expanding hydrocarbon production, as well as over $2 trillion in
total economic benefits” — with each fracking position creating six
related jobs in areas from “manufacturing and education to health
care and information services.” The Financial Times reported last
year that since 2009, over 600,000 new, well-paying jobs had been
created from the fracking industry.
But the even bigger impact will continue to be global. As AEI’s
Mark J. Perry notes, “America’s shale revolution is taking us from
‘resource scarcity’ to a new era of ‘resource abundance’ as the U.S.
consistently produces more petroleum products than Saudi Arabia
… and has produced more petroleum than all of the countries in
Europe, Central America, and South America combined for six
straight months.”
OPEC HARDEST HIT. The Saudis are worried. In late July,
The Journal reported that Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin
Talal sent an open letter to Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi in
May, warning that the U.S. shale
oil and gas boom will hurt
OPEC. Noting that demand
for their oil is down, Prince
Alwaleed cautioned that the
Saudi kingdom “is facing a
threat with the continuation
of its near-complete reliance
on oil, especially as 92 per-
cent of the budget for this
year depends on oil.”
In an article titled, “SAUDIS
SWEAT BULLETS AS ENERGY
REVOLUTION CHANGES THE
RULES,” foreign policy expert
Walter Russell Mead observes
that falling production,
demand, and prices have sig-
nificantly hurt the Saudi Basic
Industries Corp [SABIC]
earnings. Change has been so
dramatic that a recent Global
Post article asks, “COULD
FRACKING MAKE THE PERSIAN
GULF IRRELEVANT?”
Well, no — but it is true that the smaller OPEC members have
been devastated. According to The Wall Street Journal, from 2011
to 2012 Nigeria, Algeria, and Angola together saw their shipments
to the U.S. fall by a whopping 41 percent.
Russia, too, is uneasy. Vladimir Putin made a big show of his
“concern” about environmental damage to America, claiming that
“fracking’s bad effect on the landscape of the U.S.’s east coast
could be seen by flying over the area in a helicopter.” Uh-huh. As
The Wall Street Journal notes, Putin actually “is worried about the
impact … [a] surging shale gas supply will have on [Russian] state-owned gas giant Gazprom.” Especially if the U.S. starts exporting
gas to Europe. “The extra competition isn’t a great prospect for
Gazprom — or Russian politicians, who rely on oil and gas tax
revenues to balance the books.”
FOREIGN-BANKROLLED OPPOSITION. Unsurprisingly, both
OPEC and Russia appear to be in bed with environmentalist wackos
in order to try to halt the fracking momentum. Can you say,
“useful idiots”? According to University of Houston Professor
Craig Pirrong, energy markets director of the Global Energy
Management Institute, there are “widespread suspicions that
Gazprom bankrolls anti-fracking campaigns and organizations,
particularly in Europe.” Closer to home, the Heritage Foundation
has reported that Matt Damon’s anti-fracking movie, “Promised
Land,” was funded in part by Abu Dhabi Media. That’s a
government-run company for United Arab Emirates, which
happens to be not only a member of OPEC but one of the world’s
largest oil exporters. Hmmm.
Both “Promised Land” and Josh Fox’s anti-fracking pseudo-documentaries “Gasland” and “Gasland 2” use disinformation and
outright lies to scare viewers about the supposed danger fracking
poses to groundwater, even though numerous studies have shown
the claim is false.
Most of the outrage over fracking comes from two clips from
“Gasland” that show well water set
on fire as it pours from the kitch-
en faucets of Colorado residents
Mike Markham and Renee
McClure. In fact, the Colorado
Oil and Gas Conservation
Commission tested Markham’s
water in 2008 and concluded
fracking had nothing to do with
his flaming tapwater; the
home’s well had been drilled
into a pocket of methane.
Likewise, the explosive faucet in
McClure’s home was found to
be “naturally occurring biogenic
methane gas in well and no
impact from oil and gas [frack-
ing] activities.”
Similarly, the U.S. Geo-
logical Survey sampled 127
wells in the Fayetteville Shale
region of Arkansas where frack-
ing is being conducted, accord-
ing to Breitbart. The results: the
water was actually cleaner than the
historical samples to which they were compared. Mark P. Mills
points out in National Review that exiting EPA head Lisa Jackson
herself admitted to Congress there are no “proven cases where the
fracking process itself has affected water.”
HOGGING CREDIT. Meanwhile, Obama is trying to have it both
ways. At every opportunity, he pats himself on the back for
America’s private-sector energy productivity triumph — which he
had nothing to do with, zip, zero, nada, except make it more difficult to achieve. Obama’s official White House website touts,
“Domestic oil and natural gas production has increased every year
President Obama has been in office,” and, “Since President
Obama took office, America’s dependence on foreign oil has
decreased every year.” Yeah, no thanks to you.
Because the truth is, at the same time Obama has been making
fracking’s scorecard his own, his Regime has done everything it can
to halt or slow energy production on federal lands.
