Energy and the environment: Frack attack—environmentalists and hollywood renew attacks on hydraulic fracturing

Abstract

Environmental groups have been trumpeting a new study by the US Geological Survey (USGS), which they claim “proves” the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) concerns about hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” In a September 30, 2012, press release, for example, the Sierra Club—an environmental group whose motto could be “whatever it is, we're against it”1—claimed that the USGS study “strongly suggests that as a result of fracking, gas is seeping into” the water supply in the town of Pavillion, Wyoming.2