Pennsylvania

Energy. Environment. Economy.

Is President Obama A Fracking Wonk?

January 30, 2012 | 11:13 AM
By Scott Detrow

Getty Images

Pres­i­dent Obama speaks to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Pres­i­dent Obama gave shale gas extrac­tion a spe­cific men­tion dur­ing last week’s State of the Union address. “We have a sup­ply of nat­ural gas that can last Amer­ica nearly one hun­dred years, and my Admin­is­tra­tion will take every pos­si­ble action to safely develop this energy,” he said on Tues­day. “Experts believe this will sup­port more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.”

How much does the pres­i­dent know about hydraulic frac­tur­ing? Quite a lot, accord­ing to Jodi Kantor’s new book, The Oba­mas. Toward the end of the book, Kan­tor writes about a drilling-related ques­tion Obama fielded dur­ing a 2011 Philadelphia-area fundraiser:

“Some­one asked about the use of shale gas as an energy source, and Obama launched into a long, vir­tu­osic expla­na­tion of the sci­en­tific and pol­icy issues. The atten­dees were duly impressed, but some of them won­dered why he was giv­ing ten-minute lec­tures on the intri­ca­cies of energy pol­icy when the moment clearly called for some­thing more.”

Comments

  • Connieandrews514

    The extrac­tion of Nat­ural Gas is a major topic here in PA. Can it be extracted safely with lit­tle to no effects on liv­ing things and the envi­ron­ment is the real ques­tion? Frac­tur­ing is not the only method but it is a cheaper method for those bil­lion dol­lar gas and oil com­pa­nies. And after it is extracted, who deter­mines if Amer­ica will see it or will it go to friends over­seas with the high­est bid or inter­est? Look at the pro­gres­sion of how fast these wells are going in. Look at other states who have suf­fered the effects after time. Neu­ro­log­i­cal dam­age and can­cer to those who live near these wells. There has not been enough time to study the effects, long term, of this frac­tur­ing process. We are the lab rats that pay taxes for land that was inhab­it­able before some­one FRACKED under our land and con­t­a­m­i­nated our drink­ing water. Pennsylvania’s envi­ron­ment has been raped numer­ous times in his­tory to the detri­ment of the peo­ple who live here for some com­pa­nies finan­cial gain. Stop the Fracking.….

  • Chris­handa VanCleaf

    Frack­ing is caus­ing alot of prob­lems for the envi­ron­ment and peo­ple liv­ing around the source of frack­ing. Hope­fully Pres­i­dent Obama can help Amer­ica with this prob­lem of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of our tap water.

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