{"id":11849,"date":"2015-09-05T07:06:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T12:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11849"},"modified":"2015-09-05T07:06:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T12:06:09","slug":"eu-ombudsman-investigating-industry-dominated-fracking-expert-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11849","title":{"rendered":"EU Ombudsman Investigating Industry-Dominated Fracking Expert Group"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

EU Ombudsman Investigating Industry-Dominated Fracking Expert Group<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

The European Ombudsman has\u00a0opened a case<\/a>\u00a0into the European Commission’s\u00a0industry-dominated Expert Group<\/a>\u00a0on the risky and dangerous practice of fracking for natural\u00a0gas.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman, responsible for investigating complaints about maladministration in\u00a0EU<\/span>\u00a0institutions and bodies, is looking into allegations that the Commission \u201cwrongly allowed members associated with the shale gas industry to act as chairmen of the European Science and Technology Network on Unconventional Hydrocarbon\u00a0Extraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite massive public opposition to fracking, the Commission established the\u00a0European Science and Technology Network on Unconventional Hydrocarbon Extraction<\/a>\u00a0last July with a mandate to recommend the most appropriate fracking techniques and technologies for\u00a0Europe.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0by campaign groups Corporate Europe Observatory and Friends of the Earth Europe shows that of the network’s members who do not work for the Commission, more than 70% either represent or have\u00a0direct financial links to the fracking industry<\/a>, while all four chairs and co-chairs of working groups are fracking proponents and have even lobbied against tougher\u00a0regulations.<\/p>\n

Vested\u00a0Interests<\/strong><\/p>\n

Putting such vested interests in charge of deeming which fracking techniques are most \u2018appropriate\u2019 for the\u00a0EU<\/span>\u00a0is only going to serve the interests of a floundering industry, not the 500 million Europeans who will have to suffer the\u00a0consequences.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman\u2019s investigation, opened in August, follows\u00a0a complaint<\/a>\u00a0by Corporate Europe Observatory and Friends of the Earth Europe, which calls on the Expert Group to follow the Commission rules for balance and conflict of\u00a0interest.<\/p>\n

However, the Commission denies the network is an Expert Group, despite its clear advisory role, and dismisses any worry with regards to balance. If the groups is not formally recognised as an Expert Group and made to conform to the existing\u00a0rules, then both organisations have called for it to be\u00a0scrapped.<\/p>\n

Climate\u00a0Talks<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ombudsman has given the Commission until the 30th November to respond, the same day that this year’s\u00a0UN<\/span>\u00a0climate talks are set to begin in\u00a0Paris.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EU Ombudsman Investigating Industry-Dominated Fracking Expert Group The European Ombudsman has\u00a0opened a case\u00a0into the European Commission’s\u00a0industry-dominated Expert Group\u00a0on the risky and dangerous practice of fracking for natural\u00a0gas. The Ombudsman, responsible for investigating complaints about maladministration in\u00a0EU\u00a0institutions and bodies, is looking into allegations that the Commission \u201cwrongly allowed members associated with the shale gas industry to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[5381,5317,8708,279,2535,8710,8709,284,331,412],"class_list":["post-11849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-conflict-of-interest","tag-desmog-blog","tag-desmoguk","tag-eu","tag-european-commission","tag-european-commission-expert-group","tag-european-ombudsman","tag-european-union","tag-fracking","tag-hydraulic-fracturing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11850,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11849\/revisions\/11850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}