In the 2005 energy bill, largely crafted by Vice-President Dick Cheney, fracking was explicitly exempted from federal review under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Oh, and most businesses will be negatively affected by a measure capping the amount of interest expenses they can deduct — except real estate investors and hotel operators, which are explicitly exempted.
Local and state laws could require drillers to disclose their formulas, but at the federal level fracturing fluid is explicitly exempted from regulation under such laws as the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974.
In Comment this week, Elizabeth Kolbert writes about hydraulic fracturing — fracking, for short — the process by which shale gas is extracted from the earth: In the 2005 energy bill, largely crafted by Vice-President Dick Cheney, fracking was explicitly exempted from federal review under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The newspaper said that while prime contractors were explicitly exempted by law from taxation on aid contracts, the Afghan government was sending tax notices to subcontractors, many of them American and other foreign companies, claiming they were not covered by that provision.
This reliance is unwarranted, however, because states are explicitly exempted from any obligation to allocate significant resources (i.e. police or prosecutors) to enforce these laws.
In Los Angeles, for example, body camera footage is explicitly exempted from public records laws.
However, all banks and credit unions with less than $10 billion in assets are explicitly exempted from the pending fee caps.
But small banks with less than $10 billion in assets are explicitly exempted from the new fee limits by the financial reform bill.
But here's the rub: Banks with less than $10 billion in assets are explicitly exempted from the new swipe fee rules anyway -- they will continue to be able to charge whatever they want once the Fed's new rules go into effect.
