Class of 2014
Yasmine Abboud (Lebanon), Olympia Anesti (Greece), Nick Axel (US), Jacob Burns (UK), Jesse Connuck (US), Rodrigo Delso (Spain), Helene Kazan (UK), Yi-Hui Lin (Taiwan), Frank Mandell (US), Hannah Meszaros Martin (US), Basima Sisemore (Palestine & US), Alan Yates (UK)
Grounding Deregulation
Nick Axel
On 8 August 2005, George W. Bush signed into law the Energy Policy Act and deregulated the production technique of hydraulic fracturing. The most significant effect was that the scope of industrial interest was drastically expanded to encompass significantly more land area as viable for oil and gas production. What fracking did geologically, it also does economically by reconfiguring the speculative logics of development. Deregulation was followed by a land grab for un-owned mineral rights. My research explores the dramatic and rapid process of territorial development that propagates grave ecological risk, along with political disenfranchisement across the American landscape. Read ISSU publication here.