Marcellus Shale drilling

Echoing President Barack Obama’s post-election statements on energy policy, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar hosted a forum in D.C. this week to discuss the important role natural gas stands to play in  America’s energy future. At the same time the meeting’s participants  detailed the economic and environmental advantages of cultivating this  vast resource, the New York State Assembly was voting to ban the  drilling process to extract gas until at least May 2011.  These two events illustrate a growing political divide in what should otherwise be a straightforward issue.

Much of this wedge is being driven by activists who oppose all fossil fuels and lobbyists for other energy sources eager to make natural gas less competitive. The situation suggests that this fight is about  politics and money rather than consumer safety, as natural gas opponents  claim.  You see, this is not a debate about whether to use fracking instead of an alternative process. No viable alternative exists.

Natural gas from the type of reservoirs we have in the United States cannot be produced economically without these well stimulation activities. No  fracking, no gas production. There should be no doubt about that.

The EPA declared the hydraulic fracturing drilling process safe as recently as 2004. “Fracking” — as it’s more commonly known — is the process necessary to liberate gas deposits from pockets of shale rock formations thousands of  feet below the earth’s surface. Since one of the opposition’s main  criticisms targets chemicals used in gas drilling, it’s worth noting  that each of these chemicals have undergone extensive reviews and been  determined safe by federal agencies in addition to their inspection as  part of the fracking process.

Despite millions of well treatments throughout the world for more than 60 years  and extensive body of scientific evidence supporting fracking, some lawmakers and regulators are being swayed by overblown  propaganda when making multibillion-dollar infrastructure decisions  about powering our economy.

In the Northeast, the massive Marcellus Shale offers enough natural gas to fuel the U.S. for over a decade. Pennsylvania has previously embraced the industry and allowed drilling, and the relationship has  proved mutually beneficial. Reports estimate  that development of gas in the state led to the creation of 44,000  jobs, and paid $339 million in state and local taxes in 2009 alone.
Across the entire country, this industry pumps over $300 billion into  the economy. And the benefits go far beyond those directly observable by  production.

This energy source was even a hot topic at last year’s U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen where environmentalists touted its low emissions relative to other traditional fuels. One year later, President Obama is  now advocating an expanded role for the “terrific natural gas resources in this country”
as part of his efforts to address climate change. And major green  groups like the Environmental Defense Fund have begun collaborating with  industry leaders to educate the public about the various benefits of  this fuel.

Though all of these strange bedfellows mark a rare confluence of support, some regulatory entities are reopening the books on hydraulic fracturing and regional lawmakers in New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and  Colorado are gunning for it.

This proves the theory that an organized minority, no matter how small, time and again has the advantage over an unorganized majority. Concerns over hydraulic fracturing stem from a handful of isolated  incidents of water contamination due to individuals’ failure to employ  best practices, not to a fault of the fracking process itself; yet,  reading email blasts from the Natural Resources Defense Council you  would think that every one of the over a million U.S. wells  which used hydraulic fracturing is inherently dangerous. In reality,  the biggest threat to consumer welfare is the toxic amount of  misinformation.