Most people I know have never heard of fracking. Those precious few who have generally fall into two cagtegories: crazy liberals and environmentalists who are so paranoid about rich corporations destroying the fabric of our precious nation in their endless quest of patriarchal greed and power that they rarely bother to actually research issues like this and instead choose to simply be angry all the time, and crazy social “conservatives” who are pretty much just paranoid all the time about crazy bleeding-heart liberals destroying the fabric of our nation as they unequivocally fail to notice the shadowy black gloved hand of the wealthy and the corporate predicating their every move with the telltale strings of a marionette. They also display a ridiculous lack of informedness on a regular basis. The excruciatingly polarized extremity of these two portrayals of an issue like fracking yields an incoherent and somewhat paradoxical information pool for the casual voter who is expected to actually make some kind of decision. It thus behooves usto attempt to distill fact from partisanship and to conclude with some kind of rational policy prescription.
Background
According to that invaluable information source, Wickipedia, the first fracking occured in 1947 in the United States. Two years later the first commercially successful fracking occurred. In 2010, 60% of all oil produced in the United States utilized fracking techniques. So it is kindof a big deal to talk about banning it.
So what exactly is fracking?
Fracking, or aquatic fracturing (for some reason also spelled occasionally as “fracing” or “fraccing”…), essentially consists of a big machine impelling water and sand into a rock at very high pressure causing the rock to fracture and hence release the previously concealed liquid gold.
So what are the benefits of fracking?
Fracking allows oil companies to access huge amounts of oil that are trapped under giant rocks.
So what is the problem?
Those pesky, meddlesome environmentalists invented some crap about how fracking has the potential to release large amounts of highly toxic chemicals into previously pristine environments, poisoning aquifers, killing fish, and causing acid burns and …cancer.
Concise Analysis
Real Points for the Crazy Conservatives
Fracking is a huge industry that appears to be an important part of our economy. The crazy liberals have failed to propose an alternative scenario that would end fracking without causing significant harm to our economy and oil dependence.
Real Points for the Crazy Liberals
There’s a funny story here. It starts with the EPA being charged with the task of evaluating the potential environmental harms of fracking in the 1980’s, and ends with a damning expose from the New York Times in 2011 on how the EPA edited the report they had been about to release under pressure from the oil industry, eliminating previously extant recomendations that the industry be heavily regulated due to the very real possibility of serious environmental threats.
Sometimes Profound 