Some conservatives have an unreasonably positive view of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., based on the fact that he sounds sensible on two or three issues. But in fact, he is nuts, as manifested most grotesquely in his conviction that Sirhan Sirhan did not murder his father. Beyond that, he is, on the large majority of issues, an unreconstructed far left-winger.
Take fracking. My colleague Isaac Orr points out that Kennedy wants to ban fracking, which would be a disaster:
On Friday, September 15, 2023, RFK Jr. wrote an editorial in The Hill outlining his 10-point plan to fix the “plastics pollution crisis.”
What crisis is that? I would say we have a plastics littering problem, while Africa and Asia have a letting-plastics-flow-into-the-ocean problem.
Kennedy’s summary of this plan on Twitter shows he supports a ban on hydraulic fracturing, which is the technology that made the United States the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas.
Hydraulic fracturing has been the most transformative energy technology of the 21st century, and banning it would be the worst energy policy imaginable because it would cause oil and natural gas prices to skyrocket.
For decades, American natural gas production was falling or stagnant. However, that began to change in 2005. By 2022, U.S. natural gas drillers had nearly doubled total natural gas production in just 17 years.
This increase in supply caused natural gas prices to plummet, reducing the cost of home heating and making it possible to use natural gas for electricity generation. … Banning fracking would cause electricity prices to skyrocket.
It is the same story for oil because hydraulic fracturing more than doubled domestic oil production as fracking turned Texas, New Mexico, and North Dakota into major oil producers. Fracking is now responsible for 66 percent of the nation’s oil production.
All of the growth in U.S. oil production is due to hydraulic fracturing because conventional oil production has been steadily declining. Without fracking, oil prices would skyrocket to over $200 per barrel, and gasoline would cost $9 per gallon.
That would be disastrous for working men and women, but barely an inconvenience for the rich and famous. Don’t be fooled by Kennedy: he is just another leftist with awful policy ideas.
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