Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday followed in the footsteps of New York to become the second state in the nation to ban the oil and gas drilling practice known as fracking.
Hogan signed a bill banning the process from being used in the state one week after it was passed by the state legislature. The state has no oil companies that are using the drilling method, which has made the U.S. a global leader in fossil fuel production.
The area of the state called the Western Panhandle likely would have been the area for fracking to take place. The small sliver of land juts away from the densely populated areas of the state that surround Baltimore and Washington, D.C., extending into West Virginia where the geology is ripe for drilling. It is the same geology, called the Marcellus shale formation, that has turned Pennsylvania into a natural gas powerhouse.
Environmental groups had lobbied long and hard to make sure the proximity to large-scale shale production in Pennsylvania and West Virginia did not influence legislators to go the other way and approve fracking.
Hogan’s signature is seen as a major victory for anti-fracking groups and climate change activists who oppose fossil fuel production.
