Editorial: New Fracking Standards Group is a Breakthrough

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In the midst of a wave of criticism for the Center for Sustainable Shale Development, a new program created through cooperation between environmental groups and energy companies and designed to create a new set of standards which will alleviate some of the concern over fracking, an editorial comes along lauding the CSSD for what it sets out to accomplish.  From The Washington Post:
LAST WEEK BROUGHT a heartening breakthrough in the war over fracking: A handful of major green groups and big drillers agreed on environmental standards. 
We’d forgive you for raising a skeptical eyebrow. Some in the industry have been claiming that fracking — which involves pumping fluid underground to extract natural gas from rock formations — needs no more rules. Some environmentalists, meanwhile, have been ringing the alarm so loudly that the practice seems too dangerous even to contemplate. 
But the right path was never to let drillers continue without more oversight, nor was it to ban fracking. America’s natural gas boom is far too important an opportunity — economic and environmental — to ignore. But sound regulations are needed to ensure that it is not an ecological disaster. These new rules are a large step toward striking the right balance, and everyone involved deserves credit.
Read the entire article here.

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