Dear Mr. or Madam President,

Since 1947, companies like Dawson Geophysical, Inc. have been extracting natural gas using a drilling technique called fracking. Fracking is a process where resource companies pump explosive fracking fluid into oil wells to extract natural gas from the ground all over the United States. In the process of fracking, a well is dug to reach the layer where pockets of natural gas form. After the well is dug fracking companies come in and pump a mixture of salt water, sand and chemicals into the ground and detonate the chemicals to crack the barriers between the pockets of to release the resources. These small fissures in the shale weaken the sturdy bedrock. These explosions have been directly linked to earthquakes and other seismic activity in the earth's crust. The chemicals used in this process can potentially pollute the surrounding communities. Drinking water and the air around these sites have shown to be polluted with chemicals such as methanol, benzene and xylene. A report conducted by Source Watch on an EPA study stated that "300-odd compounds that private researchers and the Bureau of Land Management suspect are being used in fracking, 65 are listed as hazardous by the federal government." The fracking companies that use these chemicals are hesitant to reveal the compounds that they use because the insist that they are "trade secrets". These companies are hiding these compounds from the public so that they can continue to profit from the natural resource industry.

I live in a region where natural gas deposits are abundant. Therefore, gas companies have wells around every corner. I constantly see the water trucks that are used to transport the solution that is pumped into the ground. These trucks continue to tear up the roads which makes road work endless. Everywhere I drive the roads are in need of repairing or have recently been repaired. The process of fracking also causes disturbances to the surrounding areas. Loud explosions, damages to the infrastructure and waste pits are just a few of the many ways that fracking pollutes the local communities.

Safer and cleaner energy alternatives such like solar power, wind power and even hydroelectric energy sources have proven to be more efficient than using fossil fuels. Huge wind farms have been built to provide electricity for vast areas in places like Texas. According to the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, wind power is "one of the lowest-priced renewable energy technologies available today." The low costs of wind power makes it a more profitable option than fracking. The minute environmental footprint that wind power leaves makes it a safer option than drilling and fracking for fossil fuels.

So Mr. or Madam President, will you allow fracking to continue to do detrimental effects to the environment?