The oil and gas industry plans to massively expand a labyrinth of pipelines to market natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale and other rock formations using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. But allowing the industry to build out its sprawling pipeline infrastructure and to lock-in decades more of U.S. dependence on natural gas would be a colossal mistake. The industry’s pipeline projects must be stopped.

Drilling and fracking shale to produce natural gas, or shale gas, result in local air pollution problems, degrade water quality in rivers and streams and create short- and long-term risks to underground sources of drinking water. In part because of such environmental impacts, communities with shale gas development can be made worse off as the boom-and-bust cycle of extraction runs its course. More pipelines simply mean more environmental and public health problems for these local communities.