Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. When we are in the White House were going to ban fracking nationwide and rapidly move to renewable energy" said Sen. Bernie Sanders in a tweet earlier this week.
Fracking pollutes water degrades air quality and worsens climate change" the Vermont Independent-Socialist tweeted Tuesday pledging to ban the drilling technique thats turned the U.S. into the worlds largest oil and natural gas producer.
Thank you @ORHouseDems for taking this important step to stop fracking said Sanders tweet after the Oregon State House of Representatives passed a 10-year ban on fracking to explore for oil and natural gas.
Sanders who is running on the Democratic ticket is popular among the so-called keep it in the ground" movement which seeks to ban fossil fuels in the name of global warming. And activists in Sanders camp pressure candidates not to take fossil fuel industry campaign donations which Sanders has pledged not to do.
Environmentalists have campaigned to ban fracking for years finding success in New York Maryland Vermont and some other localities where they zeroed in on claims that fracking contaminates groundwater.
However government agencies and teams of researchers have found little to no evidence that fracking leads to widespread contamination of groundwater.
In late 2016 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its five-year study of fracking and groundwater contamination concluding that while fracking can potentially impact groundwater the number of cases where thats happened is small.
The following year the U.S. Geological Survey published a study examining groundwater from 116 wells in Arkansas Louisiana and Texas. The study only found nine instances of contamination but none were linked to fracking.
That same year the Academy of Medicine Engineering and Science of Texas concluded that drinking water contamination from fracking has not been observed in Texas" the biggest oil and gas producing state.
Fracking proponents point to government data showing that increased natural gas production has reduced more carbon dioxide emissions than solar and wind powercombined.
Because of fracking U.S. oil and natural gas production has surged to never-before-seen levels. In February U.S. oil output hit a record 12 million barrels per day and natural gas production is expected to continue breaking records through 2020.