We shouldn’t need to repeat the message, but so often it seems that our legislators are dazzled by promises of unearned wealth and prosperity gushing out of a hole in the ground, they forget that we regulate this sort of thing because it damages us. When an activity is harmless, we usually let it be. When there is a hazard to life, health, or community well-being, then we constrain the offending action. Fracking is harmful it both the short and long term.
Keep it in the ground.
There are a lot of clever people who are well paid to keep chipping away at the regulations and regulators who protect our environment. In my view, they lack conscience and are without honor. But so long as the money if offered, they are relentless in their efforts. Defenders must be vigilant and vocal.
Bloomberg reports that fracking is being adversely affected by tariffs and lower-cost alternative sources. The Bloomberg article is behind a paywall, but the take-away is clear. Fracking isn’t thriving with the glut of gas. Yet energy producers refuse to leave it in the ground.
Fossil energy is expensive to produce even with fracking, and that production cost does not include pricing in the costs and damage from burning it as fuel or making it into plastics.
