Drilling

Recent articles in your newspaper have shown the chaos, turmoil and revolutions happening in the Middle East, starting with Egypt, and spreading to other Middle East nations. The revolution in Egypt may turn for the worse as The Muslim Brotherhood has a strong probability of taking over, and this group is anti-Israel and anti-American. This, coupled with other extremist Islamic countries, poses a real danger to the USA by stopping the flow of oil to our country. With all of this turmoil happening, the gas prices are soaring at the pump along with food prices and other commodities.

O'Malley administration officials told state lawmakers Wednesday that they need up to two years more to study the risks of drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale deposits in Western Maryland before deciding whether to let the controversial practice go forward. Testifying before the House Environmental Matters Committee, Robert M. Summers, Maryland's acting secretary of the environment, said he and other administration officials plan a comprehensive evaluation of the potential health and environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing, the technique used to extract gas from shale layers far underground.

It was not the smoothest start to a season, but the No. 3 University of Maryland men's lacrosse team got four points each from four different Terps to give coach John Tillman a 16-4 victory over visiting Detroit Mercy on Saturday in his first game at the helm. The Titans (0-4) capitalized on two nonreleasable Terrapin penalties to take a 2-0 lead with just under six minutes left in the first quarter, but from then on it was all Maryland as the Terps (1-0) scored 10 unanswered goals from the final minutes of the first quarter to midway through the third.

We are pleased to see The Baltimore Sun's acknowledgment of the many benefits of accessing the abundant resources available in Western Maryland and other states in the Marcellus Shale formation ( "Go slow on shale drilling," Feb. 14). Clean-burning natural gas is a vital resource for America's energy future. It heats and cools millions of homes, generates electricity and is the base material for millions of useful products — from medicines and medical equipment to fertilizers and wind turbines and solar panels to the composite that makes today's airliners safer and more energy efficient.

Citing recent remarks from Pennsylvania's former Department of Conservation and Natural Resources secretary before a House of Delegates panel in Annapolis ( "Go slow on shale drilling," Feb. 14), The Sun editorializes that "caution is in order" as it relates to the environmentally responsible development of job-creating natural gas extraction from Maryland's Marcellus Shale formation. While The Sun rightly observes that the tightly-regulated production of abundant, clean-burning American energy — enabled by the 60 year-old energy stimulation technology called hydraulic fracturing coupled with horizontal drilling — "could prove a vital resource for this nation's energy future," the paper fails to inform readers that top Pennsylvania environmental regulators, as well as national independent environmental experts, understand that this production is environmentally proven and sound.

The Marcellus shale natural gas deposit could prove a vital resource for this nation's energy future. Scientists have estimated that the Appalachians may yield hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, at a value of $1 trillion. Maryland could have a piece of that action. The Marcellus runs under the western part of the state, perhaps a mile below the surface. It can potentially be extracted by a controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing, where water is used to break up rock and allow the gas to be released.

A former top Pennsylvania official warned Maryland lawmakers to go slow in allowing drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale deposits underlying the state's western mountains or risk the environmental and social problems his state is now experiencing from a poorly regulated wave of energy exploration. John Quigley, who until two months ago was secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, urged members of the House Environmental Matters Committee to "take a deep breath" and require more study of the immediate and long-term consequences of opening Western Maryland to drilling for natural gas using a controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing.

With all the instability in the Middle East, oil prices are headed above $100 a barrel. A spike to the $125-$150-a-barrel range could have disastrous effects on the U.S. economy. Now is the time when we needed to work on U.S. energy security and independence. And carpeting vast expanses of American soil with solar panels and wind turbines that do nothing when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow is not the answer. The Energy Information Administration said last month that 2011 offshore oil production would decline 13 percent over 2010 due to the effects of the offshore drilling moratorium and the snail's-pace permitting process.