Let's admit the costs of fracking (including the environmental ones), regulate the harms to manageable proportions and reveal the relative value (less environmental costs) of wind and solar power.
The assumption that regulation represents only a cost to society ignores the existing uncalculated environmental cost of fracking and the benefit of entrepreneurial creativity derived from solving its problems. My guess is that overall and over time, society will derive a benefit from a lower harm form of natural gas extraction and consumption.
But even without the economic benefit, it is economically appropriate to attach costs to the polluter and their customers rather than to pass them to some members of society (those who experience the harms of fracking) in favour of others (those who get cheaper electricity while avoiding the harms). Beneficiaries should pay for their own costs. The alternative is a form of economic rape.
The environment is worth protecting. Los Angeles is the better for removing its smog. Environmentally friendly and economically efficient energy resources are the end game.
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