NRDC: Drilling Leases Now Cover More Land Than California and Florida Combined
![A truck with the natural gas industry, one of thousands that pass through the area daily, drives through the countryside to a hydraulic fracturing site on January 18, 2012 in Springville, Pennsylvania.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/dentonfracking/20141031102104im_/http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/files/2013/02/137282967-100x100.jpg)
There’s a land grab going on in America, as the advent of drilling techniques like hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) and horizontal drilling unlock domestic deposits of oil and gas that had earlier had not been economical to drill. New numbers collected by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental group, show the massive amount of land involved. [...]