How the word ‘fracking’ is used as a political scare tactic

If there is one thing both conservatives and liberals can agree on, it is that they hold entirely different worldviews. However, while reasonable people can disagree, too often policy discords get turned into dishonest attacks.

For example, in the past election cycle, ballot measures advertised as “fracking bans” started showing up in city and county elections throughout California. The fallacy of these ballot measures is that there wasn’t any hydraulic fracturing in these communities.

This happened north and south of us in San Benito, Santa Barbara and Mendocino counties. (Full disclosure, I have done work for the “No on Measure P” campaign in Santa Barbara County.)

Instead of only banning fracking, these often deeply flawed ballot measures deceptively ban all oil production — including traditional methods that have been safely used in counties across California for more than a century. It seems pretty clear that the word “fracking” is an emotional, straw-man scare tactic used by anti-energy extremists to drive an emotional response.

As these radical activists move from community to community in California and place their pseudo fracking bans on local ballots, the potential for devastating impacts increases.

California is the third largest oilproducing state in the nation. However, these supposedly anti-fracking measures are really aimed at halting all oil production, which would slash local government tax revenue, increase our reliance on foreign oil and result in higher costs for gasoline at the pump.

In Santa Barbara County, had the supposed antifracking ban passed, it would have killed more than 1,000 head-ofhousehold jobs.

The direct and immediate costs to local governments are even higher. Elections are expensive to hold, legal fees often arise and the potential for lawsuits in these circumstances is substantial.

Just ask San Benito County, which passed a measure in November 2014 and is currently being sued for takings (mineral rights) and damages in the amount of $1.2 billion. Was fracking happening in San Benito County? Nope. And now San Benito County is forced to defend this deceptive and costly measure.

These measures are divisive to communities, pitting neighbors, farmers and ranchers against one another, and they are tremendous burdens to taxpayers. They divert attention away from important issues like job creation, public safety and local a governments’ ability to deliver basic services to its residents.

San Luis Obispo County isn’t immune. The issue of banning fracking was brought before our Board of Supervisors just this past September. Amazingly, our Board of Supervisors looked at the facts:

1. There is no fracking happening in San Luis Obispo County, and 2. California already has the most stringent laws in the nation to regulate oil production.

A costly election in San Luis Obispo County to ban a technique that isn’t happening, in an industry that is already highly regulated, would be a waste of our time and money. Our county supervisors got it right and said “no” to a fracking ban.

They aren’t the only ones to see reason. Safe and regulated oil production has continued to receive bipartisan support in Sacramento as even stricter regulations are set to go into effect in July with Senate Bill 4 — a new law that is specifically designed to set up a regulato ry structure for natural resource extraction.

Gov. Jerry Brown recognizes our state’s need for oil. In apress conference earlier this month Gov. Brown had the following remarks:

“(Californians) are going to drive 332 billion miles a year and consume 14 billion gallons of gasoline as long as these cars are moving, and as we speak, protesters and non-protesters are burning up gasoline that is being shipped from Iraq, from Russia, from Venezuela (so) whatever we don’t (produce) from here, we’re just going to get from somewhere else until we can get that moratorium on driving, which I haven’t heard proposed yet by anybody.”

So what are the facts?

California’s economy is making slow progress, and elected officials on both sides of the aisle can recognize the need to keep the energy industry local. Allowing radical activists to impose their anti energy beliefs through the guise of straw man fracking bans would be a giant step backward for California.

This story was originally published February 22, 2015 at 5:23 AM with the headline "How the word ‘fracking’ is used as a political scare tactic."