Can't people do anything right???

So we've been hearing a lot how natural gas is a clean alternative to coal, and that America has so much of it that we could greatly reduce our imports of foreign oil if we switched to using natural gas to fuel our cars and trucks.

And that in the last couple of decades companies have developed new technology that lets them extract natural gas from shale deposits, expanding our reserves even more. We're told that the oil companies inject water under high pressure to break up rocks deep underground, releasing the gas in the process.

But we've also heard some concerns that this "fracking" may be polluting groundwater.

Now comes this report: companies have apparently been knowingly injecting not just water but also toxic solutions containing carcinogens like benzene, and those chemicals are turning up in drinking water.

This kind of thing makes me feel like it's about impossible to have any faith in people. I'm sick of listening to conservatives argue endlessly about how we have too much regulation, and we should just let business police itself.

Sorry, but I just have zero confidence in the ability of American companies to do the right thing on their own.