Vermont’s Socialist and presidential wannabe, Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a bill introduced last week that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) helped craft would ban fracking nationwide by 2025, a death sentence if passed for the American economy. Like fellow political lemmings Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg, Sanders has swallowed the lies the greenies have fed him about fracking, as shown in a statement he released supporting his legislation shortly before the disastrous Iowa caucuses:

"Fracking is a danger to our water supply. It's a danger to the air we breathe, it has resulted in more earthquakes, and it's highly explosive. To top it all off, it's contributing to climate change," Sanders said in a statement. "If we are serious about clean air and drinking water, if we are serious about combating climate change, the only safe and sane way to move forward is to ban fracking nationwide," he added.

Environmental expert Ocasio-Cortez from the fracking-free and declining state of New York echoed his sentiments and this attempt to legislate into law a major part of her Green New Deal:

In a statement, Ocasio-Cortez said fracking is a contributor to "our climate emergency." "The science is clear: fracking is a leading contributor to our climate emergency. It is destroying our land. It is destroying our water and it is wreaking havoc on our communities' health."

Not only is none of this nonsense true, it is actually the reverse of what is true. The American technology of fracking has helped the United States lead the world in curtailing carbon dioxide emissions and therefore is a leading contributor to climate stability and to the quality of the air we breathe. We are in more danger from the carbon dioxide released during one of Bernie’s speeches as he crisscrosses the electoral map in private jets.

In addition to cleaning the air we breathe of those nasty carbon emissions, like the carbon dioxide that comes out our polluting nostrils, fracking creates jobs that pay for food and shelter, improving the health of our communities on many levels.

As President Trump noted in his recent speech at the Shale Insight Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, our booming economy is being led by a booming energy industry allowed to use the latest technology to free a seemingly endless supply of oil and natural gas from the earth under our feet. The conference was staged by some very appreciative energy groups such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, and the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association.

This energy abundance has put downward pressure on energy costs for consumers and industry, made us energy independent and immune from Middle East instability, quite possibly preventing a global oil recession or major war with the likes of a belligerent and aggressive Iran.

While noting that he has opened up ANWR in Alaska for exploration and development, exited the job-killing and economy-choking Paris Climate Accord, as well as greenlighting the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, he pointed out the economic benefits shale development in general and the Marcellus shale formation stretching beneath Pennsylvania in particular as the most significant energy development, as important to the economy as tax cuts and regulatory reform.

Trump warned that the Democrats want to take away our energy as well as our guns, and the current prosperity spawned by shale and fracking could end. As noted by David Lenery at The Center Square:

“A thriving energy industry… [is] an enormous benefit to citizens all across our country, all across our land,” Trump said. “According to the Council of Economic Advisers, who cannot even believe the numbers and the success that we're having, the astonishing increase in production made possible by shale, and the shale revolution, saves Americans $203 billion every year, or $2,500 for a family of four in lower electric bills, lower prices, and at the gas pump.” “Many politicians in our country are targeting your industry and your jobs for literally total destruction,” he told the shale industry workers assembled at the conference. “Whether you like it or not, that's where they're going… Virtually every leading Democrat is pledged to entirely eliminate fossil fuels, wiping out American production of oil and coal and natural gas, and by the way, jobs. These Democrat plans would obliterate millions of American jobs, devastating communities across Pennsylvania, and bankrupting families all across our nation.”

Leading that pack of Dark Age advocates is Sen. Elizabeth Warren In contrast, David Spigelmyer, president of the Marcellus Shale Association, noted on “Fox and Friends” the success of Trump’s unleashing American energy:

…not long ago, the United States was "60 percent dependent on foreign sources of energy. Today, the country is "awash in natural gas" and moving toward energy independence. “It was an honor to have the president here in Pittsburgh again to talk about now an area that’s supplying a third of the nation’s natural gas supply," he said.

According to a 2016 report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found, the economy would suffer dramatically if lawmakers banned fracking:

"A fracking ban would be a disaster for the U.S. economy, exceeding the economic harm caused by the financial crisis, the housing bust, and the Great Recession -- combined," the report said. "Those concurrent events cost the United States around 8 million jobs. A ban on fracturing would destroy more than 14 million jobs, all while raising costs for families and considerably reducing American energy security."

A 2019 report by the National Association of State Energy officials noted that thanks to fracking the natural gas industry employed directly some 625,000 Americans in good, high-paying jobs. Those jobs would vanish under a Warren ban. The consequences of a fracking ban would be economically devastating. According to the Washington Free Beacon:

The spike in energy prices would raise the cost of living by $4,000 a year, and household incomes would drop by $873 billion. The report concluded the U.S. gross domestic product would be reduced by $1.6 trillion. Texas (1,499,000 jobs lost), Pennsylvania (466,000), Ohio (397,000), and Colorado (215,000) would see more than a combined 2.5 million jobs lost from a fracking ban alone over that span, the report said, taking into consideration its effect on energy prices, incomes, manufacturing, and energy security… A separate report from the American Petroleum Institute concluded bans on fracking, fossil fuel production, and other "keep it in the ground" policies would cost 5.9 million jobs and a cumulative GDP reduction of $11.8 trillion. The trade group found the losses would stem from lower economic growth due to lower domestic energy production.

Fracking does not cause earthquakes, nor does it taint well water. The allegedly “toxic” mixture used to fracture shale is in fact a benign blend of 90% water, 9.5% sand and 0.5% chemicals such as the sodium chloride, or table salt, and the citric acid of the orange juice you had for breakfast.

Shale formations in which fracking is employed are thousands of feet deep. Drinking water aquifers are generally only 100 feet deep. There is a lot of solid rock between them.

It is fracking that has produced a boom in the production of natural gas, a fossil fuel that has produced a significant reduction in the U.S. of so-called “greenhouse gases”.

In 2016, the Obama administration tried to take credit for a 20-year low in carbon emissions while failing to give the fracking revolution any credit. As the Washington Times reported:

White House senior advisor Brian Deese cheered the falling carbon dioxide levels at a Monday press conference without mentioning the outsize role played by natural gas, as the cleaner-burning fuel increasingly overtakes coal in electricity generation. “For those of you who are not breathlessly following the most recent data that has come out, I would note recent data that we’ve seen suggests or finds that for the first half of 2016, energy sector emissions in the United States are actually down 6 percent from last year, and 15 percent from 2005,” said Mr. Deese. “And they’re at their lowest level in nearly 20 years.” He said nothing about the U.S. natural gas boom, an omission that critics say has become par for the course as the Obama administration highlights renewable energy and emissions restrictions without acknowledging the role of fracking in natural gas extraction.

The carbon emission reductions have continued as the Trump administration has removed the last barriers to fracking expansion:

“Thanks to President Trump’s regulatory reform agenda, the economy is booming, energy production is surging, and we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from major industrial sources,” EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. Earlier this year, the Energy Information Administration reported that per-capita greenhouse gas emissions hit a 67-year low during Trump’s first year in office.

The Democrats have no case, moral or otherwise, for banning fracking, which would ironically hurt the environment they allegedly want to heal, while creating an economic collapse. The American people like the prosperity fracking has helped bring and opposition to it in 2020 could bring electoral disaster, particularly in states like Pennsylvania. If they insist on advocating, they will be caught between shale rock and a hard place.

Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.