Is President Obama A Fracking Wonk?

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.”

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