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Breaking: What Obama’s EPA Just Said About Fracking Will Infuriate This HUGE Activist Group
It was only hours after the Obama administration’s recent release of new regulations on fracking that two influential organizations in America’s oil and natural gas industry sued the federal government. As Breitbart reported in March of this year, more than two dozen Republicans in Congress also jointed the fight, introducing legislation to block the new rules supported by a powerful Obama constituency — environmentalists.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance wasted no time going to court, claiming that the new regs are based on “unsubstantiated concerns” that fracking — hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from the ground — is bad for the environment. Now, a just-released study from the EPA would seem to support those who say a major concern about fracking should be taken off the table and out of the arsenal of weapons of those who oppose the procedure.
The Environmental Protection Agency says that high-interest concern — that fracking could cause widespread harm to domestic water resources — is unfounded.
As has been reported recently by media outlets including Al Jazeera, the fracking boom over the past decade or so has greatly increased the United States’ production of oil and gas to the point where U.S. energy independence is a very real possibility.
Over the past five years, daily oil production in the US increased 3.7 million barrels, while US net imports of oil dropped 44 percent. A revolutionary technique to tap into oil and gas reserves by drilling horizontally into underground shale formations and using liquids pumped at high pressure to open cracks in the rock, fracking is reshaping the contours of American power.
In response to congressional urging that the agency study the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water, the EPA has issued a “draft assessment” of the potential for the controversial practice to “change the quality or quantity of drinking water resources.” That assessment, says the study’s executive summary, relies on “relevant scientific literature and data” from a variety of governmental as well as non-governmental sources.
While the EPA states that there’s the potential for fracking to impact drinking water resources, the evidence of actual large-scale harm is simply not there.
We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.
A report on CNBC notes that an EPA official, in commenting on the report, cited the oil and gas industry’s close cooperation with his agency.
“‘The study was undertaken over several years and we worked very closely with industry throughout the process,’ Tom Burke, EPA’s science advisor and deputy assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development, said on a conference call hosted by the agency.”
The CNBC report also says that industry officials are already celebrating the EPA’s findings that could have a major impact on their lawsuit against the Obama administration.
“‘With this new report, it couldn’t be clearer that shale development is occurring in conjunction with environmental protection and the claims by anti-fracking activists have been thoroughly debunked,’ a post from the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s outreach campaign said.”
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/breaking-what-obamas-epa-just-said-about-fracking-will-infuriate-this-huge-activist-group/
