The Scot-Govt. is scheduled to make a Ministerial Statement this week on fracking in Scotland.
The official statement on unconventional (ie onshore) oil and gas exploration is due to be made in the Scottish parliament on Thursday, 30 March.
But Holyrood insiders are perplexed about the likely details of the statement – as the Scot-Govt is committed to banning unconventional oil and gas – aka fracking.
It imposed a ‘temporary’ moratorium in January 2015 – and then launched a review of the process by a series of independent scientific experts.
Paul Wheelhouse, the Scottish Energy Minister, announced the outcome of these reviews, which essentially concluded that onshore oil and gas exploration does not pose major risks to public health under existing and/or enhanced regulatory frameworks.
He then opened these experts reviews to ‘public consultation’ – which is stil ongoing. But in the meantime, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Friends of the Earth had been guilty of pub lishing ‘misleading’ claims about unconventional oil and gas.
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