The drilling phase of oil and natural gas development is a growing area of environmental justice (EJ) research, particularly in the United States. Its emergence complements the longstanding EJ scholarship on later phases of the oil and gas commodity chain, such as pipeline transport, refining, and consumption. The growing scholarly attention to the EJ implications of drilling has been prompted by the surge in development of unconventional oil and gas resources in recent decades. More specifically, the oil and gas industry's adoption of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a., "fracking" or "fracing") as methods for extracting oil and gas from a wider range of geologic formations has simultaneously heightened oil and gas production, brought extractive activities closer to more people, intensified them, and made well pad siting more flexible. Here, we provide a critical review of the novel EJ research questions that are being prompted by these on-the-ground changes in extractive techniques and patterns, propose an interdisciplinary conceptual framework for guiding EJ inquiry in this context, discuss key methodological considerations, and propose a research agenda to motivate future inquiry.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a consortium of northeastern states that have agreed to limit carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation through a regional emissions trading program. Since the initiative came into effect in 2009, emissions have dropped precipitously, while the price of emissions allowances has fallen from approximately $4 per ton to the program floor price of just under $2.00. We ask why the emission reductions have come so fast and inexpensively, finding that it is due to a combination of factors, including the emissions trading program itself, complementary environmental programs, lower natural gas prices, and possibly some regional spillover effects. We find that the effect of the recession was small compared with other factors. Lower natural gas prices had a substantial impact on regional emissions. Econometric challenges makes it difficult to assign how much of the RGGI reduction is due to the price and how much is due to an overall "regime effect" guiding long-term planning decisions. We also present results consistent with but not dispositive of RGGI emissions reductions being due to policy leakage. But taken together, and compared to emission reduction outcomes in the rest of the U.S., it appears the RGGI program has induced a substantial reduction in the emissions, all else equal. * The authors acknowledge comments on earlier drafts from Harrison Fell (Colorado School of Mine and RFF), Joe Aldy (Harvard), Billy Pizer (Duke) and attendees at the 2013 AERE summer conference in Banff, Alberta. We also thank Karen Palmer (RFF) for data used in a preliminary analysis of this work.

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