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by exabrial 3218 days ago
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.