The Fracking Fight Spreads—and Spreads Apart

This was the year the anti-fracking movement multiplied, diversified and suffered some growing pains.

It was also the year the energy industry pushed back hard, spending millions on anti-fracking election campaigns, recruiting experts on public relations for messaging help and filing lawsuits against successful bans.

At least 20 towns, counties and states across the country closed their borders to fracking and fracking waste in 2014. 

Most recently, on Dec. 17, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that New York is banning fracking—becoming the first state to do so. Activists around the country, from California to Colorado to Washington, D.C. hailed the move. 

A month prior, Texas, the No. 1 oil-and-gas-producing state, saw its first-ever ban against the controversial process that injects a slurry cocktail of sand, water and chemicals underground to crack open bedrock and extract oil-and-gas reserves.  The north Texas town of Denton voted in favor of the ban by nearly 59 percent despite grassroots activists of Frack Free Denton being outspent more than 10-1 by the energy industry.

Meanwhile, California, the nation's No. 2 oil producer, saw a dramatic rise in ban efforts, including its first municipality-level ban (Beverly Hills) and two county-level bans (San Benito and Mendocino).  And the Northeast, where there's no major fracking potential, saw a wave of temporary and permanent initiatives targeting the industry's sludgy waste, from Connecticut's state government to small towns in Massachusetts.

Read more at The Fracking Fight Spreads—and Spreads Apart