It was an intriguing opportunity for Jackson to score some points and she almost hit it out of the park, but missed an opportunity to deal with climate when discussing fracking and the use of
I can't imagine a better setup to this piece that Maddow provided. She started with Nixon's establishment of the EPA and led that into the current Republican presidential candidate unbridled antipathy for even using the initials. This led her into the interview where she gave Jackson the opportunity to defend the EPA, which Jackson did very well. And that is where things diverged. Yes, Jackson wants to protect air and water from the excesses of fracking (after they get the science right)… right. But then she repeated the same things that we hear from all of the petro-industry commercials.
I think natural gas is important to our country. I do think that it is a potential big change for us. It has immediate benefits from a pollution side. It has immediate benefits from an energy security side, but what we have to be able to say to the people is that in the process of getting this natural gas, we're not going to screw up your groundwater or drinking water or your air.
This coming election cycle is going to feature a concerted attack on "regulation" by the Republicans and that pushes the EPA to the top echelon of issues. While we know that both Mesplay and Stein would be staunch protectors of the EPA, it is not yet clear which will be most able to articulate a narrative in which we can:
- protect our water resources,
- manage to control greenhouse gases,
- provide useful employment for all our population.
