EDITORIAL: Las Vegas assemblyman wants to ban fracking

Nevada should welcome those who seek to develop the state’s vast energy treasures. So why is a freshman lawmaker trying to make it illegal to use modern technology to access some of those resources?

Justin Watkins, a Las Vegas Democrat recently elected to the state Assembly, has introduced legislation to ban fracking in Nevada. The intention, apparently, is to protect the state’s groundwater from pollution.

The issue has become a sort of crusade for liberal activists. Never mind that a Environmental Protection Agency report issued last year — while full of speculation about the potential for contamination — failed to find any large-scale problems. Never mind that the process — which involves using high pressure to shoot water into a well to release energy deposits in rock formations — has been around for decades and has led to a revolution in the domestic oil and gas industries. Never mind that dozens of states allow the practice and have benefited from the accompanying jobs and economic development.

Never mind all that. Because this is less about the potential environmental drawbacks of fracking than it is about a progressive agenda that seeks to shackle the fossil fuel industry and remake the U.S. economy.

At this point, Nevada doesn’t even have any ongoing fracking operations. The 2013 Legislature unanimously approved a bill directing the state Commission on Mineral Resources to craft regulations governing the practice, which were eventually put in place in August of 2014. While a handful of companies have signaled an intention to tap wells in the Elko area, lower oil prices have currently made the plans less financially feasible.

In the long run, however, fracking offers potential benefits to the state’s rural economies. Fracking creates steady, high-paying jobs available to those without advanced degrees. Mr. Watkins’ effort to outlaw the practice makes little sense.