Introduction:  

Like a fault line cutting through the earth, the practice of hydraulic fracking fractures the foundation of the future. Hydraulic fracking is an oil extraction method in which water laced with chemicals is pumped at high pressure into the earth. Oil and natural gas are then extracted from the resulting underground cracks. According to the Food and Water Watch, a non-profit organization researching environmental justice, over the last few decades administrative approval for federal leasing for fracking has increased across the country, especially during the Trump administration when 10 million acres of public land were approved further perpetuating the effects of pollution and climate change (Food and Water Watch, 2021). Institutional support for oil extraction has glued American dependence on fossil fuels economically; however, there is a gap in the literature regarding jumpstarting a decisive movement to address the problems associated with the fossil fuel industry. A bold step from President Biden such as banning and canceling fracking leases could unlock a dramatic shift to domestic decarbonization (Food and Water Watch, 2021). Given the economic and environmental implications, a question stands: Would implementing a national ban on fracking by the federal government rnment feasibly create a more sustainable future? Contextualizing the fossil fuel industry, the government often prioritizes the entrepreneurial benefits of the oil complex rather than the welfare of communities. The framework of American policies should center around an approach that prioritizes the well-being of the people, not the profit. A complete move to a green future starts with a ban on fracking. Therefore, the United States Federal Government should ban the practice of hydraulic fracking to address the environmental degradation, socio-cultural exploitation, and economic problems connected to the fossil fuel industry.

Environmental Lens: 

The relentless pursuit of fossil fuel extraction that comes with fracking should be abolished because of its degrading harm to the environment. According to Tara Lohan, an author and journalist with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at Middlebury College, shale gas extraction (fracking) led to a 12.4% reduction in the core forest and increased edge habitat by more than 50% due to the insufficient disposal of chemically laced fracking water, which ends up harming species (Lohan, 2019). “If we are going to have any chance of avoiding the worst of climate change, we need to ban fracking…Between now and 2050, new drilling on federal lands could produce the carbon equivalent of 1,000 coal-fired power plants at a time” (Food and Water Watch, 2021). Regarding both Lohan and The Food and Water Watch, there is a definitive agreement that fracking specifically implicates both immediate and long-term environmental problems. In other words, fracking is affecting the United States right now because of its effects on biodiversity, a core pillar of resource stability. Brandon Specktor, an environmental researcher for Live Science, says that by 2050 all the ice caps could melt and a third of land surfaces could be unhabitable because of climate change (Specktor, 2019). Therefore, it is justified to ban an extraction method that is a major contributor to the dangerous progress of climate change. Banning fracking in the United States won’t just create a dent in carbon emissions, it could be the key to opening the floodgates to a movement that will completely dethrone the oil complex.

At the same time, industrialists make the claim that fracking has helped reduce emissions. Drew Johnson, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, claims that fracking was responsible for the industrial transition from coal to natural gas (a fuel that is emits two times less carbon dioxide than coal), resulting in the lowest total domestic carbon footprint in 25 years (Johnson, 2019). On the contrary, even if natural gas has a significantly smaller carbon footprint than coal it doesn't justify continuing the practice because it still destroys core biodiversity which can endanger freshwater species and food chains (Lohan, 2019). In addition, banning fracking could unlock a transition towards renewable energy which is even more environmentally significant compared to the global shift out of coal. Christian Bogman, a researcher with a PhD in Economics from Tilburg University, says “a perceived increase in the exposure of oil and gas firms to climate policies has led to a 6.5 percent global decline of their capital expenditures between 2016 and 2019…[a credible climate policy path]...can help [companies] adjust their investment plans and align expectation with the goal of low carbon transition” (Bogman, 2023). Moreover, plans to ban oil leasing programs like fracking “is more broadly true of U.S. climate leadership. History shows that American policies to reduce climate pollution drive real climate progress by spurring reciprocal foreign emission reductions. For instance, Obama-era climate policies helped to prompt China’s most meaningful climate commitments” (Sarinsky and Howard, 2021). Empirical research conducted by Bogman under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has indicated that governmental intervention in the oil and fracking industry would mean American corporations would dramatically redivert investments from natural gas to renewable energy because of the perception that there is too much risk in continuing investing in the industry. Furthermore, Sarinsky and Howard emphasizes how historical and empirical patterns in American climate policies tend to be modeled by other countries. Therefore, green investments and foreign fracking bans will proliferate across the world if the U.S. takes the first step to doing so. The global shift towards green innovation is a testament to why banning fracking is a steppingstone towards a sustainable path that prioritizes the lives of communities rather than the sinister pursuit of profit from corporations.

Social Cultural Lens:

The fracking agenda is not only contingent on environmental degradation but also on disproportionately burdening minority communities through systemic discrimination built by the industry. In a paper published by David Gonzalez, a researcher from the department of Environmental Science at the University of California, African Americans are 65% more likely to live in D-graded neighborhoods, which are communities near oil and fracking wells. Consequently, African Americans, along with other communities of color who lived in these neighborhoods were correlated to developing more cardiovascular diseases and cancers (Gonzalez 2019). There is a social-cultural disparity when we look at the fracking agenda because of the companies’ discriminatory policy to target communities of color who don’t have enough political power to resist the industry. Moreover, Bruce Braun, a professor in geology and environmental science from Minnesota University, says “Fracking in North Dakota—and elsewhere in the US and Canada—also reminds us that the oil industry in North America is built on a history of state violence and Indigenous displacement and that for much of humanity, the catastrophe does not lie in the future but occurred in the past and continues on in the present” (Braun 2019). Both Braun and Gonzales agree about how fracking itself isn’t just a “typical” extraction method that causes environmental problems but the industry as a whole exploits the vulnerability of minority communities and delegitimizes the value of their concerns about the effects of pollution and climate change. Furthermore, the legacy of Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet tribal member and indigenous activist, is a prime example of the institutional favoring of companies over their duty to the well-being of people. In a court case, Cobell v Salazar, Cobell led a successful class action lawsuit against the U.S. government who misallocated funds intended to compensate Native Americans for leasing their land for oil extraction (Janko, 2013). Fossil fuel companies often pay royalties and establish trust funds with Native Americans for using their lands, yet the U.S. government lacked transparency in sufficiently distributing those funds. Her legacy paints an identical portrait of the problems associated with fracking in which concerns about public health like the compensation of communities are ignored. While the lawsuit is not a testament to a specific ban on fracking, it sheds light about the broader issue of the exploitation of communities from the oil complex. Fortunately, Cobell successful litigation earned $3.4 billion in Native American compensation.

Despite the empirical evidence of communities of color living in closer proximity to fracking wells some researchers believe that proximity to wells has minimal harmful implications because of the current regulations imposed. In another article from Drew Johnson, “government research, including a study by the Environmental Protection Agency, has found that such contamination is exceedingly rare…Fracking wells reuse 90 percent of drilling water” (Johnson 2019). In addition, Issac Ord, a research fellow for energy and environmental policy at The Hearland Institute, claim that water contamination from fracking is supposedly below the threshold of being lethal and that since the start of fracking “only 20% of North American cities exceeded their recommended levels of PM2.5” since natural gas extracted from fracking emits 99% less sulfur oxide than coal (Orr, 2016). Johnson and Orr both make a similar claim that proximity to wells (even if it is dictated by racial discrimination) doesn’t significantly affect public health because natural gas doesn’t contain as much harmful chemicals in comparison to coal; however, even if fracking has decreased emissions of harmful substances, it doesn’t change the fact that the practice is still harmful overall for communities of color and that ingenious groups are being driven off their land to construct more wells. Gonzalez research is a testament that the regulations and “harmlessness” of natural gas is not enough since the concerns of pollution are disregarded. Renewable energy instigated by a fracking ban could shift the world towards a future that prioritizes the wellbeing of all communities rather than a world that sacrifices specific communities to carry the health burden of the industry.

Economic Lens:

In the long term, fracking isn’t even economically viable and places profits into the pockets of CEOs rather than the people. “Only about 10% of the wealth generated from fracking even stays in the local community. Moreover from 2015-2021 more than 250 oil and gas producers have filed for bankruptcy and more than 100,000 jobs in the oil and fracking industry were “shed” due to an oversupply of oil and corporate debt” (Marusic, 2021). In other words, an immediate ban is viable because communities have nothing to lose, and the fracking industry is inevitably declining. It would be better off to preserve a political framework that prioritizes the well-being of people because the health and eventual resource complications outweigh the mere money that comes back to the community (Lohan, 2019).

However, while fracking may not be vital to employment, the industrialist perspective voices a concern that the decoupling of the fossil fuel industry from existence could cascade across the entire domestic economy. Dan Bouillotte, the 15th secretary of the U.S. The Department of Energy says that “compared to a world with hydraulic fracturing, in 2025, the United States economy would have 7.7 million fewer jobs, $1.1 trillion less in gross domestic product (GDP), and $950 billion less in labor income” (Brouillette, 2021). What Brouillette’s research and the industrial perspective fail to account for is the theoretical implementation of an energy transition instigated by a ban on fracking. A complete bam could cushion the financial risk of stranded assets because companies would have time to redivert funds towards renewable energy (Bogman, 2023). Similarly, Mark Paul and Lina Moe researchers from the Climate and Community Project, indicate that “simply expanding renewables…will be insufficient to eliminate fossil fuel use, as people may increase consumption as energy becomes cheaper or more abundant (a phenomenon known as the Jevons or green paradox) …and [outright bans increase the development of clean and renewable energy” (Paul and Moe, 2023). The risk of economic complications is minimal yet only a ban creates the incentive to develop a renewable transition.  

Conclusion: 

Evaluating the fracking industry holistically, the stance that the oil extraction method should be banned prevails because of its degrading effects on the environment, on social-cultural communities, and how it is unsustainable economically in the long term. Banning fracking is a step towards a renewable future, for tougher climate policies, and can allow for a divestment away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. Although there is an implication of immediate economic problems, the forceable innovation jumpstarted by a ban on fracking is worth the risk because the world is headed toward a future of fossil fuels rendering the entire planet uninhabitable. Only banning fracking is the solution because it is seen as a credible indication for companies to start dramatically investing in renewable energy. Yet, it is more feasible than outright banning all fossil fuels immediately because a ban on fracking can give companies enough time to divert their money toward green innovation.