Analysts expect EPA to look at oil, fracking
One by product of last Tuesday’s election results could very well be more crackdowns on the oil and natural gas business. Expectations are that the Environmental Protection Agency will take a hard look at those industries now that President Obama has won a second term. Travis Windle of the Marcellus Shale Coalition says the industry is expecting it.
“It certainly is an active EPA that is looking to get more involved and not less involved with on shore shale gas development,” Windle told KTRH.
Windle says the agency is doing this at the direction of Washington.
“They are undertaking a pretty protracted, hydraulic fracturing study that continues to get broader and broader in scope,” he explained.
As a result of that study, we could see a push for more taxes like a carbon tax. Industry analyst Phil Flynn told KTRH that would be bad for the industry.
“We’re very much concerned that if the EPA continues along this path it’s going to cost us a lot of jobs and growth in the economy,” Flynn told KTRH.
And some of those jobs that are lost could come right here in the state of Texas.
“It’s going to hurt job creation. If they are talking about a carbon tax then we are going to produce less carbon. We’re going to produce less oil. We’re going to produce less jobs,” Flynn explained.
Flynn says the EPA is looking to find something wrong with fracking, and that fracking is actually something that could get the economy moving again.
