hospitals and empower communities to vote on fracking. Organizers on the ground were fought tooth and nail by the industry, which spent more $75 million since 2014 on PR firms and front groups intent on defeating the ballot measures. Earlier this month, people power overcame its first major hurdle by gathering enough signatures to submit the ballot measures to the Colorado Secretary of State. The office is now officially counting the signatures for qualification for the ballot in November.

A massive fight remains for Colorado activists in the months leading into November. As more oil and gas money flows into the state to mislead voters on the ballot initiatives, it is more important than ever for Secretary Clinton to pick the side of the people over the industry and its mouthpieces. Clinton has indicated support for local control over fracking, but picking an industry insider like Salazar who is fighting against the people's will sends the wrong message about which side she is truly on.

If Secretary Clinton wants to be the environmental leader that she claims to be in campaign speeches, she has to put the people before industry insiders.

Molly Dorozenski is the campaign director for Greenpeace Democracy.

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