When Sen. Elizabeth Warren vowed she would ban fracking on the first day of her presidency—if she were elected, it set the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wondering about the impact of such a call.
Warren wasn’t alone in the call made as she and other Democratic Presidential candidates hope to attract support to win their party’s nomination in 2020.
Bernie Sanders has made the same call.
“Let me make it as clear as I can be … we are going to
ban fracking in 50 states of this country.”
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt); June 1, 2016
But the Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute discovered if Warren were to win the White House and carried out her pledge, an estimated 14.8 million jobs would be lost by 2022 and gasoline and electricity prices would double. Each American family would see their cost of living jump by nearly $4,000.
The Chamber studied a fracking ban on Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Texas in its initial report. Under a fracking ban,
Ohio loses 397,000 jobs; Pennsylvania loses
466,000 jobs; Colorado loses 215,000 jobs; and
Texas loses 1.49 million jobs. The cost-of-living
for the average family rises $3,500 per year in
Colorado and Pennsylvania, $4,000 per year in
Ohio, and over $4,600 in Texas.
Here’s what the study stated about the impact in Texas:
“If Texas were its own country, it would be among
the top-10 oil and gas producing nations in the
world.36 Little wonder, then, that a scenario
in which hydraulic fracturing technology is
banned across the country would have a
disproportionately negative impact on the place
where it used with the greatest frequency. As
Table 17 shows, the state of Texas would face the
possibility of losing nearly 1.5 million jobs by
the time we reached 2022, after shedding more
than 420,000 jobs in the first year of the ban’s
implementation alone.”
The study also found:
“Importantly, the idea that Texas residents could
seamlessly transition to an economy without
fracking is not supported by the data. If fracking
were banned, our modeling points to a potential
state GDP loss of nearly $200 billion in the
year 2022. This total is driven in large part by the
enormous cost increases that Texas businesses
would be forced to endure to pay for the energy
they consume.
That nearly $200 billion loss in state GDP
manifests itself in a number of ways, including
a decrease in household income for Texas
residents that we estimate will be in excess of
$100 billion by 2022″
The initial study did not include three major oil-producing states, Oklahoma, North Dakota and New Mexico, But early this month, the organization prepared a study focusing just on New Mexico.
For instance, the impact alone in the state of New Mexico, according to a new state report by the Global Energy Institute would be the loss of 142,000 jobs or 15.8 percent of New Mexico’s workforce. A fracking ban as proposed by Sen. Warren would also mean the elimination of $86 billion in cumulative gross domestic production through 2025.
But a report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute found such policies could cost New Mexico 142,000 jobs or 15.8 percent of the state’s workforce and eliminate $86 billion in cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) through 2025.
A ban on fracking could also cause New Mexicans to lose $26 billion in household income, the report read, at an average of $10,723 per household in 2025.
Multiple candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination proposed bans on hydraulic fracturing – a process used to extract fossil fuels from underground that was credited with the nation’s recent oil and gas boom – should they win the presidency.
The recent boom in extraction was led primarily by fracking provided billions in state revenue and made up more than a third of New Mexico’s budget.
Fracking involves the pumping of water, sand and chemicals underground to break up shale rocks, allowing oil and natural gas to be extracted for energy development.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said she would not only ban fracking but place a moratorium on any oil and gas leases on public lands.
“On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that puts a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases for drilling offshore and on public lands. And I will ban fracking—everywhere,” Warren tweeted on Sept. 6.
But a report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute found such policies could cost New Mexico 142,000 jobs or 15.8 percent of the state’s workforce and eliminate $86 billion in cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) through 2025.
A ban on fracking could also cause New Mexicans to lose $26 billion in household income, the report read, at an average of $10,723 per household in 2025.
The State would also lose $8 billion in state and local tax revenues during that time,