The president, I’m sure, knows very little about fracking. So he’s trying to be, I think, cautious in responding to it saying, ‘of course we want natural gas, but … we want to be sure we’re safe.’ I’ve fracked over 3,000 wells myself; they fracked on my ranch yesterday. I guess (Obama) feels like he has to say something about it.”
—T. Boone Pickens, oil and gas executive and Oklahoma State University benefactor, quoted April 20 in an online Tulsa World article. Pickens was responding to President Obama’s statement on the previous day at a town hall meeting in Virginia in which he acknowledged safety concerns about fracking. Obama told the crowd that if the U.S. continues using hydraulic fracturing for natural gas production, it must be done “in a way that doesn’t poison people.”
