President Obama recently signed an executive order creating a task force to coordinate the efforts of several government agencies considering regulations on hydraulic fracturing. Though some have welcomed the order as a way to standardize myriad state approaches, federalization is far more likely to cause overregulation and a new open-ended political lever against our domestic energy supply.

Fracking, as it is often called, is a technology that makes possible the production of vast amounts of U.S. oil and natural gas, creating thousands of jobs and lowering energy costs across the economy. This boom makes government-dependent ethanol a homegrown boondoggle.