Another empty political gesture from opponents of fossil fuels

THERE is severe disconnect between many environmentalists’ opposition to fossil fuel extraction and their actual use of fossil fuels. The latest example comes from Maryland.

Lawmakers there have passed legislation to turn a two-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, into a permanent statewide ban. If the bill is signed into law, Maryland will be the third state to take that step, joining New York and Vermont.

To some degree, this is an empty political gesture. Like Vermont, no fracking has ever been conducted in Maryland. But it’s believed that two counties in the western part of Maryland are good candidates for extraction of oil and gas from shale. A 2012 study by the Sage Policy Group concluded that natural gas drilling in Maryland could add 1,800 jobs annually.

So Maryland lawmakers have decided they are willing to sacrifice Maryland jobs and prosperity in pursuit of fuzzy environmentalism.

But Maryland politicians have not proven willing to take the logic of their ban to its obvious conclusion by also banning the use of oil and natural gas in the state. As it turns out, Maryland natives not only want fossil fuels, they want them in increasing supply.

The Maryland Petroleum Council notes that residents have increased use of natural gas by 18 percent in the past decade. For roughly 45 percent of state residents, natural gas is the chief fuel for home heating.

To artificially restrict supply when demand is increasing is only a recipe for Maryland natives to eventually pay higher prices, rather than a formula for environmental purity. So long as citizens there (and elsewhere) demand natural gas, someone is going to produce it.

Furthermore, the Maryland ban is an example of environmental self-sabotage. Greenhouse gas emissions have hit a 25-year low thanks to natural gas displacing coal in electric generation. Much of that displacement has occurred because fracking flooded the market with cheap gas, making it more economical than coal.

So the Maryland ban may actually slow progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the name of “cleaning” the environment. That’s quite an accomplishment.

Furthermore, fracking hasn’t been linked to any systemic environmental pollution, and that conclusion was reached by the notoriously anti-energy Obama administration. In 2015, the federal Environmental Protection Agency released its initial draft of a multi-year study of hydraulic fracturing. The EPA concluded that fracking doesn’t have “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water.”

Although 25,000 and 30,000 new wells were drilled and hydraulically fractured annually in the United States between 2011 and 2014, the EPA concluded groundwater contamination occurred in only a relative handful of instances, and in most cases it was caused by an accident or peripheral activities, not the actual process of fracking.

So Maryland politicians are adopting a policy that will cost their constituents jobs and potentially impede progress on clean-air goals in order to protect people from pollution that isn’t happening.

That isn’t terrible news for places like Oklahoma, where we don’t mind it if Maryland politicians drive up the price of a product they will be buying from our state. But it’s still bad policy.