Director Josh Fox explains his expanded investigation into the natural gas industry and responds to President Obama’s climate speech.
—By Brett Brownell
| Mon Jul. 8, 2013 3:00 AM PDT
HBO
Movie sequels are typically reserved for superhero franchises (and occasionally Michael Bay). Not scrappy social-issue documentaries. But director Josh Fox’s 2010 documentary Gasland, which was nominated for an Academy Award, helped spark such an enormous national interest into the negative impacts of natural gas drilling that he decided to make a sequel.
“When we put the first movie out we were astounded,” Fox recently told Mother Jones. “We…never figured that ‘fracking’ would become a household word.”
Gasland ended with coverage of a June 4, 2009, hearing by the House Energy and Minerals subcommittee that addressed the safety and risks of natural gas drilling. Fox narrates, “The FRAC Act is making its way through Congress, and industry is lobbying hard against it.” The FRAC Act called for the removal of hydraulic fracturing’s exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act, and would have implemented federal regulation of the industry. But the bill never received a vote.
For the rest of this story about the new movie at Mother Jones please follow the link: http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/07/fracking-empire-strikes-back-hbo%E2%80%99s-gasland-sequel