Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #38 – Caroline Cecot

In this Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode, I talk with Caroline Cecot of GMU’s Scalia Law School about her research on “Regulating the Risks of Fracking to Water.”

Caroline describes her empirical research on how New York towns approached fracking in the years before it was banned across the State. She finds that towns that were more vulnerable to water pollution and those that were less accustomed to oil and gas development were more likely to ban fracking. As a result, she argues that fracking might win more widespread support if better water contamination regulation could assure local communities of its safety. She also describes some of her ideas for improving insurance and regulation of fracking risks to water.

The discussion builds on two of Caroline’s recent articles: “Regulatory Fracture Plugging: Managing Risks to Water from Shale Development,” which was published in the Texas A&M Law Review in 2018, and “No Fracking Way: An Empirical Investigation of Local Shale Development Bans in New York,”which was published in Environmental Law in 2019.

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