How Biden Will End Fracking Without a Ban. Like Obama, he’d kill the energy industry by a thousand regulatory and legislative cuts.

Wall Street Journal ^ | October 20, 2020 | Steve Milloy

[karpov]

Joe Biden is probably telling the truth when he says he won’t “ban” fracking. A president can’t do that by executive order. And even if Democrats seize the Senate, a legislative ban would be politically risky. Far more likely is that a Biden administration would end fracking via indirect means, by taking a regulatory nibble here and a legislative bite there.

While Mr. Biden has flip-flopped on fracking, he has consistently pledged to outlaw drilling on federal lands. That would affect 8% of all U.S. oil production, 9% of gas production, and 6% of natural gas liquids production. He has also committed to reversing President Trump’s deregulatory efforts, including the rollback of an Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency rule requiring the oil-and-gas industry to pay to limit methane leaks from fracking wells.

Big oil companies support the Obama rule because it puts the squeeze on smaller players. If the rule is reinstated, struggling independent frackers will either close up shop or sell themselves to larger companies, whose profits have been harmed by a production glut. With the ability to control and limit overall production, those larger frackers could reduce the glut and increase their profits. There would be less fracking—and higher energy prices for consumers.

The rest of the Biden administration’s antifracking playbook would mimic the Obama administration’s destruction of 94% of the market value of the coal industry from 2011-16. Making good on a campaign promise to bankrupt utilities that wanted to build coal plants, Mr. Obama’s EPA issued air-quality rules that made existing coal plants too expensive to operate. Another rule banned new coal plants unless they were built with nonexistent technology to capture and store emissions.

[karpov]

full article

[shaven_llama]

Cool. Higher taxes AND higher gas prices AND higher electric bills. What’s not to like? /s

[lilypad]

I am considering cancelling my subscription to this rag today. Probably there’s 10 to 1 pro Biden articles. The journal used to be reliably conservative. Only a few writers are worth anything, Kimberly Strassel, Dan Henninger, McGurk guy. Jason Riley sucks lately.

[wardamneagle]

And a carbon tax.....that taxes everything. i.e., your car.

[palmer]

The rest of the Biden administration’s antifracking playbook would mimic the Obama administration’s destruction of 94% of the market value of the coal industry from 2011-16.

Part of the decline in coal was due to the rise in fracking. People forget that gas was 8 cents in 2008 and recently dipped below 2 cents. It made no sense to use coal for electric plants anymore.

[DownInFlames]

Biden won’t, Harris will. Shortly after his inauguration, he will resign for health reasons.

[Red Dog #1]

Even worse...less fracking means was in the Middle East is more likely.

[familyop]

The 2020 election question: Are you ready for $6 a gallon gas?
FOXBusiness
By Harold Hamm
Published October 20
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2020-election-6-gallon-gas

[Short excerpt:]
"Oil billionaire Harold Hamm discusses the presidential election's impact on the energy sector and the state of the U.S. economy."
[...]
"We achieved true energy freedom. One of the hugely important, but underappreciated results of the American Energy Renaissance is that peace is breaking out all over the Middle East. There’s a new order in play. Yet we have a political party and candidate who wants to end the miracle and replace it with the utopian notion of a carbonless world. There’s no such thing. Nor will there every be.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democrats want to depress or even destroy one of America’s most critical industries."

[familyop]

If Democrats take the White House, get ready for some unprecedentedly hard times. If they take the Senate, too, get ready for a general collapse. Not that anyone could really get prepared much for such an event,...