bloomberg.com

A Texas state judge is promoting his recent decisions favoring a gas driller in its dispute with a local landowner as part of his election campaign, a move some legal scholars say may violate state judicial ethics rules.

May violate? May? Read the whole thing. Judge Trey Loftin ruled in favor of gas driller Range Resources (one can’t help but wonder how much they donated to his campaign) in every manner possible during this case, including forcing an environmental blogger to turn over private emails. And to top off this steaming shit pile with a lovely rat poison pellet, Judge Trey Loftin is also a limbaugh fan:

Loftin, who is campaigning to keep his state judgeship in a county west of Dallas, also sent out materials with the image of talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who credited the judge’s ruling in favor of driller Range Resources Corp. (RRC), based in Fort Worth, Texas, for getting the EPA to reverse course.

For more background on this extremely disturbing case, see the excellent compilation by DeSmogBlog:

Breaking: Obama EPA Shut Down Weatherford, TX Shale Gas Water Contamination Study

The Associated Press has a breaking investigative story out today revealing that the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) censored a smoking gun scientific report in March 2012 that it had contracted out to a scientist who conducted field data on 32 water samples in Weatherford, TX.

That report, according to the AP, would have explicitly linked methane migration to hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in Weatherford, a city with 25,000+ citizens located in the heart of the Barnett Shale geologic formation 30 minutes from Dallas.

So there you go. The fossil fuel lobby is so grotesquely powerful it can bully the EPA into censoring factual evidence all so they can continue to poison America’s water with impunity. And their puppet judges who grovel about for rush limbaugh’s approval are all too happy to help.

On a side note, while “Obama’s EPA” is technically correct, let’s not forget who’s really behind this:

A similar dispute unfolded in west-central Wyoming in late 2011, when the EPA released an initial report that showed hydraulic fracturing could have contaminated groundwater. After industry and GOP leaders went on the attack, the agency said it had decided to do more testing. It has yet to announce a final conclusion.

So what’s it going to take to fix this, thousands of people being killed Bhopal-style due to fracking-related water contamination?