A drilling rig operates as the sun sets Wednesday, July 6, 2022, in Pecos.
Banning fracking is a bad idea, but promising $2-a-gallon gasoline is silly, yet during an election season, politicians will say the darndest things.
Voters who care about energy costs need to look past campaign talking points. When it comes to energy policy, activists on both sides of the political divide need a reality check.
In the presidential race, Donald Trump highlights Kamala Harris’ 2019 pledge to ban hydraulic fracturing, a technique where drillers pressurize a slurry at the bottom of a well to break the shale rock that holds oil and gas molecules. Combined with horizontal drilling, fracking transformed the United States from an oil and gas importer into the world’s largest producer.
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Environmentalists called on the federal government to stop fracking, falsely claiming that it contaminated water wells and triggered earthquakes. Their real goal, and a reasonable one, was to slow fossil fuel production and force the world to adopt cleaner energy and slow climate change.
The irony is that fracking probably did more to slow climate change in the last decade than anything else.
Pump jacks operate in the Eagle Ford Shale.
The U.S. was running low on natural gas and relying on coal-fired power........