Last Friday the Dept. of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its final version of new fracking rules for drillers who frack on public and trial lands in the U.S. The BLM has been working on the new rules since 2012 (see BLM Issues Proposed New Rule for Fracking Federal Lands). After negative feedback, BLM reworked the rules several times since the original draft in May 2012. Why does this issue matter for MDN readers? For one, there is some federal land in the northeast–not a lot–but some, that may be impacted. The larger reason is that clearly the overreaching activist federal government under Barack H. Obama has its sights set on federal control of fracking–not just on federal land but all private land as well (see Feds ‘Hope’ States will Use BLM Rules for ALL Fracking). Yes it’s a stretch and ambitious, but then, who in their right mind would have thought Democrat Congress members would have sold out their constituents and passed Obamacare? In other words, stranger things have happened. We need to pay attention to what the feds are doing with fracking. So far, both the oil and gas industry and the so-called environmental movement are not happy with the final rules. In fact, the industry immediately filed a lawsuit to stop the new rules from taking effect–and “environmentalists” like the vapid Mark Ruffalo are kicking up a fuss…
