The Era of Green Virtue Signaling by Policymakers Must End

An expanding array of threats to the public and environment stemming from the boom in “green” energy technologies and the batteries they use means the time for virtue signaling by regulators and policymakers must come to an end. In every boom time involving any type of energy source, governments at all levels inevitably find themselves behind the curve when it comes to developing an effective set of regulations designed to minimize impacts on the public and environment.

In the early years of the 21^st century, Americans witnessed this phenomenon play out related to the oil and gas Shale Revolution which saw its first success in the Barnett Shale region which happened to lie in the midst of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in north Texas. For the first time in decades, oil and gas companies found themselves struggling to drill wells and install pipelines in and adjacent to highly populated areas, leading to an array of conflicts and tensions with the public that the pre-existing regulatory structure had not been designed to resolve.