A nationwide US ban on hydraulic fracturing would have a devastating effect on the natural gas industry and the country’s economy as a whole, causing prices to spike to $12/MMBtu and resulting in the loss of 14.8 million US jobs by 2022, according to a report released Friday by an arm of the US Chamber of Commerce. The report, released by the chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy less than a week before the US presidential election, examines the impacts that a fracking ban, advocated by some environmental groups and some political candidates, would have on the US economy and on the energy-producing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and Texas. “This isn’t just about the upstream, the men and women on the drill face. This is about the entire macro effect,” Christopher Guith, the institute’s senior vice president of policy, said during a conference call with reporters to discuss […]