Chris White Tech Reporter
March 30, 2020 11:47 AM ET
Civil rights leaders are criticizing a common talking point among environmentalist activists who say hydraulic fracking disproportionately hurts black people and other minority communities.
Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and National Urban League president Marc Morial said they oppose an abrupt move away from fracking, according to an Axios report Monday. They said the technique for producing natural gas helps black people who struggle with high energy prices.
Morial was particularly rough on activists who said their anti-fracking position is tie in with social justice matters. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: We Asked Battleground Dem Lawmakers About Sen. Sanders’ Anti-Fracking Promises. Only One Responded)
“I would not want to cite a specific instance, but generally speaking, people are debating these issues in some instances without consultation with the leaders of the African-American communities and neighborhoods affected by these issues,” Morial told Axios.
Jackson and Sharpton shared their sentiments as well.
Jackson told Axios in February that he supports “the call [to ban fracking] with a proper transition … In the meantime, those who are down and out have to have it in the meantime.” Sharpton made similar points.
“I think natural gas is a temporary — I don’t think we ought to make it the end-all, be-all — solution, but in the interim, people in communities of color should not pay the brunt of suffering through cold winters,” Sharpton told Axios. He heads the National Action Network.
Morial, for his part, pushed back on claims that his group’s acceptance of donations from fossil fuel companies biases his position.
“Whenever someone disagrees with what you say, they think, ‘Oh, you must be getting paid,’” Morial said. “It’s condescending, patronizing and racist. I hope you print it. I want them to see it. Because that’s the way we feel.”
Morial, Jackson and Sharpton’s comments came after the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People warned its local chapters in 2019 that oil companies are supposedly trying to manipulate them into supporting their products.
Black communities and average Americans struggle with soaring energy prices. Nearly one in five households are forced to go without food and medicine to pay their energy bill, the Energy Information Administration noted in a 2018 report.
Some places are forced to rely on exported gas as environmental activists pressure officials to forgo natural gas production and distribution.
Officials in Massachusetts and neighboring New Hampshire, for instance, blocked financing in 2016 for the $3 billion Access Northeast Pipeline, which would have helped the state weather an energy crunch in 2018.
The state’s decision to rely principally on green energy hiked gas prices and forced it turn to Russian oil imports.
New England’s energy grid strained to keep up with skyrocketing energy demand in 2018 when arctic temperatures hammered the East Coast. Boston received a shipment of natural gas from an export terminal owned by Novatek — one of the Russian energy giants sanctioned in 2014.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
Here we go – I always said that once politicians recognize that the Green Mafia loses them elections and having a more realistic stance might win them elections, they will turn their coats quicker than an alcoholic gulps down a beer and a shot. Politicians are opportunists – they must be. And when someone does things that will hurt people in the longer run, I know how things will eventually petter out.
Chose your friends wisely. these 3 are not exactly paragons of virtue. That they would be described as leaders of any community is a symptom of a serious problem. If fossil fuel companies have an effective outreach campaign directly to affected voters that’s a good thing. Running it through compromised leaders is likely to come back on you. If you are not a US resident google Al Sharpton. Would you want this man on your payroll.
troe: Right on the money.
Fair comment.
The media rarely takes the time to explain who decides which people get to be called “community leaders”, if there is such a thing.
If someone stood up and claimed to be my exclusive leader based on my race/genetics, I would loudly call them a fraud very quickly.
Sure, but at this time we need any voice that can be heard to speak up about policies that damage people’s lives.
Keep your enemies closer.
That’s all true, troe. However even a broken clock is correct on occasion. And this is one of the rare occasions where those race hustlers are on the right side of an issue – even if their motivations for being there may not be as altruistic as they pretend. Don’t be surprised if they switch sides the moment they can extort enough money for doing so. In the meantime, break out the popcorn as the left, as it often does, eats its own.
The Greentard Socialists need to keep the poor black communities on the Democrat’s plantation whilst they work on putting the relatively middle class there too. US Democrats have been promoting various forms of slavery since 1829. That some black individuals participate in this social-economic warfare on their own race in exchange for their own power and money is certainly nothing new. Now this is happening to the “white-side” of course, it’s that it just can’t be labeled “racism”. Hillary’s “Deplorables” comment as a rich, white elitist Democrat from Arkansas is prime evidence.
The underlying phenomenon is not racism, but elitism. That is, “my money makes me better than you” and thus (unstated) I’m more deserving to take from you in your ignorance of what I am doing keeping you in poverty with expensive energy. Mini-Mike Bloomberg with his $1 Billion of money being thrown at Democratsthis year to help them defeat Trump and the GOP is more prime evidence of this elitism in action.
These 3 Minority Activists would love to help their paymasters with their Climate Crisis Fraud…but there is no way they are going to put their names behind measures that could jack up the cost of living for their constituents by some 15-20%.
But I’d follow this little scrimmage to its end…these 3 stooges are probably just maneuvering to demand (and receive) Energy Assistance Guarantees (that they can take credit for) before they jump on board.
Looks like the green eco-fascists are being rumbled as neo-colonialists and hate filled development deniers that they truly are.
I was wondering when someone would ‘play the energy race card’….
If these 3 unparalleled patrons of ethnic virtue signalling choose to attack as ‘racist’ the supporters of ‘climate change’ and their draconian attack on low cost energy, I for one will do nothing to dissuade them. I may even suggest it a privilege, to not interfere.
Are gas and oil coming from Russia green Russian fuels or fossil fuels?
In Australia, the modern left and their media lackeys see it as their moral duty to stop a Queensland mine that will provide jobs to Australians and coal to India, the latter being a nation where untold millions of dirt poor people have no access to cheap, reliable electricity and suffer for it.
Come to think of it, that last bit also applies to we Australians now, a situation that was unthinkable not that long ago.
Paraphrasing here but Trump told the black community “Vote for me, what do you have to lose?” and they did at a high level (for a republican). I would say he opened the eyes of the black community on how they’ve been treated by Democrats and leaders are taking notice that if they don’t change their gravy train may end.
Its funny, just about the most regressive taxes we have are on gasoline, natural gas, and electricity.
The poorest neighborhoods pay the highest percentage of their income on these taxes.
These poor people should see who is on the receiving end of the
subsidies bankrolled by these taxes are.
Lets see, the recipients are:
Midwest farmers growing and processing corn for ethanol
Companies building wind turbines, and the land owners who lease out the locations
Companies and individuals who are able to afford to install solar panels, and reap the subsidies.
Not a lot of minority ownership there…