The Untold Story of Fracking

As if President Obama hasn't already done enough to stymie the American economy, the administration has unleashed its federal regulatory Rottweilers to hound the oil industry over its use of fracking to tap oil and gas reserves.

Both the U.S Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are nosing around, sniffing for ways to restrict the process that has fueled the nation's biggest energy bonanza in nearly 60 years.

Fracking has been tainted in the realm of public opinion, thanks to shoddy science, made-for-television pseudo documentaries and a movie that has been thoroughly discredited.  But like the debate over global warming, emotion has trumped the facts in the war of words over fracking.

Hydraulic fracking, a process that has been around for decades, involves extracting natural gas and oil from dense deposits of shale deep underneath the earth where sea basins once existed. Highly-pressurized fluids are pumped into shale, unlocking deposits of oil and natural gas.

Before fracking and horizontal drilling, it was impossible to extract the energy using traditional methods, particularly at depths of more than a mile beneath the earth's surface. More than one million wells have been hydraulically fractured since the 1940's. 

Anti-fracking activists have constructed a boogie man around allegations that harsh chemicals used in the process pollute water supplies.  However, the fluids used to unlock the gas and oil are mostly water (90%) and sand (9.5%).  Less than one percent of the fluids are chemicals.

The Department of Energy released a landmark study earlier this year based on 12 months of monitoring a slew of wells in Pennsylvania, where fracking was employed.  The department found no traces of leakage of fracking chemicals into water supplies.

Another study measured methane levels at 489 "fracked" natural gas wells, finding "modestly low" levels of emissions, even below EPA estimates."This is good news in that it shows emissions can be controlled," said an Environmental Defense Fund executive.  The fund was one of the research sponsors.

This hardly satisfied most environmentalists who are never swayed by facts unless the data supports their jaundiced viewpoint. 

Yet there can be no arguing the economic benefits of fracking. A study by IHS Consulting, a global leader in data and analytics,  measured the economic contribution of oil and gas production from fracking and found that more than 1.7 million new jobs have been created during the boom.

Nearly $62 billion in additional federal, state and local tax receipts were generated in a single year (2012).  IHS estimates that cumulative added tax revenues from oil and gas production using fracking will top the $2.5 trillion level between 2012 and 2035.

Since 2008, the U.S. has recorded a 25 percent increase in domestic oil production, largely attributable to fracking.  This represents the highest domestic growth of any country in the world.  As a result, the U.S. now sends more petroleum products overseas than it imports for the first time in 60 years.

Not only has the boom helped reduce the U.S. trade deficit, but it has shored up energy security.  U.S. dependence on foreign oil has fallen as the oil industry has replaced imported crude with domestic supplies from North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

None of this impresses the environmental extremists attached like leaches to President Obama.  Their mantra is oil and gas are bad, solar and wind are good.  This simplistic view of energy threatens the economic well being and security of the nation.

Some states, such as New York and California, have already erected barriers to fracking.  For instance, New York, is now entering the sixth year of a fracking moratorium.  Meanwhile, neighboring Pennsylvania has added an estimated 250,000 shale related jobs in recent years.

There is not likely to be a truce anytime soon in the battle over fracking. To be sure, there are legitimate concerns about safety and the environment.  But the oil industry has made good faith efforts to address those, even if it has done a lousy job of public education. 

Nevertheless, the debate over fracking deserves a fair public hearing unencumbered by Hollywood fables, fraudulent environmental claims, biased media coverage and a president bent on impeding growth of oil and gas exploration.