The Texas Ban of Fracking Bans Could Go All the Way

When my children were younger I spent a fair amount of time with them trying to explain the roles played by the three branches of the United States government. We talked about the judiciary, and the purview of the court system at the local, state and federal level.  My children we’re at a loss to understand what is required to get a case to the Supreme Court.  I explained that it is normally an interpretation of the Constitution, e.g., does the 4th amendment’s limit on search and seizure apply to cell phones?  Obviously, the founding fathers never contemplated that citizens would have their most personal and private information on a little electronic device. When someone appealed a case that turned on this issue, it became incumbent on the Supreme Court to decide to hear the case, or let the lower court’s ruling stand.

It would also be nice to get a ruling on gun control.  Mustn’t there be a limit as to the power of a weapon that citizens can legally own?  If automatic rifles are OK, what about rocket-propelled grenades?

Here’s another good example of something that could easily reach the Supreme Court: Yesterday the State of Texas put a ban on fracking bans. In other words, they said that cities and counties have no jurisdiction to put bans on what happens beneath the surface of the earth. Of course, environmental groups were quick to blame the oil companies, and, in truth, it really is really hard for anyone to doubt that Big Oil played a role in this.

In any case, this is clearly a matter that could go to the Supreme Court. At what (if any) level of government can the citizenry say no to this practice?

Of course, the best solution is to inform that citizenry of the following, so as to discontinue its concerns on the subject:

• None of the actual dangers that are popularly associated with fracking: overuse of water, injection of toxic chemicals into the regions 15K feet deep, pollution of aquifers/drinking water, earthquakes, etc., has any real scientific validity.

• Fracking offsets a great deal of the energy that would otherwise be generated by coal, whose health-related consequences are far worse than anything we could possibly learn about the hazards of fracking, even in our worst nightmares.

• Natural gas enables the integration of more renewable energy than we’re currently able to accommodate.