The Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, has made an agreement with environmentalists so foolish that even the Washington Post is blasting it. Namely, he announced a support for banning hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in his state.
The Post is having none of it:
Mr. Hogan has now pulled Maryland into a small group of states that has surrendered to anti-fracking activists who deny the reality that fracking can be performed safely, as long as strong regulations are in place.
As study after study has shown, in most of the country fracking’s predominant environmental concerns, such as wastewater management, methane emissions and well integrity, are risks that can be managed with careful oversight.
Fracking’s benefits, meanwhile, are more than just economic. With President Trump ripping up the nation’s climate-change policy, utilities switching from dirty coal to somewhat cleaner natural gas could become a key, market-driven restraint on U.S. greenhouse emissions.
There the Post sounded common themes here:
Fracking can be performed safely.
Study after study has shown that.
Fracking is the main reason U.S. energy emissions are down this century — and down in North Carolina, too!
- Yes, in large part thanks to fracking, we have seen actual, significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
