The record U.S. oil and gas boom may lie on a bedrock of aggressive sales and legal “compulsion,” a new study has found.
Many Ohio landowners who ended up with fracked wells on their properties were forced by state law to accept them, according to findings published Monday in Nature Energy.
Others gave in only after repeated and aggressive sales attempts, researchers at New York’s Binghamton University found.
The study highlights an underdiscussed topic in the public debate surrounding fracking, a practice which has drawn renewed scrutiny amid the dueling Vice President Harris and former President Trump presidential campaigns in Pennsylvania.
That debate often hinges on “big-picture consequences for the climate and the economy,” lead author Benjamin Farrer said in a statement.
But Farrer emphasized that this leaves out a key part of the story — the experience of private landowners whose properties oil and gas companies must access if the vast majority of U.S. oil and gas production is to go forward.
Posted by John3262005