The economic potential of oil and gas drilling in Ohio is too big to neglect. So is the potential downside of storing wastewater from the drilling process in some deep injection wells.

Ohio has to find and maintain a balance that encourages drilling and protects the public. This will occur by relying on good science and maintaining effective government regulation and oversight.

The incidence of minor earthquakes near an injection well in Youngstown has rightly focused the attention of state officials and residents on the end result of drilling.

Millions of gallons of wastewater may be going into some wells that are not geologically compatible with storage of this brine. …

(T)he Department of Natural Resources has taken the only sensible precaution. It has shut down the well near the epicenter of the quakes and others within a five-mile radius until officials understand the situation.

Is there a need to ban drilling and underground storage of wastewater? No, because 176 injection wells have been used for wastewater storage elsewhere in Ohio for nearly 30 years without seismic problems. Clearly, something different is going on in Youngstown.

Is there a need to put more emphasis on seismic studies of well sites before the wells are created? Yes, because prevention is the best medicine. …

The (Canton) Repository

 

Cordray’s appointment flies in face of Constitution

Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray is a good choice to head the nation’s new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but the manner of his appointment by President Barack Obama is so constitutionally and legally questionable that it could make it difficult for Cordray to do his job.

Obama installed Cordray as director using a “recess” appointment. Such appointments are constitutionally permissible when the Senate is not in session to confirm nominees. But the Senate was not in recess when Obama made the appointment.

Obama justified the move by arguing that the Senate session was a pro forma matter whose only purpose was to deny him the opportunity to make recess appointments. This is true. But it is a maneuver grounded in the Constitution. Congressional Republicans think Cordray is qualified, but they think the agency he heads should be subject to more oversight by Congress. They’ve refused to confirm Cordray’s nomination until changes are made in the agency.

One would expect Obama, as a former constitutional-law professor, to understand and respect constitutional limits. They are intended to prevent precisely the kind of power grab he made on Jan. 4. …

An agency set up to prevent abusive practices shouldn’t be set up using an abusive practice. And an honorable public servant such as Richard Cordray deserves better than to be used as a political pawn.

The Columbus Dispatch