The Invasion of the Energists

The largest single reserve of shale gas in the United States is found in California. Texas has one that is not much smaller.

Jerry Brown, the governor of California, is under pressure to promote intensive exploitation of this energy source, with Texas being held up as a point of reference. The reasons: Californians are paying more for gas than Texans, and Texas is registering greater growth in both jobs and the economy than anywhere on the West Coast.

Brown has responded that his administration is concerned about economic growth — but not at the expense of the health and future of the population. Brown, a Democrat, does not underestimate the violent reaction and contempt for humanity that energy companies are capable of, including the 2000 to 2001 energy crisis that hit the state. Brown recalls that energy giants Enron and Halliburton were among those companies. Thanks to neoliberal policies that led to deregulation of energy production and distribution, they did an about face toward energy speculation — as is now happening in Mexico. Nearing bankruptcy, they simply flipped the switch.

The Mexican government is offering these types of companies the moon and the stars by ensuring them some free services.

Contrary to appearances, let’s not forget the collusion and irresponsibility shown previously by the United States, Enron and Halliburton. Enron, chaired at the time by Kenneth Lay (Kenny Boy, as his Bush friends called him), drove thousands of small investors to ruin. Halliburton, which operates in 70 countries, is accused of earning hundreds of millions of dollars off of dozens of irregular contracts that failed to follow normal procurement rules; it is now one of the largest service providers to Pemex. Chaired for a time by Dick Cheney, the businessman-politician who makes the star on “House of Cards” seem mild, is also friends with Bush and, through that friendship, became George W’s vice president. Mexican presidents have denied and continue denying what this megacorporation is doing, namely using its influence to promote energy reforms that threaten Mexico and making huge investments in presidential elections. Doesn’t the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s expenditure of more than $342,541 — which is 15 times greater than the maximum amount permitted by law — in support of Enrique Peña Nieto’s campaign tell us anything?

At the beginning of April, the 28th Border Legislative Conference took place in Monterrey. Jose Rodriguez, Democratic senator from Texas, spoke about the damage to his state that fracking has caused. In particular, he points to the damage to roads and highways caused by thousands of water pipes used to fill the wells that are drilled. Repairing the roads in 14 counties has been a big hit to public finances and the population. The companies involved have saved millions of dollars. He warned Mexicans that we are running the same risk as Texas, unless we create laws to regulate the activity of similar industries that are extracting shale gas.

It is shameful that a Texas senator had to reveal what the authorities in Nuevo Leon, specialists from the public university, and other institutions of higher education — with the exception of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, which organized a seminar on the subject — and most of the media are all either silent about or deny. One exception: El Horizonte published an editorial that affirmed there is no doubt that the state of Texas can serve as a model. Thousands of Texan activists have been working for several years to stop fracking, as they feel it is a determining factor in causing a series of tremors, which have come out of nowhere and have affected various regions. The Mexican Anti-Fracking Association has done the same, convening a meeting in Monterrey a few days ago. A month before that, the Pro-Well-being Committee and other environmental and civic organizations went before the state legislature to demand the passage of laws to protect communities and their natural resources against uncontrolled exploitation.

Nuevo Leon has been experiencing frequent tremors. Some documents from the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon (UANL) link the tremors to the huge natural gas reserve [Translator’s note: in Spanish, the cuenca de Burgos] and to the drilling being done as part of the fracking process. Perhaps, as one of the documents indicates, the geological formation of Nuevo León will soften the aftershocks caused by the seismic activity. And so be it — but there is also the likelihood that the alteration of the natural habitat, as has occurred in several regions in the United States, especially North Dakota, could unleash great tragedy.

An aggravating factor in all of this is exactly what the Texas senator predicted: The so-called Monterrey VI project has a planned budget of about $1.294 billion. Taxpayers will pay for it. As the state government first affirmed and later denied, the project uses water brought from the Panuco River for the extraction of shale gas. Opposition to the project is not insignificant, as reported by our journalist Sanjauna Martinez (La Jornada, 13 April 2014).

It must be said: The energy negotiators come not only to pillage us, but also to control us; more precisely, they will achieve their objective over our dead bodies. The film “There Will Be Blood” is an inadvertent bad omen of what awaits us.