HOUSTON — Falling gasoline prices have sent oil company stocks tumbling, but oil experts say the boom in American energy production shows no signs of slowing down, keeping the market flush with crude and gasoline prices low.

Even after a drop of as much as 25 percent in oil prices since early summer, several government and private reports say that it would take a drop of $10 to $20 a barrel more — to as low as $60 a barrel — to slow production even modestly. …

The Energy Department this week reported that only 4 percent of shale production in North Dakota, Texas and other states needed an oil price above $80 a barrel for producers to break even on investments. One reason is that improved efficiencies in hydraulic fracturing and other modern production techniques have increased the output of each new well month after month in recent years.

Did you note the matter-of-fact, hysteria-free way the NYT refers to fracking? Quite pleasant compared with California’s newspapers, where all enviro reporters with one exception never even mention that the Obama administration considers it safe. Or that the environmental movement basically didn’t say squat about hydraulic fracturing — using underground water cannons to blast away rock and access oil and natural gas reserves — for the first 60 years it was used.

Only when fracking became far more efficient (and cleaner) in the past six or seven years has it emerged as something greens love to hate — and even then the greenest president in history won’t buy in.

Fracking: Sit back and enjoy the CA freakout

So as the U.S. oil boom continues, California residents who like good news and who don’t like the quasi-religious extremism of many environmentalists will have to listen to evidence-free wailing from people who benefit enormously from fracking. They’ll shout themselves hoarse about its evils and pursue local bans, as seen in various communities around the state.

This would normally annoy me because I think fracking is being slandered and that it would be great for California. But I’m now doubtful it will ever come to pass in a major way in a place where the green religion is so strong. Anyone who started a petition drive for an anti-fracking California ballot initiative would have millions of dollars quickly pouring in from the usual billionaire lefties. I’m surprised some lefty consultant doesn’t start up such a drive without even having a client first; it wouldn’t take long to find a deep-pockets patron.

So instead, I will choose to enjoy the discomfiture of CA greens as fracking continues to be one of the world’s great economic phenomena, despite their stern and pious disapproval. Outside of California, billionaire lefties don’t stand a chance against public opinion (very, very, very pro-cheap energy) and Big Oil. Schadenfreude is going to be fun.

But I will also enjoy the CA green freakout because the longer that fracking goes on without anything close to a Love Canal-level enviro disaster, the tougher it will be for the public to take seriously the sky-is-falling rhetoric from fracking haters.

The traditional, much dirtier, much less efficient version of hydraulic fracturing that was used from the 1940s until 2006 or so didn’t lead to a Love Canal. If one happened now, it would in goofy ways be akin to a religious miracle.

Why? I think Dennis Prager is on to something with his theory about what’s driving this thinking:

Yes, of course, as individuals with a heart, most people, right and left, care about people losing their jobs. But in terms of what matters to the left and the policies they pursue, they don’t care. The left and the political party it controls do not care if their policies force to companies to leave the state (or the country). They don’t care about the …  job-depressing effects of high taxes, or energy prices that hurt the middle class, or compelling businesses to leave.

They don’t care because the left is not interested in prosperity; the left is interested in inequality and in the environment. Furthermore, the worse the economic situation, the more voters are likely to vote Democrat. The worse the economic situation, the greater the number of people receiving government assistance; the greater the number of people receiving government assistance, the greater the number of people who will vote Democrat.

Therefore, both philosophically and politically, the left has no reason to be troubled by bad economic news. And it isn’t. It is troubled by inequality and carbon emissions.

–In the last 20 years, about 4 million more people have left California than came in from other states. Most of those leaving are young families.

–In the last 15 years, one-third of California’s industrial employment base has disappeared. That’s 600,000 jobs that have disappeared.

–California has the 48th-worst business tax climate. (The Tax Foundation)

–California’s electricity prices are 50 percent higher than the national average.

–Middle-class workers, those who earn more than $48,000, pay a top income tax rate of 9.3 percent. That’s higher than what millionaires pay in 47 other states.

–California’s unemployment rate is fourth highest in the nation.

–From 2010-13, California produced fewer than 8,000 jobs, while the country added 510,000.

By John Seiler

Energy production jobs are good, middle-class manufacturing jobs. Texas is reveling in the creation of such jobs. California is against them, favoring instead two kinds of jobs: high-tech jobs for those with IQs higher than 180. “Service” jobs that pay minimum wage.

Fuelfix.com writes:

“In March, Texas oil production reached its highest level since 1984. That month, the Lone Star State pumped more than 74 million barrels of crude from the ground, which means if Texas were a country, it would be one of the 15 largest oil producers in the world….

“Texas’ oil output has doubled in less than three years, putting it in the ranks of OPEC heavy-hitters like Venezuela, Kuwait and Nigeria.”

Here’s a graph of Texas’ surging oil production.

By contrast, here’s a graph of California’s oil production:

That’s just pathetic.

Meanwhile, the cost of living keeps going up throughout California, especially the cost of housing.

The idea is to drive out as many middle-class people as possible, leaving behind only digital oligarch in Silicon Valley and San Francisco; government workers with their massive pay, perks and pensions; and peons serving the first two classes while living in hovels.