WSJ: The Progressive Case for Fracking

Christmas came early for the world’s liberal democracies this year, with news in mid-December that repressive regimes from Russia to Venezuela and from Iran to Belarus are tumbling down an economic spiral. Who or what should we thank for this geopolitical yuletide? The neocons? Pro-democracy protesters? George W. Bush and Tony Blair ?

No. Thank instead American shale producers. The shale-gas and hydraulic-fracking revolution is lighting a figurative bonfire under the world’s petrocracies. Dictatorships that for years blackmailed the West in the knowledge that we would come crawling back for the black stuff are now catching a glimpse of a bleak future.

As the American people and companies shift more of their consumption to cheaply produced domestic energy, the geopolitical leverage of oil-rich autocrats diminishes. A barrel of crude on Monday sold for less than $60, down nearly 50% since June when it went for $115. Take that, ayatollah.
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