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‘Gasland’ Director Josh Fox Arrested During Congressional Fracking Hearing

» 52 comments

Academy Award-nominated environmental filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested Wednesday while he was setting up to film a House Science Committee hearing on water contamination from hydraulic fracturing for a new documentary, Politico’s Talia Bufort reports.

Fox was forcibly removed from the hearing in handcuffs by Capitol police before the hearing could be gaveled into order. HuffPo reporter Zach Carter says Congressional Republicans ordered the filmmaker’s ejection.

RELATED: Mike Gallagher Defends Keystone XL Pipeline: ‘We’re Just Polluting A Little Bit Of Water!’

According to the Greeley Gazette, the hearing was called by Republican Subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris, and was entitled “Fractured Science – Examining EPA’s Approach to Ground Water Research: The Pavillion Analysis.” The purpose of the hearing was — in the words of Western Energy Alliance’s press release — investigating how “misinformation about hydraulic fracturing has caused local communities and citizens to fear a low-risk process.”

EarthWork’s Lauren Pagel reports Fox was “there to film the hearing for his upcoming film Gasland 2.”

“I’m within my First Amendment rights, and I’m being taken out,” Fox reportedly shouted as he was ejected from the hearing.

UPDATE: According to the AP, a statement released by the organizers of the hearing claimed the filmmaker did not have proper accreditation. “Personnel providing coverage by the television and radio media shall be currently accredited to the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Galleries…The individual removed was not accredited by the House Radio and TV Gallery and had refused to turn off his camera upon request by Capitol Police.”

UPDATE 2:Buford reports “Fox was charged with unlawful entry and released from police custody around 3pm. The filmmaker must appear in DC Superior Court on Feb. 15.”

“There were no other broadcast journalists in the room,” Fox told Buford. “We’ve taped public hearings across the U.S. for 3½ years. We’ve taped hundreds. This is public speech and it’s protected — our ability to report on it is protected by the First Amendment. And they came to us and said, ‘You’re in violation of House rules.’ I told them, ‘You’re in violation of the rules of the United States of America, which is the Constitution.”

But Fox acknowledged there was a chance he’d be ejected.
“We wanted to cover the hearing,” Fox said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen. … We didn’t have a guy in there. Also, I felt there was a threat we would get kicked out. And that’s exactly what happened.”

Fox will appear on MSNBC’s The Ed Show exclusively at 8pm EST to give his side of the story.

(h/t HuffPo)

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  • http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

    Looks like Republican Congressmen have something to hide!!

  • http://twitter.com/MinneMike Michael Wiley

    Probably drove his gas-guzzling vehicle to the hearing. Ish, what’s that smell? Liberal hypocrisy. 

  • driveswift

    Just like when the Dems tried to bring up business while the GOP was technically in pro forma session, and pro tempore speaker banged the gavel over their protests and Speaker Boehner’s office cut the feed to Cspan. They always have something to hide. 

  • Anonymous

    You make an assumption that Fox drives gas-guzzler, apropos of nothing, and then proceed to use your assumption as evidence of ‘liberal hypocrisy’? 

    Huh.

  • Anonymous

    Seems to me the Republicans would want this meeting filmed so the ‘investigation into

  • Pablo

    Arrested or ejected? 

  • Anonymous

    I love how you condemn this guy for assumed hypocrisy.

    Idiotic.

  • WiddleBabyDanielson

     Capitol Police public information officer Sergeant Kimberly Schneider

    “At approximately 10:30 a.m. today, United States Capitol Police
    arrested Joshua Fox of Milanville, Pa. in room 2318 of the Rayburn House
    office building. He is charged with unlawful entry, and he is currently
    being processed at United States Capitol Police headquarters.”

  • Anonymous

    There is a picture of the guy in hand cuffs, even if he was not arrested, that seems a little extreme to me, short of he refusing to leave, etc. If so, if he was asked to leave by appropriate authorities and he did not, then ok, even the handcuffs are cool, under the rule of law.  He needed to leave when asked, whether it was appropriate for authorities to do that is a seperate issue.

  • Anonymous

    Another Fox News watcher repeating what he was told was the truth!

  • Anonymous

    Does it matter?

    Just tell us what do the Republicans have to hide from the public?

  • Anonymous

        Fracking is the cause of all the large and small earthquakes Ohio. Pennsylvania, etc. are now experiencing. The water that’s pumped a mile into the earth loosens the tectonic plates and they slide. Any neutral scientist that’s studied this problem will confirm this.

  • Anonymous

    There are no tectonic plate boundaries in or anywhere near Ohio.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg

  • http://twitter.com/grimcity Neal Boyd

    From looking at the beginning of the trailer of his movie, he had a mid 90′s Toyota Camry, so the next logical step in vehicles would surely be a Hummer H2 or maybe a Dodge Dually with a Hemi.

  • Anonymous
  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ERDSZOOPOITNDF3GS45TPSRZP4 Jeff

    Was it closed off to all camera’s or just ones that dont belong to the 
    Radio and Television Correspondents Gallery. If other cameras were filming ie; CSPAN I have no problem removing him especially after he refused to leave.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Bechthold/1380381077 Mary Bechthold

    Republican voters: Do you agree what your party is doing? Are you in favor of this?

  • Anonymous

    The smell is that of your brain farts.

  • Anonymous

    Thank you – great link!

  • bob ross

    Story speaks for it’s self.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KSH52GTU7ATNOTCD52RAL3P6XA Jon

    Meh. No big deal. Fracking’s been going on for 64 years — you make sure you fund state monitoring agencies adequately so that drilling companies neither put faulty casing in the wellhole above 3,000 feet or reinject brine into the aquifer levels, and you’re not going to have liquid migration from the 2-4 mile depths the wells are being drilled at up to where the potable water is being pumped from, 50-to-1,000 feet underground. But for some, I guess fracking is the next trendy thing to get outrageously outraged about.

  • Ben Dover

    I guess the Capitol is no longer open to the public.

  • BooBoo Bear

     Until you are smoking a cigarette and decide to get a glass of water, and have flames blow up in your face.
    Gas is getting into the water.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQMA0zwMM4

  • ganmerlad

    What the hearing is about is the EPA is saying fracking contaminated Pavillion Wyo’s water supply.  And possibly Dimock Pa’s water too.  This is news that the republicans want kept as low profile as possible because, well, it is ammunition against fracking, or at least fracking without a lot of extra regulations and oversight.

    http://www.propublica.org/article/feds-link-water-contamination-to-fracking-for-first-time 

    http://www.propublica.org/article/years-after-evidence-of-fracking-contamination-epa-to-supply-drinking-water 

  • Anonymous

    Just to be clear, you’re not at all concerned about the denial of Constitutional rights, correct? How unpatriotic!

  • Anonymous

    It’s called projection.

  • Anonymous

    So he wanted to film his movie in a House chamber, he applied for credentials (permission), the congressional authorities said “no”, so he went ahead and ignored them and got arrested because of it … boo hoo.  ATTENTION ANYONE WITH A CAMERA: You don’t get to just go anywhere just because you state you are a member of “the press” – if this were not true, I’d be sitting in the Oval Office right now listening to Obama make his tee time for tomorrow morning.

  • AliveStillKickin

    The individual removed was not accredited by the House Radio and TV
    Gallery and had refused to turn off his camera upon request by Capitol
    Police.”

    Oops….You break the rules…..You go to jail……Simple!!

  • Anonymous

    Republican­s: The reason why America is in Decline.

    - They deny climate change
    - They deny evolution.
    - They deny science in all forms.
    - They deny the damage caused by Fracking.
    - They deny the damage caused by their rhetoric.
    - They deny First Amendment Rights.

    We need to deny them ALL POLITICAL offices. They ARE BAD for AMERICA.
    Republicans: Protecting the rights of the unborn so they can take them away as adults.
    Time for new and better blood.

  • AliveStillKickin

    You mean…like maybe:
    Kindergarten records?
    Punahou School records?
    Occidental College records?
    Columbia thesis “Soviet Nuclear Disarmament” ?
    Columbia University records?
    Harvard Law School records?
    Harvard Law Review articles?
    University of Chicago scholarly articles?
    Passport?
    Medical records?
    Complete files and schedules of  years as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004?
    Client list from during  time in private practice with the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallar?
    llinois State Bar Association records?
    Baptism records?
    Obama/Dunham marriage license?
    Obama/Dunham divorce documents?
    Soetoro/Dunham marriage license?
    Adoption records?
    Unedited Birth certificate?

    GEEZ!!…I dunno….What’s left to hide?

  • Anonymous

    That’s some scary spelling and grammar you have going there Bob.

  • South Park Conservatives

    Josh Fox is a fraud, a fake, and a coward.

  • Centrist79

    So much for transparency by our elected officials.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KSH52GTU7ATNOTCD52RAL3P6XA Jon

    Which is why you make sure there’s sufficient state oversight and penalties. The process has been around since 1948, but there are contractors and sub-contractors who will cut corners on regulations if they’re not adequately monitored. But that’s the people doing the fracking, not the fracking itself when done properly, because the oil and gas deposits are two two four miles down from the drinkable underground water sources.

  • Anonymous

    The Republicans were merely protecting the public from the pornographic images of them bending over for gas industry lobbyists.

    When’s the hearing on this nonsense of the earth being older than six thousand years? 

  • Anonymous

    Fox is a bit prone to hyperbole. I’m sure this footage will make its way into his sequel to “Gasland”.  He is declaring there were no other other broadcasters in the room, yet somehow I was able to watch his eviction from the chambers via video from a news site. 

    His credibility has already been wounded as his film was riddled with significant factual inaccuracies.

  • http://twitter.com/Darr247 Darr Darr

    Well, you have to agree the Republican majority has a point… we can’t have the lamestream media twisting the meaning of their words by repeating them verbatim, and including video so the sneers on their faces are visible while they’re talking down to the scientists..

  • Anonymous

    Looks like this little twerp thought he was above the law!

  • Anonymous

    How about condemning him for not fallowing the rules?

  • Anonymous

    Who’s Constitutional right? And how did they apply in this situation?

  • Anonymous

    This guy made have had a valid argument for making the video but, that does not give him the right to bypass the rules. If it was that important, why didn’t he go through the proper channels. Is it because he thought he had rights beyond everyone else’s.

  • Anonymous

    You obviously didn’t watch the video or read the article.  This is a rule NO ONE FOLLOWS.  He was arrested for reporting as a journo, and you condemn him?

  • Anonymous

    Was he an accredited journalist? Did he receive permission to film?

  • Anonymous

    Your statement:  ”The water that’s pumped a mile into the earth loosens the tectonic plates and they slide.”

    False.

  • Anonymous

    PJTV does it all the time.  They aren’t arrested.  This is partisan bullshit.

  • Anonymous

    I’m in favor of fallowing established rules. Can you imagine the mess without rules?

  • Anonymous

      It was a public meeting. There were no rules.

  • Anonymous

    Because recording public speech in a public building is against the law. I dare you to cite that law.

    I double dog dare you. 

  • Anonymous

    Mr.Fox was REMOVED because, he failed to get accedited with the House Radio and TV Gallery. Seems, House rules are law!  

  • Anonymous

    Of course there’s rules. This clown broke one and was asked to leave.

  • Anonymous

    And you’re a cartoon character.

  • Anonymous

    While it’s true that fracking has been going on since the 1940s, these hearings are looking into the potential hazards associated with a process known as slick-water fracking which first came onto the scene in 1998.
    Please…learn the difference between the two processes.

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