Bottom line - that's just cheating. When we allow our governments, whether federal or local, to "bend the rules", to do what's expedient today regardless of the consequences tomorrow, we cannot complain or or be surprised when we also become the victims of that expediency. We don't know, in the grand scheme of things, the purpose that mollusk serves. Perhaps there is a compromise in there  that both allows for mining natural gas safely, and respects the existence of one of  our creator's creations, however small.