From coast-to-coast, newspaper editorials continue to highlight the clear economic, environmental and national security benefits associated with safe shale development as well as the highly-regulated use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Here’s what other newspaper editorials are saying about America’s energy renaissance that’s creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, renewing our manufacturing sector’s potential and dramatically enhancing our nation’s energy security:

  • “Fracking, With Care, Brings Big Benefits”: Fracking has rescued U.S. energy production from a dangerous decline. … One of the harshest charges against fracking, often leveled with apocalyptic intensity by its foes, is that it indiscriminately contaminates vital drinking water supplies. The EPA’s timely report essentially said that’s overblown. … There was no evidence of “widespread, systemic” harm. The EPA findings come as welcome news because it’s hard to overstate the impact fracking has had on U.S. oil and gas production, which looked to be in irreversible decline in the 1980s. The decline raised fears that imports would soar, making the U.S. even more dependent than it already was on other nations. … The boom has helped make America the world’s No. 1 producer of oil and gas, and it has pushed the nation much closer to energy independence than almost anyone dared hope in the 1980s and 1990s. Huge new natural gas supplies have helped lower prices, fuel a manufacturing turnaround and cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. (USA Today editorial, 7/5/15)
  • Shale Creates a “Common Theme” of “Prosperity”: The prosperity of the Dakotas and Pennsylvania carry a common theme: private investment in modern extraction techniques to bring oil and natural gas to the surface. These new techniques have increased the supply of natural gas and oil to what end? The air is cleaner because of natural gas-powering electric power generation stations. The price of gasoline has fallen more than $1 a gallon, putting as much as $1 billion a day into the pocketbooks of Americans. Driving this year is still cheaper than last year despite the recent rise in prices. Across the nation, state tax revenues have risen as drillers/frackers pay extraction taxes to their home states. Pennsylvania earns $400 million a year. New York has a robust record of environmental compliance, and we could lead the way for the nation if we allowed fracking under the watchful eye of the state DEC. But instead, the state ignores the recent U.S. EPA report that found fracking to be safe and relies instead on its own conclusions, which seem to be written to satisfy environmental proselytizers seeking to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. (Watertown Daily Times editorial, 7/5/15)
  • “We Need Energy”: The region has made a move from older, more expensive sources of energy to cheaper, readily available natural gas. It’s a wise strategy: natural gas doesn’t pollute the environment nearly as much, and the energy produced is more affordable than that from solar energy or wind farms. Rhode Islanders know all too well what this means. Given intense demands for natural gas, and our region’s difficulties getting it here, energy companies buy it on the spot market when the weather gets bitterly cold, and that is incredibly expensive. … The way to avoid this is to increase Rhode Island’s pipeline infrastructure. That’s why we have supported projects such as Algonquin and Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. line. We welcome other ventures that would help increase capacity, enhance competition, reduce energy bills — and keep us warm in the cold, harsh winter. (Providence Journal editorial, 7/2/15)
  • “Fracking Benefits Are Obvious”: Those who characterize fracking as a grave threat should consider a comprehensive study by the EPA that concluded there is no evidence the procedure has had a widespread impact on drinking water. … The EPA study should reassure Americans the practice won’t be the ruin of our water supplies as many opponents claim. But fracking benefits are obvious. It has contributed to an American energy production renaissance that, as National Geographic points out, helped increase total U.S. oil to near historic highs of more than 9 million barrels a day, nearly as high as Saudi Arabia’s 9.6 million barrels of daily oil production. It has also led to lower gas prices, helping spur economic growth, creating jobs and easing the strain on family budgets. … Fracking’s natural gas provides Americans an abundant, relatively clean domestic fuel source that strengthens our economy and reduces our reliance on oil from the volatile Mideast. Those are profound benefits from an energy source that, as the EPA study found, is not the environmental threat some would have you believe. (Tampa Tribune editorial, 6/29/15)
  • Fracking is Safe, Positive for Pa.’s Economy: An argument against the gas industry in Pa. is that the fracking process to generate the natural gas is environmentally unsafe. The EPA – hardly a shill for the gas industry – recently debunked that argument following a five-year study. The most recent survey of Trib Total Media indicated that residents also are comfortable with the fracking process, with 1% of state residents supporting it and 55.9% of Americans supporting it. Among those surveyed in the state, 74.3% said fracking has the potential to help the national economy and 69.9% said new drilling technologies can move the industry toward energy independence. So, the industry is producing positive benefits for the economy in Pa., is seen as safe, but has other places to go if taxes become too punitive. And the governor and some pockets of lawmakers in areas not benefiting from the industry want to double-tax the industry. It doesn’t make sense. (Williamsport Sun-Gazette editorial, 6/21/15)