WASHINGTON — With a bevy of fellow senators and natural gas industry experts angling to jack up profits by boosting gas exports, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) had a reminder for them in a Senate hearing Thursday: You didn’t build that gas boom — taxpayers did.
Natural gas prices have plummeted since 2005, as firms across the nation have aggressively deployed hydraulic fracturing technologies to extract gas from shale formations deep underground.
That boom started with the work of George Mitchell’s Mitchell Energy and Development Corp., which proved in Texas in the 1990s that fracking could work.
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Supporters argued that there would not be a big enough surge in experts to raise energy costs very much, and that the benefits overall would be worth it.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.
