Fracking Opponents Clash With Republicans in Ohio, Urge U.S. Ban

[limpyhobbler]

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Opponents of natural-gas production by hydraulic fracturing clashed with U.S. House Republicans at a hearing in Ohio aimed to promote the economic benefits of the extraction process.

U.S. Representative Bill Johnson, a Republican representing counties along the border with Pennsylvania and West Virginia, said today that companies, such as Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Hess Corp., might help create 200,000 jobs. Opponents such as Annie Lukins, 21, of Cleveland, said crews traveling with the companies will get jobs, not local workers, while the air and water pollution generated by fracking stays in the state.

“We would like to see a ban on fracking,” Lukins said in a interview today in Steubenville, after being asked to leave the hearing of a House Natural Resources Committee panel for interrupting it with anti-fracking statements.

Ohio lies atop the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, and companies including Chesapeake of Oklahoma City and Hess of New York are buying leases and seeking state permits to drill for oil and natural gas. Hess in September paid about $750 million for 85,000 acres sitting on the Utica formation, which the Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources estimates may hold as much as 5.5 billion barrels of oil and 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-27/fracking-opponents-clash-with-republicans-in-ohio-urge-u-s-ban.html