[sapienthomo]

Oklahoma's natural resource exploitation regime is so lacking in regulation that they are notorious for their man-made earthquakes. It is near the theoretical lower limit of regulation. It is unimaginable that excessive regulation is the state's foremost problem.

[jjeaff]

These man-made (mini) earthquakes have caused damage that in total could be measured in the low millions of dollars (if that much).

To put that in perspective, a single large frac well can pull in a million dollars a day easily.

[exabrial]

I live in Kansas, I'm well aware. The story is much more complicated than that, there are a ton of contributing factors that stem from intentional regressive regulations.

The earthquake problem is caused by salt-water injection over-budgets (no, fracking does not cause earthquakes no matter what you read on the news). The better question is: why was this never an issue when business was _booming_ in the 70s-80s?

Obama's administration removed a key tax credit for prospecting businesses if they hit a dry hole (A tax credit that's available to any other business for failures). These wells used to be completed and leased as injection wells. Now, if a hole starts to appear dry, drilling is stopped and the well sealed and capped.

This has decrease the diversity of injection sites across the states, straining current infrastructure.