CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

The energy industry thinks it has an answer to public demands for a moratorium on hydraulic-fracture gas drilling. "If an airplane crashes," they tell us, "we don't ground every airplane, do we?" It's a pithy analogy, easy to repeat, and seems like common sense. It's become an essential line in the gas industry's argument against regulation.

The problem with this analogy is that the industry's got it wrong.

The reason we don't ground every airplane after a crash is because the airline industry is well-regulated. For the airline industry to survive, it needs travelers to have confidence that the plane they board won't go down in flames. So the airlines have elaborate safety requirements, mountains of paperwork and a black box on every plane that records vital instrument data. If a plane crashes, an army of inspectors descends on the site, reassembles the aircraft and determines exactly what went wrong. Once a cause is established, changes to other aircraft are made. If a type of aircraft has to be grounded, it will be grounded. That's why you don't see the Concord flying anymore. The reason we get on planes at all is that we have confidence in the regulatory system that keeps them safe. Otherwise, we wouldn't fly. We'd drive, take a train or stay at home.

The government "grounds" all sorts of industry. When cadmium was found in children's bracelets, those bracelets were recalled. When a crib collapses and strangles a baby, that kind of crib goes off the market. Because of a stuck accelerator, Toyota recalled 2.3 million cars. If we can put the brakes on cars, cribs and bracelets, we can do the same with gas drilling.

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