Fact Sheets: Environment

The oil and gas industry plans to massively expand a labyrinth of pipelines to market natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale and other rock formations using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. But allowing the industry to build out its sprawling pipeline infrastructure and to lock-in decades more of U.S. dependence on natural gas would be a colossal mistake. The industry’s pipeline projects must be stopped.

The agriculture and food sector is unusually concentrated, with just a few companies dominating the market in each link of the food chain. In most sectors of the U.S. economy, the four largest firms control between 40 and 45 percent of the market, and many economists maintain that higher levels of concentration can start to erode competitiveness. Yet according to data compiled by the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2012, in the agriculture and food sector, the four largest companies controlled 82 percent of the beef packing industry, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of broiler chicken processing.

Enbridge Inc., Canada’s largest transporter of crude oil, claims to no longer be pursuing its ‘Trailbreaker’ plan as first proposed in 2008: to run Canadian tar sands oil through an aging pipeline that stretches across northern New England from Montreal, Canada, to Portland, Maine. Yet given that efforts to send tar sands oil south to refineries in Texas through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline — as well as efforts to send the oil west from Alberta to British Columbia — have face stiff opposition and stalled, New England remains at risk.

The United States and the European Union are moving toward privatizing their fisheries management systems through catch shares, while Iceland, with one of the world’s oldest and most comprehensive catch share programs, is struggling to find a way to dismantle its program. Why? The answer is that catch shares have failed Iceland’s fisheries and the nation as a whole.

Roundup, an herbicide produced by Monsanto that contains the active ingredient glyphosate, has been vigorously applied to crops for years. Most genetically engineered (GE) crops are designed to be tolerant of specially tailored herbicides. Farmers can spray the herbicide on their fi elds, killing the weeds without harming the GE crops. With the development of Roundup Ready crops, the application intensity of Roundup has only increased.

With the rise of GE crops, coexistence between organic, non-GE and GE production has become more diffi cult due to the potential for gene flow and commingling of crops at both the planting and harvesting levels.

All too often when an economist or banker looks out at an expanse of virgin forest or free-flowing river, she doesn’t see nature — she sees “natural capital.” This concept promotes the view that our natural resources should be attached a value and managed using market-based principles of supply and demand. It is the cornerstone of the “green economy” that many free-market proponents and market-oriented environmentalists assert will provide environmental sustainability.

To protect Maine’s groundwater and the general public’s best interest, Maine should hold its groundwater in the public trust.

The poultry industry continues to influence lawmakers to prioritize corporate interests over public health, sound food policy and environmental concerns. Citizens in Maryland and in other states are being asked to bail the industry out of its massive waste problem by financing poultry litter incinerators.

The oil and gas industry argues that the potential economic benefits of fracking justify the risks and costs to public health and the environment. But the industry has grossly overestimated the number of jobs that fracking would create, and has either ignored or dismissed the public costs of the practice.