Message From the Editor

In 2015, North Dakota regulators officially reported a spill from a gas processing plant as just 10 gallons.

This week, however, journalist Justin Nobel reveals evidence from a whistle-blower that shows the natural gas condensate spill may have been larger than 11 million gallons [[link removed]] — making it potentially bigger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

In the days since, mainstream media, including the Associated Press, have been scrambling to follow up on our reporting, and North Dakota regulators have been under pressure to explain what happened.

Meanwhile, Justin Mikulka reports that New York is considering an application to allow propane fracking [[link removed]] (yes, using propane instead of water), and Ben Jervey digs into a new archive of Koch documents to reveal how the billionaires’ network of influence works [[link removed]] to shape society.

David Koch’s death today has sparked a lot of renewed interest in the Koch fortune and its impacts on society, including massive investments in climate science denial and eroding public health and environmental protections. Check out David Koch’s profile on DeSmog [[link removed]] for more details.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: [[email protected]].

Thanks,

Brendan DeMelle

Executive Director

Did North Dakota Regulators Hide an Oil and Gas Industry Spill Larger Than Exxon Valdez? [[link removed]]— By Justin Nobel (15 min. read) —

In July 2015 workers at the Garden Creek I Gas Processing Plant, in Watford City, North Dakota, noticed a leak in a pipeline and reported a spill to the North Dakota Department of Health that remains officially listed as 10 gallons, the size of two bottled water delivery jugs.

But a whistle-blower has revealed to DeSmog the incident is actually on par with the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, which released roughly 11 million gallons of thick crude.

READ MORE [[link removed]] How an Application for Propane Fracking Attempts to Circumvent New York’s Fracking Ban [[link removed]]— By Justin Mikulka (6 min. read) —

Four years after New York announced the state was banning hydraulic fracturing (fracking), Tioga Energy Partners, LLC has filed an application with the state to frack for natural gas, but there's a catch. The company is proposing to swap propane into the industry standard mix that usually calls for water.

Environmental advocates consider this application to use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and specifically a propane gel, an attempt to circumvent New York's 2015 ban on fracking for fossil fuels.

READ MORE [[link removed]] Documents Show Koch Network's 'Structure of Social Change' in Action [[link removed]]— By Ben Jervey (10 min. read) —

Back in 1996, the president of the Charles Koch Foundation laid out a blueprint for the Koch network’s goals of social transformation — a three-tiered integrated strategy to roll back government regulations, promote free market principles, and, in doing so, to protect the industries that turned the Koch brothers into billionaires.

More than two decades later, that blueprint is still being followed in a broad-scale effort to serve the Kochs’ free-market libertarian ideology, to prop up the oil and gas industries that pad their fortunes, and to forestall any political action on climate change that they believe would threaten their bottom line.

READ MORE [[link removed]] 'Game-Changer': Sanders Unveils Green New Deal Plan Detailing 10-Year Mobilization to Avert Climate Catastrophe, Create 20 Million Jobs [[link removed]]— By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams (5 min. read) —

Calling the global climate crisis both the greatest threat facing the United States and the greatest opportunity for transformative change, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday unveiled a comprehensive Green New Deal proposal that would transition the U.S. economy to 100 percent renewable energy and create 20 million well-paying union jobs over a decade.

“This is a pivotal moment in the history of America—and really, in the history of humanity,” Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement.

READ MORE [[link removed]] Yes, It's Due to Human Activity: New Research 'Should Finally Stop Climate Change Deniers' [[link removed]]— By Tim Radford for Climate News Network (4 min. read) —

European and US scientists have cleared up a point that has been nagging away at climate science for decades: not only is the planet warming faster than at any time in the last 2,000 years, but this unique climate change really does have neither a historic precedent nor a natural cause.

Other historic changes — the so-called Medieval Warm Period and then the “Little Ice Age” that marked the 17th to the 19th centuries — were not global. The only period in which the world’s climate has changed, everywhere and at the same time, is right now.

READ MORE [[link removed]] From the Climate Disinformation Database: The Mercatus Center [[link removed]]

The Mercatus Center [[link removed]] is a conservative think tank located at George Mason University. Koch Industries and several Koch family charitable foundations have donated millions to the center, with the corporation’s funding starting in the 1980s. Documents released in late April 2018 revealed George Mason University gave the Charles Koch Foundation a say in hiring decisions in exchange for donations, The Associated Press reported. The Mercatus Center has opposed a mandatory greenhouse gas reporting rule and has downplayed the role of humans in causing climate change.

Read the full profile [[link removed]] and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database [[link removed]] or our new Koch Network Database. [[link removed]]

Unsubscribe [link removed]