One day after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority warned about scamsters preying on investors' hopes for a get-rich-quick angle to the widely publicized Ebola scare, Finra was praised by the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday for helping it bring charges against a Texan for an alleged pump-and-dump scheme playing on hopes for an environmentally friendlier way to extract oil than fracking.

In the Houston federal district court suit, the SEC alleged Andrew Farmer and two accomplices sent out roughly three dozen press releases in a two-month period in 2012 to promote a company they claimed had shale-oil-producing technology that would result in significantly less pollution than fracking.

Fracking is uses a mixture of sand, water and chemicals blasted into shale rock to extract oil or natural gas. Numerous groups around the country have raised concerns about water pollution and other environmental and health threats from the method, which has released vast reserves of U.S. energy.

However, the claims about the company, Chimera Energy were false, said the SEC. The agency says in the suit that the press releases were propelling investors to bid up the price of the stock, while Farmer and his people were dumping it for a fraudulent gain of $4.5 million.

As a prelude to the suit, the regulator stopped Chimera trading in 2012 and barred the current defendants from selling additional shares or misleading investors in another scam.