President Obama's United States Department of Agriculture has delayed shale gas drilling in Ohio for up to six months by canceling a mineral lease auction for Wayne National Forest. The move was taken in deference to environmentalists, on the pretext of studying the effects of hydraulic fracturing. It's notable that USDA had adopted the current plan in 2006. What has changed so much in the past five years to render the plan obsolete? Certainly not fracking technology which has been around 60 years. Since 2006 and especially since the beginning of the Obama administration billions has been invested in areas that would be damaged by the advent of cheap natural gas. Corn ethanol has made farmers, investors, and politicians quite well off, if not wealthy, and that would include the former Speaker of the House and current GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Billions of dollars of public money has been poured into solar energy albeit with little results unless the wealth of Obama donors is to be considered a universal benefit. Then there is the greatest of all failures, the Chevy Volt and the off brand boutique vehicles for the rich and famous, Frisker and Tesla. The Obama administration has made bad bets and its only hope is to torpedo the innovations that threaten those bets.
Not much-but rather nearly all of the opposition to fracking has come in eastern and midwestern states not in the traditional energy producing states. Probably the heart of the problem is a lack a familiarity with drilling. It's cultural not political or scientific. Remote areas are suddenly disturbed by huge but temporary increases in truck traffic. Roads have to be repaired, rebuilt and upgraded and more than a little envy is directed toward the fortunate land owners who become well off. Hard working rig hands are known to drink more than a beer or two when they are away from home and rowdiness is endemic to any boom be it a gold rush or cattle drive. But if one must think in stereotypes I suggest you think of Todd Palin as a typical oil field worker.
Then there is the faux concern for the poor farmers. Listen to the video below. " South of Youngstown you can't buy a new John Deere tractor." If the farmers were so concerned about damage to their land they probably wouldn't be buying the Deere dealership empty.
Also there is the contamination of drinking water argument. Any oil or gas well could do that if it is not properly drilled with or without fracking. The XL Keystone pipeline opponents make the point that just running an oil pipeline over the Ogallala Aquifer endangers the fresh drinking water of millions of people but what about the hundreds of thousands of wells that have been drilled through it? How was the Ogallala discovered? Much of it was plotted by oil drillers. We should ask the environmental opposition to fracking why it has not contaminated the Ogallala Aquifer.
More than 200,000 Ohio based, oil and gas industry related jobs are projected by 2015 Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program. Add in the additional manufacturing jobs such as those in the video and things look very good in the near term. The major obstacle must be voted out in 2012.
I did a post about the resurgence of Youngstown earlier. This video from the same reporter updates it.
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