Warren and Other Dems Call for Fracking Ban — Do they WANT to lose Colorado, Ohio, and Pennsylvania?
A fracking ban would harm the economy, cost millions of jobs, and push America to rely on foreign energy again.
2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have already declared they want to ban fracking as a way to fight climate change. Others have said they would find ways to phase it out.
Deep research into America without fracking finds an unhealthy economy plus millions without jobs.
Economy, Jobs, and Less Dependence on Foreign Energy
The Wall Street Journal published this report on Sunday, but the research has been around for years. Unfortunately, the hatred towards fracking is nothing new with the far-left.
Fracking “involves pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations deep below the earth’s surface to release reserves of oil and gas.”
This practice has become popular because it has helped America lessen her dependence on foreign oil:
U.S. shale oil accounts for most of America’s oil production, which is now the largest in the world and has helped mitigate the effects of last week’s disruption in Saudi output. Energy experts say cutting off a significant portion of U.S. shale-oil supply could have profound economic effects in the U.S., including in states like Pennsylvania that are likely to be key battlegrounds in the 2020 election.
“Just the messaging is giving investors and companies heartburn,” said Katie Bays, co-founder of Sandhill Strategy, which advises companies on energy policy.
Shale companies produce around eight million barrels of oil a day. That is 10% of the global supply. Other procedures push the total to 12 million barrels of oil a day.
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol explained to CNBC that the ban would hurt America and Europe. Before fracking, Russia had complete control in the natural gas energy sector. America’s dominance has allowed “options for the consumers” and making it “better for energy security.”
Birol considers climate change a “serious issue,” but urges the government to include the energy sector in conversations and make them a part of the solution. It needs to stop considering them as part of “the problem or a barrier.”
More jobs in Pennsylvania means a boost for job unions. Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale does not think the Democrats will win over the state with their fracking bans. He reminded them that citizens “vote with their pocketbooks.” If the residents “have a solid financial footing” they will then look at other issues.
Democratic Opposition
Sanders, Warren, and others like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) want everyone to stop using fossil fuels. Others do not like fracking because of the chemicals companies use in the process.
On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that puts a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases for drilling offshore and on public lands. And I will ban fracking—everywhere.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 6, 2019
Fracking is a danger to our water supply. It’s a danger to the air we breathe. It causes earthquakes. It’s highly explosive. And it’s contributing to climate change. We need to ban it nationwide. pic.twitter.com/acF22iQLRy
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 7, 2019
I’m in Colorado w/ @JoeNeguse visiting communities whose air is being poisoned by fracking.
What we’re seeing is appalling. Companies are building fracking sites on public lands, across the street from schools + homes.
Their toxic emissions are invisible. This camera sees them. pic.twitter.com/Kem0MT1lMj
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 21, 2019
Democrats may want to think twice before going extreme on fracking. A ban on the practice would affect Pennsylvania, a valuable swing state in elections:
Roughly half of Pennsylvania’s counties have fracking activity. Those with some of the greatest concentration of wells—in the southwest and northeast corners of the state—were areas that strongly backed President Trump in the 2016 election, when he carried the state by only about 44,000 votes out of 6.1 million cast.
“In the last three decades, we’ve been writing obituaries for manufacturing. And in the last four or five years, we’ve been writing birth announcements up and down the Appalachian Basin because of our newfound supplies of energy,” said David Spigelmyer, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents most of the natural-gas producers in the state.
It would also put them in danger of losing Ohio and Colorado, two other important swing states.
But the Democratic opposition to fracking shows the growing influence of climate change advocates on the left. Yes, it seems environmentalists and climate change people have split into separate groups.
President Barack Obama encouraged fracking because it frees America from foreign energy and brought down energy prices. His administration placed many regulations on the fracking industry to appease the environmentalists who had worries about polluting water.
The environmentalists never pushed Obama’s administration to ban fracking. They just wanted more regulations.
The hyper end-of-the-world climate change people have taken over, though. They want the government to basically ban all fossil fuels, which would include fracking.
Past Research on Fracking Bans
Brookings Institution noted in 2015 “that households gained $200 from fracking just from lower gas prices alone.”
A 2016 report from the Global Energy Institute Report discovered a fracking ban would lead to 15 million losing their jobs by 2022 while causing a rise in electricity and energy prices.
While WSJ pointed out Pennsylvania, the energy report included Ohio and Colorado, two other swing states, along with Texas:
Additionally, the Energy Institute’s report looks specifically at the economic impacts of a fracking ban on Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. In all these states, the impact could be severe. 1.6 million Texans could lose their jobs, while Pennsylvania could lose $50 billion a year in state GDP. Colorado could lose 215,000 jobs, and the average Ohio household could see costs rise by $4,000 a year.
“While on its face, ‘keep it in the ground’ policies are intended to punish the energy industry, in reality they punish the entire economy,” said Harbert. “Bringing back energy scarcity means higher energy prices for everyone. Beyond that, banning fracking would make America much more reliant on foreign sources of energy, weakening our national security.”
Using the IMPLAN model, the report modeled changes to the U.S. economy, including real labor income, energy prices, air transportation costs, and energy extraction jobs. The report also breaks down three types of economic shock—higher residential energy costs, higher business energy costs, and upstream production losses. Seventeen separate economic sectors—many of which have little to do with the oil and gas sector—would experience hardship as a result of higher prices. Among the most vulnerable are retail and wholesale sectors of the economy.
Nova Scotia has seen the effects of a fracking ban. In November 2018, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy wrote that the fracking ban “have cost Nova Scotians at least $333 million a year in lost spending.” The economy lost $2 billion and between 750 to 1,500 full-time jobs.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
I really need to find a way to get them to suggest returning to the 55 MPH “double nickle” national speed limit repealed in 1995. Hey, Green New Deal! Lower carbon footprint! Safety uber alles – how many have to die from driving fast enough to get to your destination in 12 instead of 16 hours, it isn’t as if you might get fatigued or drowsy!
Why stop at 55, the roads would be much safer in rural areas if the speed limit were set to 45 so older folks could look at what their neighbors were doing, while driving, in safety without other rural and city folks (particularly youngsters) zipping past them. And that would create the need to reduce the speed limit to 45 everywhere (where not lower) so people would be used to the correct speed. And the lagniappe would be the fuel savings would benefit the Earth, the nation and their pocketbooks as the surfeit of gasoline and diesel reduced the cost of those now surplus commodities.
Obviously (I think) /s/
Why are you two dithering about speed limits? According to Dem candidate Andrew Yang, Gaia demands we ban private ownership of cars and Gaia must be obeyed.
Let’s ban the internal combustion engine and cars altogether. Humans can use re breathers to soak up carbon dioxide.
Time to end the scourge of on demand electric power
Make everybody work from home!
The thing to remember is that these idiots want to ban all fossil fuels so why should they allow any oil to be taken out of the ground.
The true goal of the progressive fascists is destroy the private economy and thereby create hundreds of millions of poor desperate people who are susceptible to their lies. It will make it easy for progressive fascists to lie their way into power.
the really sad thing is the ones complaining about FRACKING know NOTHING about it. Fracking is done at the 5000 to 12,000 foot level and water tables are no more than 2000 feet and most are at the 75 – 200 feet some are at up to 500 feet. Fracking has nothing to do with the water table that is 5000 feet apart in depth.
that might be great for you people that live in a city. but those of us that live in real states like our 80 mph speed limit.
Will they ban tracking in China and India as well?
{Stupid auto-correct.}
Will they ban fracking in China and India as well?
And lose TEXAS!
It’s astounding – every single line of Bernie Sanders statement, quoted above, is pseudo-scientific hogwash. It’s on the exact same level as Marianne talking about healing the world through magic crystals.
But Democrats will win IRAN and SAUDI ARABIA!
As I remember, in the “environmental debate,” these same Dems also said they would ban offshore oil production. Banning both fracking and offshore production would make the US totally dependent on OPEC, like we were in the 1974 “oil crisis.” I hope the Republicans bring out the figures to show what a stupid move this would be.
US would be totally dependent on Venezuela and Iran for oil… which is exactly what Dems want…. support communism and compromise Israel.
Your forgetting that these idiots have promised to ban use of all fossil fuels! The people and businesses will just have to go without. No food, heat, water or jobs. It will be a socialist paradise like Russia during the revolution!
They don’t even understand they could lose votes
Let’s see. The Dems want to seize our guns in the name of safety. In the name of the environment they want to take away red meat and in fact force us to go vegan through oppressive taxation. They want to ban inexpensive and lifesaving heating and air conditioning. They want to ban commercial air travel and private car ownership.
But we can all get good, high paying jobs killing protected and endangered birds and bats to the point of extinction.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/21/explaining-wind-turbine-lethality/
The leftists say we need a mobilization on the scale of WWII to “save the planet.” Yes, what they are proposing is on that scale, but they’re figuratively entering WWII on the side of the German Nazis, Italian Fascists, and Japanese Militarists. Because if they had the long range bombers or rockets/missiles to wreak the kind of economic destruction on us that the rabid left is proposing they would have done it in a heart beat. And it’s inconceivable that they could have done nearly as thorough a job of annihilating our economy as our “Death to America” left will be able to do if we’re stupid enough to put them in power because it will be an inside job.
I suppose they think we need high paying jobs after destroying everything worth paying for because we need to be taxed to provide free medical care to illegals. Who need it because they are bringing all their third world diseases with them.
Remember “Escape From L.A.?” The premise was that it was the religious right that would deliver us to a dystopian future. Even then I knew that was ridiculous. It was always going to be the America-hating left. Make sure you get all the inoculations you’d need if visiting the Congo and go to L.A. and look around. It’s just like the movie set. And as the crazed Dem candidates keep screeching at the top of their lungs, they’re not even at the halfway point when it comes to turning us into serfs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZCypUOH8js
“Snake Plissken ‘land of the free”
Fracking helped stop a huge capital outflow from the US to the Middle East. That outflow was incredibly damaging to our overall economy, and it was damaging our national security.
I have concerns about potential downsides of fracking, but I love what it is doing for our economy and national security. Starving enemies for capital is a good thing.
Banning fracking shows how little the party of science understands basic science
The party of science wants to ban fracking because the fracking fluid poisons the drinking water.
1) The hydrocarbons are vastly more toxic than fracking fluids – 10,000x more toxic
2) the salt water in the hydrocarbon formations is vastly more toxic than fracking fluids. 10,000x more toxic.
And they seem to be incapable of understanding, that if you are putting fraccing fluids 10,000 feet down, there is going to be at least 9,000 feet of SOLID rock in between those zones and any fresh water zones. 9,000 feet of solid rock is a pretty good barrier to fluid migration. AND if by some chance there were existing avenues of migration, the deep salt water would have infiltrated the surface zones long, long ago.
” AND if by some chance there were existing avenues of migration, the deep salt water would have infiltrated the surface zones long, long ago.”
Like duh – same with the hydrocarbons
But science and engineering is not the forte of most progressives.
But, but, but the inflammable water!
What do you mean, it’s been inflammable for thousands of years? That’s unpossible.
I said I have some concerns. There is a pipe passing through the water table, going 9000′ deep. Temperature increases 1 degree F for each 70′ of depth. A breach of the pipe anywhere in or near the water table could allow water to flow down, flash into high pressure steam, and propel hydrocarbons and the chemicals used back into the water table. The risk is fairly low, but still a risk. That is just one risk, there are others.
As stated above,
1) the hydrocarbons and Salt water are vastly more toxic than the fracking fluids by a magnitude of 10,000x or more.
2) The probability of a breach into the water table is just as great with or with or without the a perf or frac job.
3) the well bore will have 3 casing strings plus cement at least 500 past the bottom of the water table water table
4) the movement of the fluids goes from the higher pressure zones to the lower pressure zones, If there is a breach, the zone containing the water table will be in a zone under higher pressure than the zone of the breach. therefore the fresh water from the water table will also be infiltrating the breach, not the other way around.
The last point is virtually the only time that there is inflitration of methane/natural gas is when the natural gas zones are naturally occuring in the same zone as the water table. This is common in some of the shallow zones, quite common in the penn area.
As Mary notes, these idiots want to ban all fossil fuels and go to solar and wind.
Depending on the size of the turbine, each one will require hundreds of tons of steel, copper, aluminum, and at least 2 tons of rare earths. They are so ignorant of the extraction and manufacturing processes they think that it can be done without using fossil fuel for the earth moving equipment or to convert all that ore into the end product.
Plus 45 tons of non-recyclable plastic.
Wind turbines only last, at most, 20 years. During that life cycle each one will not do much more than produce a fraction of its advertised output will killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of protected raptors, bats, and actual endangered bird and bat species.
If you and I possessed a single bald eagle feather we could easily wind up doing jail time. The highly subsidized wind scam is exempt from all such laws and in fact is not required to disclose how many hundreds of thousands of birds it kills every year, being permitted to consider it a “trade secret.”
Think Solar is better?
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-solar-bird-deaths-20160831-snap-story.html
“…A macabre fireworks show unfolds each day along I-15 west of Las Vegas, as birds fly into concentrated beams of sunlight and are instantly incinerated, leaving wisps of white smoke against the blue desert sky.
Workers at the Ivanpah Solar Plant have a name for the spectacle: ‘Streamers.’”
Plus, in addition to all the other toxic chemicals that go into wind turbines and solar panels they use sulfur hexafluoride as an insulator. It’s a gas that prevents short circuits and fires.
Fires are apparently a big problem with rooftop solar panels. Walmart is suing Tesla because they were awarded the contract to install and maintain their panels on I forget how many thousands of Walmart stores. And they keep spontaneously combusting. Not even de-energizing them will stop them from promiscuously lighting fires.
One teensy problem with sulfur hexafluoride. It’s a greenhouse gas that is 23,500 times more powerful than CO2. So it is actually worse than putting millions more cars on the road.
These idiots have no clue about any of this. They are so brainless they think if they pass a law, the unicorns or something will just make it all happen. As an engineer friend of mine said when he heard of AOC’s Green Nude Eel and was appalled at the vacuous stupidity, “Everything seems easy when you don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about.
I’ll be borrowing that “everything seems easy” quip.
[…]
Power beams are sublime; so nobody will mind
If we cook the occasional goose.
All of the cattle are standing like statues
All of the cattle are standing like statues
They smell of roast beef every time we go by
And the hawks and the falcons are dropping like flies…
The Dems are merely following the well trod path of Hillary! in her clever attempt to win votes in West Virginia, by vowing to close all the coal mines.
For some inexplicable reason, voters dependent on coal mines for a living took issue with that brilliant plan.
I think Trump won that state with 68% of the vote.
In 2005 natural gas in the USA reached a price of $19.15 per 1000 cu ft. Today’s price is $2.75
Without fracking, natural gas is too expensive to use for electricity generation. Without fracking electricity would either become a luxury good (priced so high that most of us could afford to use a fraction of what we use today) or (far more likely) there would be a massive reversion to coal. Which is a far dirtier fuel than natural gas, and also produces significantly more CO2 per BTU.
The expected consequence of no-fracking (aside from the geopolitical realities, which are far from trivial) is dirtier air and dirtier water- or massive shortages of electricity.
But they’re banning all new coal plants.
But their banning all fossil fuels!
They aren’t, though. They would like to, but they can’t do it. Banning new coal plants, though, is well within their power — 0bama did it, and although I think Trump has undone it (does anyone know?) the next D administration can do it again. So that’s a real problem, not just an environut aspiration.
“A fracking ban would harm the economy, cost millions of jobs, and push America to rely on foreign energy again.”
That’s right in line with the
democratscommies plans.Let’s see: important stuff for Democrats:
Saving the earth 150 years in the future
Open Borders for everybody
Free Medical Care for everybody
Free College for everybody
Ending Racism
Normalizing Transsexualism so they can use all the bathrooms.
Using only Alternative energy and ending use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
Non important stuff for Democrats:
Jobs
Fuel costs
Anything outside the U.S. including Chinese trade problems, Iranian threats and N.K. threats
Keeping taxes low
Lowering crime
The problems in our cities caused by homelessness
One of these two lists is all Piein-the-Sky ‘intellectual dreams’ stuff important after all basic needs have been taken care of – Rich kid problems.
The other list is all practical stuff important to lower and middle class Americans who have to worry about feeding the family and keeping them safe.
Guess I’m just not rich enough or smart enough to be democrat
Here’s a dirty little secret that needs to become better known: The anti-fracking movement is funded by Russia and the OPEC countries. For obvious reasons.
A few years ago some eager young thing came to my door asking me to sign a petition against fracking. He must have been used to some people saying yes and some saying no, for various reasons — privacy, not wanting to get involved, etc. But I threw him for an absolute loop when I said I wouldn’t sign because I support fracking. I could see on his face that he’d not only never heard such a thing before, but hadn’t imagined that such a thing was even possible. It was as if I’d told him I was from Mars.
Tangentially related–Promised Land, a 2012 movie starring Matt Damon, was an anti-fracking movie with financial support from Abu Dhabi. From Wikipedia:
Financing
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, reported that Promised Land was financed in part by Image Nation Abu Dhabi, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media, which is wholly owned by the United Arab Emirates. The foundation said that the UAE, as a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has “a direct financial interest… in slowing the development of America’s natural gas industry” and suggested that its financing of the film “may have an impact on the public’s view of the [fracking] practice”.[21][22] Image Nation said it provided financing to the film as part of an ongoing partnership with Participant Media, “regardless of genre or subject matter”.[15][20]
Now, let’s go see how much money these Democratic candidates are receiving from groups that have that kind of backing?
Actually that’s not tangential at all. It was the main example I had in mind when I wrote my comment.
Matt Damon, the star of “The Promised Land” anti-fracking movie, is a dumbs*** who apparently didn’t know it was basically OPEC bankrolling his propaganda. Far worse are the Hollywood arses who do know and are willing to be complicit in hiding the information.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/05/22/video-sting-operation-hollywood-elites-hate-fracking-take-money-big-oil-hide/
“…Josh and Rebecca Tickell are looking to make an anti-fracking film entitled “Fracked.” The Hollywood Reporter (THR) reports that this film “will argue a technique for extracting natural gas called fracking is bad for the environment.” This is unfortunate because fracking is safe, effective, and needed.
THR is reporting that the sting occurred when actors Ed Begley Jr. and Mariel Hemingway joined the Tickells for a meeting and were “duped by a man named ‘Muhammad,’ who [was] looking to make an anti-fracking movie while hiding that its funding is coming from Middle Eastern oil interests.”
The filmmakers were all too eager to hide the source of prospective funding for their movie…”
I’m just south of the Marcellus Shale fields in NEPA … Maybe 20 miles … We don’t have many folks around here working the rigs but the tax revenue is pretty big and hotels wal mart all see big business from these guys …gas money has got to be worth 2 – 3 billion a year for local business and the same in tax revenue… No state can take a hit like that
Meanwhile NY continues to ban fracking while leaking jobs and population.
I’m guessing they might need to ban ammo first. Oopsie, too late.
What you don’t know CAN hurt you, which describes the DemocRAT Klown Kar of Kandidates pretty well when it comes to environmental issues. The policies they are advocating run counter to economics, energy polices, employment opportunities, the environment and general common sense. By dancing to the lobbyists and Globalists tunes, they’re losing the votes of the bulk of the American population.
My advice to them: Continue what you’re doing. Trump 2020.
OF course they need fracking to be banned. How else can they hamstring the US drive to energy independence?