Rick Santorum Loves Fracking and Drilling, Hates Federal Regulation

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

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The Republican presidential hopeful was in Oklahoma City yesterday and spoke to about 1,200 mostly conservative audience members at a crowded hotel convention center.

The former two-term Republican U.S. senator from Pennsylvania told the crowd that hydraulic fracturing — which has been used in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas for since the 1950s — is “the new boogeyman,” The Oklahoman reports.

Santorum said environmental concerns are unfounded about the method of water, sand and some chemical additives being pumped into the well at high pressure to free gas from the rock, the paper reports.

Santorum’s backing of hydraulic fracturing pleased the crowd, Michael McNutt reports, as did his support of “limited government.”

Oklahoma, he said, is “ground zero of the conservative movement.”

“In Oklahoma you do it the right way,” he said. “You believe in liberty, you believe in private enterprise and free economy. You believe in limited government. You believe in a foundation of our society based on faith and family. You understand that without strong families, you can’t have a strong economy, the paper reports.

Santorum — fresh off primary victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado — said he opposed regulating the oil and natural gas industry. He said President Barack Obama was trying to “crush” domestic energy production, and voiced support deep offshore drilling and drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, The Oklahoma reports.

Santorum also campaigned at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa on Thursday. Oklahoma has 43 Republican delegates, and Santorum said he’d return to the Sooner State before its Super Tuesday presidential primary on March 6.