A Ban on Fracking Would Mean Higher Costs, Unemployment, and CO2 Emissions

February 24, 2020

There are more and more arguments against fracking every day, despite the fact that these arguments are only becoming less and less fact-based as time goes on. In 2012, a study was conducted that found U.S. consumers benefited by more than $100 billion per year in lower natural gas prices because of fracking. Now, the annual benefits to consumers from fracking have almost doubled. Sadly, this hasn’t stopped Democratic presidential candidates from calling for a ban of fracking on the campaign trail.

Most notably, the current Democratic frontrunner, Senator Bernie Sanders, has been calling for a ban on fracking for years and just introduced a bill to ban fracking on federal lands. Putting his hyperbolic political rhetoric aside, Forbes reported on exactly what this would mean:

…over the past 10 years, consumers have saved more than one trillion dollars (because of fracking). That’s $1,000,000,000,000 — real money even to politicians.

With all of that money at stake, any argument against fracking would need to be well-founded. The central argument, pushed by Senator Sanders, is that fracking is bad for the environment. These claims are far from proven.

A study by Yale School of the Environment faculty, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found no impact on groundwater contamination from drilling operations and hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus shale.

Democrats’ claims of environmental damage go back nearly a decade, when they were proven to be unsubstantiated by a study by the Obama administration itself. In fact, the increased use of natural gas as a result of fracking has lowered the nation’s CO2 emissions.

Banning fracking will likely lead to unemployment and higher prices for heating, electricity and gasoline, and even more emissions – bad outcomes for politicians running for office.

For the sake of America’s jobs, economy and, ironically, the environment, hopefully voters see through Senator Sanders’ loud political rhetoric and recognize the damage that a ban on fracking would truly do. Just look at the difference it’s made in New York and Pennsylvania: New York’s Buried Opportunity: Cuomo’s Policy Prevents Prosperity While Pennsylvanians Flourish.