Banning fracking to avoid social costs and make political hay while prospering from the use of hydrocarbons mined elsewhere is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy, not to mention dishonest policymaking. It leads to unhappy economic consequences—just ask upstate residents—and diminishes public confidence in government. Not fracking, in other words, has costs of its own. But don’t expect Cuomo or Nixon to tell you about it.
To be honest I’m not even sure I expect them to understand it themselves.