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>comes from environmentally destructive practices, which is a damn good reason to prefer imports.

I'm sure Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Saudi, etc. really care about the environment and their reports about environment sustainability* are totally true.

The average oil producer is a dictatorship, and I suspect the impact of lack of transparency is more important than the drilling method - they have every motivation to cut corners, while American oil is openly regulated. So from the global perspective I doubt American production is more polluting.

* If they even have any.

Other countries might be less sustainable however that lack of sustainability doesn't impact the US as much. The real cost of oil drilled within the US is higher than the real cost of oil drilled outside the US.

We're just seeing a real live demonstration that the real cost of oil produced by the typical non-US oil producer has its own externalities and they're not pretty. With the money saved by preventing these issues one should be able to solve the water problem (waste recycling? desalinization? other liquids?).

> comes from environmentally destructive practices, which is a damn good reason to prefer imports.

This globalist-centric way of thinking is why we’re currently paying $5/gallon, the highest amount ever. Such a “hidden” tax on the working class is why we should shun imports and be self sufficient both with oil as well as manufacturing - or at least as much as humanly possible.

> Seems disingenuous to not mention that most of that US oil (65%!) comes from environmentally destructive practices, which is a damn good reason to prefer imports.

This reads like the NIMBY stance of oil production. “Make whatever mess you want, keep it where it is! Can’t have that happening in my state/country!”

So you’d rather export pollution instead of being energy independent and trying to fix fracking laws?

Oil produced from other sources (i.e. traditional wells) is presumably less bad for the environment, since it isn't using huge amounts of fresh water.

The point is that we need to use fracking to extract much of the oil in the United States, as opposed to less destructive techniques that can be used in other oil fields. It’s not NIMBY if it truly is worse when it happens in your backyard.

I'm not sure that was the original point. If extracting oil results in $x of long term damage to the local environment, but that cost isn't passed along, it makes economic sense to buy oil from somewhere else so you don't end up footing that bill. Sure it would be better overall if that other place could extract oil without that cost but that doesn't make the decision less rational even if that environmental cost is as much or more than it would be to extract it locally.

i think what’s missing is that fracking is used in the U.S.

non-fracking methods are used outside the U.S.

fracking is worse for the environment than non-fracking methods.

i hold my personal opinions on each point but i think this is what OP was trying to convey

>fracking to extract much of the oil in the United States, as opposed to less destructive techniques that can be used in other oil fields

Is fracking really worse overall? One can screw up non-fracking oil methods too, e.g. Nigerian oil delta, BP oil spill, etc.

This just hints at how toxic the fracking chemicals used are. It's not just the water, it's the pollution that is compounding this issue. Water always has, and always will recirculate - but pumping dangerous contaminants into our water tables is a big problem that effects current generations as well.

Evidence please. (Of contaminants in water tables, not the toxicity of oil)

You’re asking for evidence that oil exploration and extraction leaves contaminants in water tables? The US EPA gives 5 easy to understand situations where fracking destroys drinking water through toxic chemicals making it into groundwater.

• Spills during the handling of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources;

• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources;

• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources;

• Discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water; and

• Disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in unlined pits, resulting in contamination ofgroundwater resource

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-12/documents/hf...

Those are all listed possibilities. Not evidence for its occurrence.

Contrast this to the evidence for coal contaminating water supplies with mercury. Fracking, despite its reputation and scary name, is safe. Like, flying airplanes safe.

Here is a very recent paper describing three worst of the worst situations, where a casing was improperly cemented. Even then it is really unclear how bad the contamination was. Keep in mind there are over a million fracked wells in the USA.

Hammond, P. A., Wen, T., Brantley, S. L., & Engelder, T. (2020). Gas well integrity and methane migration: evaluation of published evidence during shale-gas development in the USA. Hydrogeology Journal, 28(4), 1481-1502.

Can you light your tap water on fire, or do you refuse to live where this "safe" fracking occurs?

Read this review. I know it seems like methane in the water is caused by fracking but there are good reasons to believe that it isn’t. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-envir...

How commonly do you think that flammable tap water issue occurs outside of anti-fracking propaganda films? Also you're aware that it is an occasionally natural phenomenon, right?

Well water is often naturally pretty nasty even without fracking. I am generally anti-fracking, but take those videos you’ve seen with a grain of salt. Those things happened routinely even before the fracking boom.

There are better criticisms of fracking like the higher rates of disease around well sites, and improper dumping of waste.

Drilling companies are able to treat the toxic soup that is pumped into the ground as trade secrets, so it’s difficult to publish definitive data.

Fracking leaks methanol, salts and other compounds into ground water. Operations often contaminate water from leaky pits with diesel and other compounds.

Coal is probably the nastiest fuel by any measure. But that isn’t to say that fracking operations are not problematic, and since industry has fought tooth and nail to prevent meaningful, peer reviewed study of the issue, it’s absurd to compare to a well understood, well measured thing like air safety.

> Fracking leaks methanol, salts and other compounds into ground water. Operations often contaminate water from leaky pits with diesel and other compounds.

No, the evidence from peer reviewed studies show that this does not occur often. You are presenting this as though fracking leads to ground water contamination. That is simply not the case. Agriculture and urban activities are much bigger sources of contamination.

This recent review says: “ A perceived risk, that fracking chemicals may migrate from the 0.5- to 3-km depth of injection to upper shallow aquifers used for water supply, is not considered to be significant (90, 91). The lack of baseline data on aquifer conditions is cited as a major limitation to the detection and attribution of the impacts (90–92). Wide variations in methane concentrations in groundwater are noted in areas with intensive gas production as well as in areas with limited activity.” https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-envir...

Here is a review of over 20 studies showing that fracking does not contaminate groundwater. Including studies by the USGS, EPA, Stanford, etc: https://www.cred.org/scientists-fracking-doesnt-harm-water/

But very open to additional evidence.

A non-partisan source would be more convincing.

===

A spot check shows item 15 in the list, published 2014, is based on work from 2011-12 and the abstract concludes with:

> This study provides a baseline of water-quality conditions in the Monongahela River Basin in West Virginia during the early phases of development of the Marcellus Shale gas field. Although not all inclusive, the results of this study provide a set of reliable water-quality data against which future data sets can be compared and the effects of shale-gas development may be determined.

That is to say, this is a baseline measurement from the start of exploration, not a demonstration that fracking goes not contaminate groundwater.

===

The MIT report listed as item 26 on the list does say the process is mostly safe, which I respect, but also page 39 lists counts of incidents over a four or five year period, including 20 incidents of "groundwater contamination by natural gas or drilling fluid". So it's not like problems do not happen.

Here is a non partisan source.

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-envir...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/21/toxic-...

PFAS stay in the environment and are harmful to humans.

I will summarize those paragraphs - as long as USA can afford to export manufacturing pollution to poor countries that allow excess pollution, we should continue to have the pollution dumped over there.

I don't agree with that. I support pollution import duties to remove some of the economic advantage of dumping pollution over there.

Most oil isn’t extracted by fracking

The big oil producers still mostly just pump.

The US exhausted fields in Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio 100+ years ago and has depleted the big western fields as well - production in the US requires fracking.

Yes, though still lots of oil in the western States. USA can be energy independent, and was just a couple years ago. The tech is cleaner than ever and laterals reduce pad impacts.

I heard politicians bleating on about that, but my lying' eyes told me a different story.

My office during this period was next to an inland port and rail facility. Every day, hundreds of Canadian National Railway cars with explosive tar sands oil lumbered by to be loaded on ships bound for refineries.

High commodity prices drive expensive oil production. That includes fracked gas and oil and other "exotic" sources. An extended war in Ukraine will certainly trigger a domestic oil boom.

Most of the frac water used these days is "produced water", ie. dirty/salty water that comes up with the oil from other wells.

Putting a price of $6.5 for a gallon of gas (this is how much gas in Europe normally costs €1.58/liter = $6.5/gallon) is a right thing to do.

Hopefully this would diminish consumption, reduce carbon footprint and wouldn't require purchasing extra crude. May cause a revolt though, if advertised to the main street improperly.

I will support $10 gallon gasoline if we first pass constitutional amendment to repeal the personal income tax.

Nice try. Other than the government mandating this price which is just another tax the operators have no reasons to suddenly charge this much.

Besides you either have loads of money and do not give a hoot or you just live close to work.

Yes, add on to the tax which is already around 55 cents per gallon. Would you support $6 gallon fuel tax while relieving everyone from fear of IRS audits? (It's for the children!) And add $10 to aviation fuel.

Why would you support a regressive tax scheme that impacts the poor and middle class far more than the wealthy? To be clear, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I just don't understand this viewpoint at all.

They already suffer, and the benefit is to free the poor and middle class from personal income tax. The rich already escaped as generally their money is not personal income for purpose of income tax.

When the king takes a portion of my labor 'because he can', then I am a slave. The rich generally understand how to escape the income tax slavery. Let's free the poor.

Weird then that the top quintile pays most of the income taxes that are paid.

How is it weird the top 20% of income tax payers pay the most? Is that by definition what makes the top 20% of income tax payers the top 20%? The very rich can structure affairs to have capital gains, minimize income, and therefore not be in the top 20% of income tax payers. Poor and middle-class wage slaves have income (per IRS definition) and generally don't escape income tax beyond the standard deduction which applies to everyone who files.

The rich understand these phrases: "capital gains", "everyone who files". Those with minimal wage income may not even need to file.

The poor basically only pay payroll taxes.

Capital gains are taxed using a different rate schedule, but they are still taxed as income (they are literally included in AGI).

>>> The poor basically only pay payroll taxes.

And sales tax and use tax.

Capital gains are assessed when recognized, not like a yearly schedule so rich can defer this and choose when to recognize it. Will certainly take many fun 'business' trips that year to offset.

Remove payroll taxes (which support collection of income tax) and employee take-home pay increases. Employers can stop hassles of the withholding accounting. Employees can stop hassles of yearly income tax filing to IRS.

There would be a temporary increase of unemployed payroll tax bookkeepers and storefront tax prep people. Hopefully they will find something more productive to do.

Personally I'd rather see the loopholes get closed instead of adding a tax on consumer goods.

Remove some of the loopholes for trusts that let people avoid inheritance taxes. Add another tax bracket or two for capital gains. Get rid of the carried interest loophole.

There is merit to closing loopholes. It seems difficult to implement considering how codes and laws are actually crafted. Huge business of leeches creating tax code and then helping people to utilize the tax codes to maximum effect.

Straight consumption tax (excluding uncooked food) and it becomes very simple to implement. And nobody would file a personal income tax again. Employers would not do payroll tax withholding so wage slaves would get an immediate increase of take-home pay.

As long as public transportation in the US continues to be unsafe, dirty, and slow people will continue to drive cars. It doesn't matter how much public transport you build out, if I have to sit next to a guy smelling like piss I will never get on the subway when I have a car.

You could sell your car to get the guy some new clothes and a shower.

The right thing for the environment maybe, but it would be an extremely regressive tax, regardless of how it's advertised.

This can be fixed by spending some or all of the new tax revenue on income transfers.

For a smooth transition, you need to "make before break". If we take away people's cars overnight, then people will be stranded with no way to buy food or earn income. (Raising prices on gasoline is a slower means of effecting change, but people don't have the opportunity to just throw away their home and home equity to move somewhere with public transportation. This just makes people miserable; it doesn't help them out of their miserable situation.) We can't undo 100 years of terrible urban planning with one stroke of the pen.

I consider cramming millions of people in tiny city apartments terrible planning as well. I want to smell the roses, not human waste. The root cause I guess that there are too many of us

Creating conditions to force people into highly dense urban area also = miserable people.

Not sure of a good answer here

> Creating conditions to force people into highly dense urban area also = miserable people.

Do you have a source for this? Denser European cities seem to have much higher happiness than people living in single family residential suburbs.

Not sure about European cities or if they directly compare to US. Most major metropolitan areas in the Midwest and East coast region are seeing people leave for suburbs or even small town America.

older article but still applies (I think) https://www.chicagoreporter.com/chicago-is-the-fastest-shrin...

It's because suburbs are subsidized in the current system. Roads, infrastructure, and other upkeep costs are paid by the entire city but since the denser regions are more productive/profitable, they end up paying for the services that suburban residents are using. If suburban residents had to pay for the real cost of their housing, then I think it would be a lot less appealing. Building suburbs is terrible city planning and it's sad that cities are continuing to endorse them.

Your rationale makes sense in a paradise world where there are no wars and no countries vying for hegemony. There is an immense national security aspect and domestic economic situation you are ignoring which could not be anymore relevant today.

So the solution is the import from countries where the practices are more destructive and there's less regulation to reign them in?

> If we can slash the real cost - the externality cost - by just buying it from elsewhere, we should.

I wonder what you think "externality" means?

I think a lot of oil import comes from countries which don't need these practices? Saudi Arabia being an example of a place where the oil almost comes out of the ground on its own, no need for fracking.

And propping up Saudi Arabia’s “government” doesn’t come with its own externalities?

it seems also disingenuous that the environmental impact at origin of the imported oil is completely ignored, and the same applies for other imports including consumer goods or even "green energy" related devices and materials (batteries, solar panels, etc)

also the US has a variety of conditions for prospection, CA being one of the worst places for new prospection projects - so this also needs to be taken into account

PS: at 3$/gallon I suspect the majority of consumers were already not taking gas consumption lightly, so while it's true that energy savings are a crucial part of the picture, they were already very heavily incentivised for a while in the US and certainly here in Europe as well