Last week, President Obama’s Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell, weighed-in once again on the critical importance of safe, well-regulated American oil and natural gas development, and specifically the use of hydraulic fracturing technologies. In an interview with KQED – Northern California’s regional NPR affiliate – Secretary Jewell, a trained petroleum engineered offered her insights, noting that “there is a lot of misinformation about fracking.”
President Obama’s chief custodian of federal lands says local and regional bans on fracking are taking regulation of oil and gas recovery in the wrong direction. “I would say that is the wrong way to go,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told KQED in an exclusive interview.
At a National Press Club speech in October 2013, the secretary offered this strong, fact-based endorsement about fracturing: “Fracking has been an important tool in the toolbox for oil and gas for over 50 years.”
And an August 2013 U-T San Diego editorial captures yet another statement from the petroleum engineer turned interior secretary on the technology: “In her news conference, [Interior Secretary Sally Jewell] dismissed environmental critics. ‘I know there are those who say fracking is dangerous and should be curtailed, full stop. That ignores the reality that it has been done for decades and has the potential for developing significant domestic resources and strengthening our economy and will be done for decades to come.’”
As President Obama has stated, “Our 100-year supply of natural gas is a big factor in drawing jobs back to our shores.”
The President, Secretary Jewell and other key Obama Administration officials are absolutely right – and the American people overwhelmingly support the responsible, tightly-regulated development of job-creating American natural gas.
