Gasland documentary director, Josh Fox, was arrested on Wednesday, February 1, for what he claims is practicing his First Amendment right. According to usnews.com, the Wayne County filmmaker was arrested in the U.S. Capitol Building after attempting to film a congressional hearing linked with hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

Fox says that after he filed for permission to film the hearing, he never received a response, which prompted him to attempt to film anyway. Capitol Police reported his arrest under unlawful entry, while Fox stated that he was only practicing journalism, according to media reports.

“I was not expecting to be arrested for practicing journalism. Today’s hearing in the House Energy and Environment subcommittee was called to examine EPA’s findings that hydraulic fracturing fluids had contaminated groundwater in the town of Pavillion, Wyoming.

I have a long history with the town of Pavillion and its residents who have maintained since 2008 that fracking has contaminated their water supply.” Said Fox regarding the arrest and congressional hearing, “I was arrested today for exercising my First Amendment rights to freedom of the press on Capitol Hill.”

During an interview, MSNBC host, Ed Schultz, discovered that the filming was being done in order to be featured in a follow-up documentary called Gasland II, also directed by Fox, which is said to be close to completion.  Also during the interview, Fox said that the hearing was going to be led by a Republican subcommittee and that he believed they were going to be attacking the EPA.

Fox was originally inspired to create Gasland after receiving a request to lease his land out for drilling. His website, www.gaslandthemovie.com, claims that after receiving the request, he then traveled up the coast, visiting various different fracking sites and the communities within the surrounding areas. He documented the fracking process and the possible effects the process takes on communities’ drinking water.

Fracking, as the website defines, is the act of drilling for natural gas extraction, utilizing  millions of gallons of water, sand, and proprietary chemicals blasted into deep wells. This process causes the rock and shale to fracture, thus emitting the gases within. For every frack that is completed, anywhere from 80-300 chemicals can be used.

However, due to the Haliburton Loophole, the companies involved in the drilling do not have to disclose the chemicals that are used. The website also claims that there have been over 1,000 reports by courts and governments of contaminated well water within communities surrounding fracking sites.

Fox has become a conflict ridden character within Wayne County, his home. Where some people see him as an activist, others claim he is merely using Gasland as his ride to fame and fortune. The trailer for the film here  may help you base your own opinions.

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The U.S. natural gas market is going to have to change dramatically for pipeline developers to salvage their plan to ship gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 states, a key federal official said today at the Platts Energy Podium.

“It is going to take a big turnaround in the market, no doubt about it,” Larry Persily, federal coordinator of Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects, said at the newsmaker event in Washington, D.C. TransCanada and ExxonMobil have been working with state and federal officials on plans to build a $40 billion, 48-inch-diameter pipeline from the North Slope to the Canadian border, where Canadian pipelines would carry gas to the Lower-48.

However, shale gas development has dampened U.S. demand for the gas, and North Slope producers BP, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil met with the Alaska Governor, Sean Parnell, last week to discuss alternatives to the project, including a pipeline to a new liquefied natural gas export project.

After the meeting, BP CEO, Bob Dudley, and ConocoPhillips CEO, Jim Mulva, said the LNG project seemed to be a better way to get the gas to market, casting growing doubts on the viability of the pipeline. On Tuesday, Persily acknowledged that the pipeline’s future hinges on the producers. “It is going to take concurrence of the three producers.

They are the ones that control the vast majority of the leased acreage, the production coming out of there. They are the ones that are going to have to sign 20-year firm shipping commitments on the pipeline worth more than $100 billion.” Persily said he thought the project had a 50-50 chance of being constructed by 2020. “I haven’t given up on the project. … What it would take is the companies believing the market is there at a sufficient price.”

He also noted that there are key benefits to building the pipeline instead of the LNG project. The Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act provides federal loan guarantees for the pipeline, and $21 billion worth of guarantees are currently authorized, he said. The law also allows for accelerated depreciation for the pipeline and an enhanced oil recovery investment tax credit for the gas treatment plant, which together are worth more than $1 billion in tax savings, he added.

“All that applies if you build a pipeline to move gas to the Lower 48. If it is an exclusively export-only line, unless federal law is changed, you don’t get those benefits,” Persily said. Meanwhile, the United States Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes, also speaking at the Podium event, said the U.S. is working to give Shell an answer on the company’s plans to drill several exploratory wells this summer in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Hayes, who was appointed by President Obama to chair an interagency task force on Alaska energy development, said meetings at both a secretarial and staff level are being held regularly on Shell’s plans. ”We are committed to give them a timely up or down,” Hayes said.

The Interior Department has already given conditional approval to Shell’s exploration plans for the Beaufort and Chukchi. But the company has yet to submit applications for individual permits to drill specific wells, Hayes said. Hayes also said Interior will not budge on a condition that Shell end its drilling program about 38 days short of the time the company had requested. Hayes said the time was needed for the drilling of a relief well in the event of a blowout.

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