Heartland Institute Reacts to Override of
Gov. Perdue’s Veto of North Carolina Fracking Bill
The North Carolina legislature Monday night overrode the veto of Gov. Bev Perdue (D), opening up the state natural gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing – a technique also known as “fracking.”
The following statements from environmental and energy policy experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Tammy Nash at [email protected] and 312/377-4000. After regular business hours, contact Jim Lakely at [email protected] and 312/731-9364.
“State agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have diligently monitored hydraulic fracturing for decades. As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testified under oath in Congressional hearings, EPA has not found a single case of hydraulic fracturing contaminating groundwater. State agencies have yet to identify a single case of groundwater contamination, either.”
James M. Taylor
Senior Fellow for Environmental Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“Though the legislature’s override of the governor’s veto on hydraulic fracturing may have been a fluke, the outcome is a plus for North Carolina taxpayers and businesses. Fracking has been used for more than 50 years to complete tens of thousands of wells across the U.S., and neither the Environmental Protection Agency nor state regulators have ever documented a case of groundwater contamination from the process.
“North Carolina now has the potential to join America’s shale gas revolution, which is helping put our country on the path to energy independence with attendant economic and fiscal benefits to producing states.”
Bernard Weinstein
Associate Director, Maguire Energy Institute
Cox School of Business
Southern Methodist University
Policy Advisor
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
“Gov. Perdue’s reaction to the override reveals her past statements about hydraulic fracturing to be nothing more than political word play. Without a documented case of drinking water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing, her calls for ‘adequate protections’ remain vague and meaningless. If the governor supports hydraulic fracturing, then a principled stance would do a lot more good for the residents of North Carolina during these difficult times than her misleading statements that give the image of being in favor of hydraulic fracturing while in reality coddling environmentalists.”
Taylor Smith
Policy Analyst
The Heartland Institute
[email protected],
312/377-4000
The Heartland Institute is a 28-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
Taylor Smith was a policy analyst for The Heartland Institute specializing in energy, climate, and environmental regulation. He is coauthor with James M.
