I read a lot of environmental headlines every day, but this one really caught my eye. It said, "After six decades of fracking, regulation considered." The story was out of California, but its essence captured what's going on from New York to Oklahoma and beyond. From coast to coast, government officials are allowing the big oil and gas companies to drill first, while asking questions later...much later. As in this particular case:
In a remote Ventura County field, hydraulic fracturing has chipped away at underground rock, helping release more than 80 million barrels of oil since drilling began in the 1890s.
Above ground, three creeks snake from the adjacent Los Padres National Forest and overhead California condors fly, their protected refuge just behind the oil wells.
Now, some 60 years after hydraulic fracturing began at Sespe field in Fillmore, state officials are trying to decide whether to tighten rules on the “fracking” operation, as it is known, and dozens of others like it in the state.
I'd say that's unbelievable, except if you've followed the progress of the gas-drilling boom in this country over the last couple of years, it's actually not unbelievable at all. The experience in the ...