POLITICS
Ban fracking? Good luck with that, Mr. or Ms. President
The Democratic presidential candidates who promise to ban fracking are keeping a secret: The president can't do that.
Mike writes enterprise and investigative stories, primarily on oil and gas drilling. Before coming to Energywire, he covered congressional leadership for The Hill newspaper and served as a Washington correspondent for The Denver Post. He has received awards from the National Press Club, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists. He was a Kiplinger Fellow in 2014 and participated in NICAR Bootcamp in 2013. He is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors and a committee chairman and former board member at the National Press Club.
The Democratic presidential candidates who promise to ban fracking are keeping a secret: The president can't do that.
Contaminated brine bubbling from the ground in Oklahoma could endanger groundwater and highlights the challenge for an oil and gas industry running out of places to dispose of waste. It also could signal a new problem for industry as salt water breaking out without a conduit like an old well is extremely unusual.
Two earthquakes that shook Oklahoma on Sunday evening may be part of a new trend — shaking that's neither natural, linked to oil field disposal nor linked to hydraulic fracturing.
An agreement on regulating 90,000 miles of gas gathering lines is drawing fire from oil and gas lobbying groups.
EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson's inbox was flooded with chummy notes from lobbyists, many of whom he'd worked with on Capitol Hill, according to a review of thousands of pages of emails released under the Freedom of Information Act. The emails show Jackson's can-do, will-fix attitude and a willingness to lend a sympathetic ear.