A recent story in City Journal suggests that Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell accurately observes that local environmental activists in California are opposing hydraulic fracturing based more on emotion than reason.

More needs to be known about the full lifespan of water related to hydraulic fracturing and its impact upon groundwater before decisions to allow fracking are made.  Efforts such as the EPA’s Study of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas and Its Potential Impact on Drinking Water Resources and locally produced and vetted environmental impact reports are needed before fracking occurs.

When politicians accuse citizens of bias, it becomes important to explore the sources of bias in the accusers’ backgrounds.  Jewell’s career started in oil and has featured banking. Her experience with the two industries whose success is most intimately intertwined with lobbying for minimization of regulation and oversight in order to externalize and socialize their down-side risks at the expense of individual taxpayers doesn’t qualify her to imply that local citizens concerned about their local issues are uninformed. She should look in a mirror to see the face of bias.