Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

April 1, 2016

Decline in Fracking Support Is Shortsighted

A majority of Americans now oppose fracking.

A new Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans are now opposed to hydraulic fracturing (more commonly referred to as “fracking”). According to the survey, when asked if they “favor or oppose … ‘fracking’ as a means of increasing the production of natural gas and oil in the U.S.,” most of the responds, 51%, said they opposed it, while just 36% were in favor. Thirteen percent had no opinion.

These results stand in relatively stark contrast to the same survey taken last year, when the results showed a 40-40 split, with 19% expressing no opinion. Gallup notes, “One major reason the price of [oil] has remained so low is fracking, which now accounts for half of the oil production in the U.S.” You would expect that to foster growing support for fracking, particularly among Republicans — many of whom subscribe to the “drill baby drill” philosophy. But the Gallup poll surprisingly found that it’s precisely this group that saw the biggest shift. In 2015, 66% of Republicans approved of fracking, but that dropped to 55% in the new poll. Meanwhile, support dropped by just 1% among both Independents and Democrats.

What to make of this? It’s unclear why Republican support is what’s dropping the fastest. But according to Gallup, there are two primary drivers likely at play. For starters, “Americans’ turn against fracking comes as the percentage predicting there will be a critical energy shortage in the next five years has fallen to a new low, likely because of lower gas prices. With oil and gas relatively cheap, many Americans may not see the need to fracture the earth through fracking.” Secondly “Fracking is potentially a cause of earthquakes across sections of the U.S. that are not used to these types of natural disasters. The U.S. Geological Survey said this week that 7 million Americans are at risk of experiencing earthquakes caused by fracking in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and Arkansas. With more than 1,000 earthquakes in the central U.S. alone last year, these events could be linked to the rising percentage of Americans who oppose fracking.”

However, researchers have discovered a major caveat on the issue of earthquakes that the media is largely ignoring. Last year a study by Stanford found that it’s not fracking, per se, that’s to blame, but rather the aftereffects of wastewater. As Stanford Professor Mark Zoback reported, “What we’ve learned in this study is that the fluid injection responsible for most of the recent quakes in Oklahoma is due to production and subsequent injection of massive amounts of wastewater, and is unrelated to hydraulic fracturing [emphasis added].” Even the the U.S. Geological Survey says, “Fracking causes extremely small earthquakes, but they are almost always too small to be a safety concern. In addition to natural gas, fracking fluids and salt water trapped in the same formation as the gas are returned to the surface. These wastewaters are frequently disposed of by injection into deep wells. The injection of wastewater and salt water into the subsurface can cause earthquakes that are large enough to be felt and may cause damage.”

That’s a problem innovation would suggest can eventually be solved. If Americans want to continue enjoying low gas prices — which, ironically, Gallup suggests may be why they feel we no longer need fracking — they will need to embrace the technique that’s saving them dollars at the pump.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.