Who Needs Protection?

So you’d like to contribute the water your wells produce to help alleviate the water shortage, but you need a bit of protection? Why?

Oil companies want protection as Texas considers allowing treated fracking water released into rivers

As the state grapples with a threatened water supply, industry and lawmakers have invested millions in research to clean the toxic backwash for use in agriculture.

[T]he oil and gas industry is hesitating to expand this effort [to reuse produced water] unless it can be sure it is shielded from liability after it hands off the water. You could be forgiven for doubting that anything good would come of “shielding from liability.” After all, these are big powerful companies, the backbone of American enterprise, they would certainly be ethical and honest in such matters.

Yes, I am being facetious. Big Oil and Gas have a terrible record for social and environmental responsibility. Giving them protection from liability would be naive and stupid. The cost of insurance, the cost of cleaning up the toxic byproducts should already be priced in, but it isn’t. That’s just another example of the hidden ways the public subsidizes fossil energy.