State regulators are currently developing regulations for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other methods of extracting oil from the Monterey Shale formation that underlies a large area underneath Central and Southern California. There is much speculation about what could be the nation’s largest reserve of oil lies in rock strata thousands of below ground. Fracking has been used in Kern County’s oil fields for sixty years to squeeze additional oil out of depleted wells, but new technology could make oil development possible in other regions. To get a closer look, Pacifica reporter Vic Bedoian recently explored areas in Kern County where fracking has taken place and filed this report.