New Yorkers should be proud of their lawmakers today.

On their first day back in session, members of the New York State Assembly voted to approve a temporary moratorium on the controversial form of gas extraction known as hydraulic fracturing or "fracking." (No word on whether Jay Z's "Empire State of Mind" was blasting in the halls of the Capitol during the late-night vote.)

This shows that leaders in New York are taking seriously the concerns associated with fracking—a technique in which millions of gallons of chemically-treated water are blasted into the earth to force gas from underground deposits.

The bill, already approved by the state Senate, now heads to outgoing Gov. David Paterson for his signature. Unfortunately, the governor has been sending mixed signals about whether or not he will sign the bill into law. If you live in New York state, now would be a good time to call Gov. Paterson at (518) 474-8390 and urge him to do the right thing before he leaves office.

Art imitated life on CBS's hit crime show CSI last night. The episode, titled "Fracked," delved into the water-polluting form of gas drilling in which millions of gallons of chemically-treated water are blasted into the earth to extract gas from underground deposits.

The episode summary goes like this:

Two men are murdered right before exposing a natural gas company for poisoning residents in a farming town, and the CSIs must discover who is responsible for their deaths.

It's fiction, of course. But parts of the plot line were lifted straight from the headlines: poisoned wells, flaming faucets, sick people, dying animals, silenced residents. The scriptwriters even took care to include expository dialogue explaining how hydraulic fracturing is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Very true. And very scary.

Third-generation shrimp fisherman Clint Guidry. Credit: Matthew Preusch/Gulf Restoration Network

Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazer lifted the moratorium on deepwater oil drilling and declared the Gulf of Mexico "open for business."

We presume he was talking to the folks at BP, Exxon, and Shell—not so much to shrimp fishermen like Clint Guidry.

Like his father and grandfather before him, the 62-year-old Guidry has worked in Louisiana's shrimp industry for most of his adult life. But he simply doesn't know what the future holds for the family business.

A lot depends on the chemicals used as so-called dispersants in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon spill this summer. Did the 1.8 million gallons of chemicals dumped into the Gulf of Mexico send toxic-coated oil droplets tumbling from the water's surface and into the same areas of the ocean where Guidry's catch feed and spawn? Will it make the ocean creatures sick? What about the people who eat Gulf-caught fish?

Failed presidential candidate/mock talk show host Stephen Colbert wants to rumble

When Stephen Colbert's ultra conservative Comedy Central character declares you as being part of the nanny state, you know you're doing something right.

Last night, the mock talk show host aired a segment on Earthjustice's campaign to enforce a 40-year-old New York state law and associated regulations requiring manufacturers of household cleaners to reveal the chemical ingredients in their products and any health risks they pose.

"Way to spoil the surprise!" Colbert shouted, likening the effort to other pesky consumer protections he despises: baby seats and motorcycle helmets.

He then vowed to derail the initiative, declaring, "Nation, we're not going to take this sitting down. We're going to take it standing—on top of a step ladder, throwing a lawn dart at a drum of DDT." (Read more to watch the video.)

Flaming tap water, as seen in the critically acclaimed documentary Gasland

The fight to protect communities from the water-polluting form of gas drilling known as horizontal hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") is moving quickly on several fronts, both local and national.

This week, officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are wrapping up a multi-city public hearing tour on the controversial gas extraction technique—in which drillers blast millions of gallons of chemically-treated water into the earth to force the gas from tightly packed shale deposits.

To give you an idea of how high interest has been: the last of these hearings - being held tomorrow in Binghamton, NY - had to be postponed last month after officials realized they didn't have a space large enough to accommodate the expected 8,000-person crowd. EPA is collecting the testimony heard at these meetings to inform the agency's much-needed study into fracking's impact on drinking water.

Is this family an unwitting research subject in a chemical industry experiment?

I don't ever remember checking a box giving anyone permission to pollute my body with mysterious chemicals. I'm guessing you don't either.

But because of our weak chemical safety law, you and I are being exposed to toxic chemicals without our consent. The law that should be protecting us—the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA)—doesn't require chemical makers to prove the 80,000 chemicals made in the U.S. are safe before they end up in the everyday things that make up our lives—from the receipts in your wallet to the food packaging in your cupboard, from the jewelry around your neck to the sofa in your living room.

That's why this week Earthjustice and the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition launched a series of ads to remind members of Congress that it's up to them to pull the plug on this unregulated experiment and get to work fixing our nation's chemical law.

Do you buy Arm & Hammer cleaning products? I used to.

I have to admit, there's something strangely comforting about that old-fashioned image on the side of their baking soda box. I associated it with, I don't know, something wholesome, like making pancakes with my Dad on Sunday morning. And when I got old enough to buy products to clean my own home, those happy memories buried deep in my brain propelled me to the Arm & Hammer section of the cleaning product aisle, silently commanding me to hoist that yellow bottle of laundry detergent into my cart.

At some slightly more conscious level, I was thinking 'If they make cooking ingredients, their cleaning products have to be safe, right?'

Well maybe. But here's the thing: We asked Arm & Hammer to disclose the chemical ingredients in their cleaning products as required by a New York State law.

They refused.

Have we been cast as extras in a fossil fuels end-of-days flick?

Is it just me? Or did this week's oil and gas news have a doomsday quality to it?

On Monday we had not one, not two, but three industrial gas disasters: a natural gas pipeline in Texas exploded, killing one worker, injuring several others and sending up a geyser of flame visible for miles around; a fireball and explosion burned seven workers drilling for natural gas in West Virginia; and authorities shut down activities at a Pennsylvania gas drilling site after a plume of toxic wastewater shot 75 feet into the air from a ruptured gas well, raining chemicals down on the site for 16 straight hours.

All of this as BP kept churning out an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico and investigations continued into the Massey mine disaster in West Virginia that killed 29 miners.

Looking around at this fossil fuels end-of-days drama unfolding around us, I can't help but feel like we've all been cast as extras in some scary action-adventure movie.

Did you tune into CNN's special series "Toxic Towns USA" last night? I sure did. I wanted to root on our friends and allies in the town of Mossville, LA who were featured in the special one-hour program hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Among the local heroes profiled in the piece was Dorothy Felix, who has spent much of the past decade fighting to protect her community from the cancer-causing chemicals raining down upon her hometown of Mossville, a historically African-American community in southwestern Louisiana ringed by chemical plants.

This is a community where University of Texas researchers found that 99 percent of residents suffered from at least one disease or illness related to toxic chemical exposure. Further studies found blood levels of dioxin in Mossville residents rivaling those seen in workers involved in industrial accidents. The toxicologists studying these results called them some of the highest levels ever reported in the United States from an environmental exposure.

If you're like me, you haven't quite gotten around to your spring cleaning. But this year, I'm actually excited to get started. Why? Because I'm detoxing my spring cleaning. And you can, too!

This spring, Earthjustice members are hosting 'Green Cleaning' parties around the country (and around the world—we just got a note from someone in Shanghai!). Our partners at Women's Voices for the Earth have been organizing these parties for years—where people gather with friends and family to learn how to mix their own safe and effective surface cleaners, laundry detergent and more.

We've got parties happening in Danbury, CT; Denver, CO; Dallas, TX; Flint, MI; Portland, ME, among other places. Sign up here to learn more about hosting one in your town!