Just say NO to Burgess

Incumbent Congressman Michael Burgess is proud of what he votes against, but what he doesn’t want you to consider are his YES votes to satisfy Wall Street greed.

Burgess said YES to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton Loophole that allows the natural gas industry to ignore laws to protect our water and air – the only industry in the U.S. that does not have to comply with the Clean Water and Clean Air acts.  As a result, the air pollution in North Texas from gas drilling production exceeds that produced by the millions of vehicles on our roads.  And our air is laden with high concentrations of carcinogens such as benzene.  And, yes, there are known cancer clusters in our county.

Numerous families in District 26 depend on well water – many of those can strike a match and produce that clean burning blue flame – from their kitchen faucet.  Yet no driller is held responsible. Others find foaming chemical laden mud coming from the tap on farms that have passed down through multiple generations of a family – now ruined. They have no recourse, yet Burgess aligns himself with Rick Perry’s ineffective TCEQ to investigate versus the Federal EPA.

Touting Sarah Palin’s “Drill, Baby, Drill”, Burgess gave big gas carte blanche to rob many citizens of their largest single investment by devaluing their homes, many of which are in subdivisions where the homeowner never owned mineral rights.  Some Denton County cities have conducted impact studies that have determined the long term negative affect that gas drilling has on property values and the subsequent decline in tax revenues.

YES, we need energy – but how much is enough and at what cost?  With a 75-year supply of natural gas now in storage we don’t need drilling on our playgrounds, next to schools and in our neighborhoods.  A line must be drawn.  What amount of human suffering and destroyed property values justifies an ever increasing number of new wells for an oversupply of product that costs more to produce that it sells for in the market just to prop up stock prices?

When will Michael Burgess say YES to Main Street values instead of pandering to Wall Street greed?  This election we have the choice to say NO to the incumbent and send Neil Durrance to Congress to protect our families.

Phyllis Wolper
Denton County Democratic Party Chair