Russell Gold, energy reporter and author.

• Position: ON RECORD - Interview

"There are no simple answers. There are trade-offs."

Russell Gold is an award-winning investigative journalist who has reported from five continents and the Arctic Circle. He is currently the senior energy reporter for the Wall Street Journal and author of "The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World." The book chronicles the rise of hydraulic fracturing and attempts to answer the critical questions of our time: Where will the energy come from to power the world--and what price will we have to pay for it?

STATE LEGISLATURES: You've covered hydraulic fracturing and oil and gas topics for many years. Were there any surprises as you researched material for your book?

GOLD: I didn't realize just how far back the petroleum industry has been trying to crack open rocks and the different ways they've been going about it. Modern hydraulic fracturing pumps in water, but in the 1860s the industry was using dynamite sticks to create new fractures, and in the 1960s and '70s, nuclear bombs. It wasn't fracking as we know it today, but this whole idea that we need to get down there and crack open the rocks is really as old as the industry itself.

What are your views on state regulations created in response to this fast-growing industry?

Without a doubt, the states have been playing catch-up. When modern hydraulic fracturing started in and around Fort Worth, in 2002, 2003, the states hadn't really seen this type of intensive energy extraction going on right around communities and in cities.

A number of states--Texas, obviously, and Oklahoma--have very strong oil and gas regulations on the books, but this was really different. It was a new type of extraction. The wells were covering entire counties and having a lot more community impact. And there were places like Pennsylvania, which really hadn't seen much oil and gas activity for a long time, all of a sudden becoming one of the largest gas-producing places in the world. States had to step back and ask: Do we have the right regulatory framework? We're still not fully there. The states are still figuring out how we regulate air emissions, how to regulate these earthquakes resulting from waste-water injection. There's still a lot of work being done.

Is there a role for the federal government in regulating fracking?

There's been a lot of talk about the federal government setting minimal standards, but much like the rocks, every state is different. We talk about shale and...