Maryland Has the Buwuddifs over Fracking

Maryland inches closer to decision time on hydraulic fracturing

As states in the Mid-Atlantic lined up for the jobs and tax revenue that would come with drilling deep into the shale to release gas, Maryland held back.

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and other state officials said no thanks, wary that poisonous chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing could contaminate groundwater in rural areas where it matters most.

Not that there has ever been a significant example of contamination of groundwater from fracking; even the EPA director couldn't come up with a single example when challenged.  But keep mentioning it as a possibility every time the subject of fracking comes up, and you can leave the impression that it's a big problem.

But there are signs that Maryland’s resolve is weakening. Time is slowly running out on a de facto drilling moratorium imposed by O’Malley, who issued an executive order last year that barred the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) from approving drilling permits until a scientific study costing $1.5 million could be completed. The state did not fund the study, and the deadline for completing it is summer 2013.

How convenient; order a study as necessary for something to proceed, and then fail to fund the study.  Veto by failure to research.

Drew Cobbs, executive director of the Maryland State Petroleum Council, a division of the petroleum institute, said the group favors a study but fought having to fund it.

“Tell me another example where a business wants to come into Maryland and has to pay for a study to do it,” Cobbs said. “When you’re working with people who don’t want to compromise, that’s the end result.”

If the industry funded the study, the opponents would reject it as biased in any event. Damned if you don't, damned if you do.

Of course, it's the rural population of Maryland that wants fracking in their regions; they aren't asking to be protected from in; urbanites are trying to foist that on them:

Maryland residents who support drilling, particularly those who leased property and sold mineral rights in Garrett County, say the governor’s moratorium and Mizeur’s legislation amounts to a “war against rural Maryland” that robs farmers of much-needed cash they could earn from royalties when gas is extracted.

If it weren't for the Western Maryland folk who want fracking for their own economic development, I wouldn't care much whether Maryland allows fracking or not.  Our state is relatively small and wealthy (thanks largely to the diffusion of money from nearby Washington D.C), and we wouldn't contribute much to the natural gas boom which is making gas cheap and plentiful, lowering energy costs and reducing our CO2 outputs (if you care).  Ultimately, the gas will still be in the ground for use later, if more rational people gain ascendency in the state.  Not that I expect that soon.

However, I do object to the disingenuous arguments used to oppose it, and the mindless parroting of it by the media.