Fracking a Hazard or Hope for American Energy?

DENTON, Texas -- The goal for the United States to reach energy independence is supposedly in reach, but critics of the Obama administration say its regulators are making it harder to reach that freedom.

They complain new federal rules taking effect this month that tighten up on fracking won't help.

Hydraulic fracturing has become a common way to get previously unreachable energy out of the earth. It blasts a mix of water, sand, and chemicals into rock formations, breaking them up and freeing trapped oil and natural gas.

But some worry it might be creating health risks for people who live near the wells.

Harmful or Not?

Maile Bush and her family live just a few hundred feet from a well in Denton, Texas, that was hydraulically fractured.

"The fracking sand's a very, very fine silica sand. It blows all over everything," she told CBN News. "It was all over the kids' toys in the backyard. And it's a carcinogen."

"We have people reporting health symptoms who live near these sites: nosebleeds, nausea, headaches," Adam Briggle, a professor at the University of North Texas, said.

Bush said of her son during the fracking time, "When he would go outside and play in the backyard, he would cough all night long."

Others who live on the land where the fracturing process takes place say that's nonsense.

"I haven't seen any real proof that it's harmed any health," Bobby Jones, whose Denton family ranch sits right atop wells, said. "I don't think it is harming health."

Landowners like Jones fear moves to ban or restrict hydraulic fracturing will take away their constitutional right to benefit from rich minerals beneath their land.

Dr. Ed Ireland, with the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, summed up the feelings of such landowners sitting atop mineral wealth.

"You're taking my property. And you can't do that," Ireland paraphrased. "And if you do take our property, you're going to have to pay us for it."

Government Overreach

Now amidst such controversy come tighter regulations on the 28 percent of the United States that's federal land. Critics say these new regulations will just make it more expensive and time-consuming to frack.

"What we've got now is an example of the government overreaching," Chris Faulkner, author of The Fracking Truth and CEO of Dallas-based Breitling Energy, said.

"It supports 10.1 million direct and indirect jobs," he said of the oil and gas business. "And quite frankly, I think you'd be hard-pressed since 2008 to find a brighter spot in the U.S. economy."

Faulkner told CBN News his industry already faces daunting obstacles on the more than 750 million acres where the feds control the mineral rights.

"A state will give us a permit on average in about 35 days. The average permitting time for a federal land oil and gas permit is 227 days," Faulkner explained. "And potentially this may add an another 50 to 100 days."

"You're talking about one year to get a permit to drill one well on federal lands," he said.

Backers of the new rules say they'll improve safety and only cost a few thousand dollars per well, but some opponents claim it could be more like a quarter-million dollars.

The new rules force companies to reveal what secret chemicals they use to frack. One company complains if its competitors can find that out for free and duplicate its now-secret chemical brew, it could cost it some $375 million.

Vast Wealth

Faulkner complains this type of harmful over-regulating doesn't make sense against a business that could help make America energy independent and bring in vast wealth.

"It's been instrumental in really contributing billions if not trillions of tax dollars," he said. "Federal lands can generate a lot of tax revenue to the federal government and help us pay down some of our deficit."

Some communities, though, just don't want anything to do with hydraulic fracturing. In most cases, it's because of fears about health and safety. Denton, Texas, is a prime example.

That's where Briggle helped lead a successful campaign last year to bring fracking to a halt in the local community.

"We were in a situation where it was kind of impossible to make it compatible with health and safety," Briggle told CBN News. "So we ended up calling for a ban on hydraulic fracturing in the city of Denton. And that passed last year."

More Consumption But No Happier

This philosophy professor admits there are philosophical issues he has with fracking and America's desire to always produce and consume more and more energy.

Briggle concedes that fracking may indeed help America become the world's number one energy producer. But he questions the very supposition that that's a good thing.

"We ought to reconsider our commitment to more and more energy consumption. It's premised on this ideal that somehow more energy equals better life," Briggle explained. "But if you actually look at indices of happiness, Americans are no happier now than they were 60 years ago when we had a half the per capita energy consumption."

"I think that's a ludicrous statement," energy-producer Faulkner shot back.

He said in the real world people will continue to crave energy and more of it.

"There's not one model that says the growth from oil consumption worldwide is not going to increase between now and 2035," Faulkner said. "So if we just stick our head in the sand and say, 'Look, we don't want to get the oil out of the ground,' how are we going to make up for the 15 million barrels worth of worldwide growth between now and 2035? This is a growth that every single day we have to find that many new barrels."

Briggle and Faulkner also disagree over health concerns. Briggle insists much more research is needed into the side effects of hydraulic fracturing.

Fear of Unintended Consequences

"I think the overall picture here is we've committed to a technology before we understood a lot about its unintended consequences," Briggle said.

Faulkner insisted the process has a long and safe history, saying "1.5 million wells were fracked in this country over the last 60 years."

"Obviously it's a tried-and-tested technology, not something we cooked up over the weekend a few years ago," he said.

Briggle worries about the blast mix of water and chemicals used to break up rock deep underground.

"We don't have enough monitoring to know what's going on with this water," Briggle warned. "We do have some evidence to suggest some of the chemicals in fracking are showing up in aquifers."

Faulkner answered, "The EPA on three different occasions under this one president has gone out and spent years looking for examples of water contamination or impacts to the environment, and they have found none."

"I think it's really a testament to President Obama's determination to stymie our industry," Faulkner added.

But Briggle's list of worries goes on. He pointed out some scientists suggest fracking's upped the odds of earthquakes.

"Some of those injection wells will cause earthquakes," he stated. "Then the question is: which ones? Can we figure that out in time to prevent real damage from these things?"

But Faulkner said if this ultra-green administration had proof fracking's harmful, they'd be trumpeting it.

"They would love I'm sure to have an example of how fracking has been proven dangerous to the environment, and they can't find one," he said.

Good or Bad for America?

Opponents point out Denton's overwhelmingly lopsided vote last year to ban the procedure may show oil and gas people like Faulkner are far too confident fracking's acceptable to the public.

And it suggests that voters aren't willing to be bought when it comes to their own community.

"They spent over a million dollars here," Briggle said of the oil and gas lobby. "We were able to raise about $75,000. So they outspent us 15 to 1. But we beat them 60 to 40."

The state Legislature in Austin wasn't willing to let that popular fracking ban in Denton take effect, though. It just passed a new law forbidding any local community in Texas to ban the process, invalidating Denton's vote.

Energy production is a huge deal in Texas.  If it were its own country, it'd be the seventh largest energy producing nation in the world. So state lawmakers felt they couldn't let a Texas town's ban of a process so crucial to digging out oil and gas go unchallenged.

Faulkner insists hydraulic fracturing's too important and beneficial to stop.

"Everyday when you wake up, we have to find 90 million new barrels of oil to keep the world running," Faulkner pointed out.  "So this is about is America going to utilize this resource? Or do they want to buy it from Venezuela, from Iran, from Iraq and Saudi?"

"Or do they want to get it from beneath our feet, which helps our country, pays down trade deficits, employs our people and allows us to find it at a much cheaper cost?" he continued.

As the new federal regulations take effect June 20, they're once again increasing the focus on the practice of fracking. But it is also raising the question again of whether the practice is a good or a bad thing for America, or whether it's maybe a little bit of both.