Robert Bryce On Why Allowing More Hydraulic Fracturing To Get Natual Gas Is A Good Idea

See America Needs the Shale Revolution from the WSJ, 6-13. He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and just published a book on the energy industry. Excerpts:

"Although hydraulic fracturing has been used more than one million times in the U.S. over the past 60 years, environmental activists are hoping to ban the process or have it regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Opponents claim the process can harm groundwater even though drinking-water aquifers are separated by as much as two miles of impermeable rock from the shales that are being targeted by the fracturing process."

"While the Pennsylvania economy is getting a much-needed lift from drilling, opposition in New York may mean that the state loses out on jobs and investment. A new study by Tim Considine, an energy economist at the University of Wyoming, estimates that drilling in the Marcellus Shale could add as many as 15,000 new jobs to the New York economy by 2015. The study, conducted for the Manhattan Institute (a think tank where I am a senior fellow), estimated that shale drilling in New York could add some $1.7 billion to the state's economy by 2015 and increase the state's tax revenue by more than $200 million."