by Wade Dickey
Widener University Political Science Major
California relies heavily on their agricultural industry. They are known for their production of wine and other crops like almonds and pistachios. If they didn’t put regulations on fracking in their state it would have affected the state harsher than most, because a lot of people in the state rely on their crops as a source of income. And the wastewater fracking produces could quite possibly destroy many farming sites across the state.That’s why when Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill SB-4 into law it was a very good thing because it put in place the strictest regulations in the country on the fracking companies setting up drills in California. I think that it is good that they were able to put strict regulations on fracking, but I think that due to the amount of people that rely on agricultural production as a source of income, it is a bad thing to let fracking in the state at all. That is why members of the of the food and wine industry have come out and opposed this bill to keep their environment safe from the wastewater pollution. These people have come out and asked the governor to put fracking on waiting period, this is because the group says that the oil companies are after California’s Monterey Shale. This specific shale is important because it is a 1,750-square-mile area that may contain as much as 15 billion barrels of crude oil. It also happens to rest below a sizable portion of California farmland. So clearly even though there are strict restrictions on fracking in California due to the new law SB-4 people are still up in arms to stop fracking to keep the farmland safe in this state.
The American Partnership 