“There Could Be Trouble” As US Fracking Revolution Prepares to Go Global
A new report showing the U.S. overtaking Russia as the leading producer of oil and gas in the world should put to rest any doubt that the fracking revolution that has occurred in the U.S. is for real, or as BP’s chief economist put it, “profound.”
And now with the recent Environmental Protection Agency report on the impacts of fracking on drinking water being touted by the American Petroleum Institute as proof that fracking is safe, the industry’s insatiable greed got another boost. More recently, the Harvard Business School has also joined in the discussion calling for the end of the ban on exporting U.S. crude oil and warning about the implications of missing the “opportunity” offered by fracking.
So with all of this momentum, what does ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson think should be next? Less regulation. As previously mentioned on DeSmog, at this year’s CERAweek conference Tillerson complained that the industry was overly regulated and held back by “the noise.”
“Regulators must look at facts and they must look at sound science and not just respond to the noise,” Tillerson said.
As Tillerson and the industry get set to roll out the fracking revolution to every possible shale location in North America and the rest of the world, now is a good time to review what the inventor of modern fracking had to say on the subject of regulating his invention.
Fracking Inventor Warned of Trouble
George Mitchell became a billionaire due to fracking but even that amount of money didn’t keep him from speaking the truth about his invention. In an interview with MarketPlace a year before his death in 2013, Mitchell was clear that without strong regulations, fracking was a serious danger to the environment.
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