Energy industry fights chemical disclosure: Natural gas companies want to prevent oversight of fracking
I wonder why they would fight oversight—surely we can simply trust them to do the right thing. /snark Climate Progress:
The oil and natural gas lobby is working hard to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from establishing safeguards to protect the public from chemicals used to produce shale gas through “hydraulic fracturing,” also called “fracking” or “fracing.” CAP’s Sarah Collins and Tom Kenworthy have the story in this repost.
Oil and gas companies use fracking in combination with horizontal well drilling; the process involves injecting a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure into rock formations thousands of feet below the surface to fracture the rock and allow oil and gas previously trapped inside the rock to escape. Recent advances in drilling techniques combined with fracking have dramatically expanded the supply of technically recoverable shale gas. But studies show that the chemicals may pollute nearby sources of water.
BP, ConocoPhillips, and Shell Oil Co.’s latest lobbying efforts propose adding “Sense of the Senate Language” to upcoming energy and climate legislation from Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) that would exempt fracking from federal oversight. Lee Fuller, executive director of Energy in Depth, a consortium of U.S. oil and natural gas producers, wrote in a recent letter to the senators, “we hope that you can find space in your draft legislation to make your commitment to natural gas explicitly clear…to remind your colleagues once again of the critical role that technologies such as hydraulic fracturing can and must play in meeting the goals for our future.”
The proposal would be on top of a similar fracking loophole already on the books. The practice is currently protected from oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act due to an exemption in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The loophole was added into the bill after a 2004 EPA studyfound the process posed “little or no threat” to drinking water. Natural gas companies have often cited this study as evidence that the practice is “safe,” but the study was cursory and called “scientifically unsound” by Weston Wilson, an EPA scientist with more than three decades of experience with the agency. The Oil and Gas Accountability Project also reported that, “EPA removed information from earlier drafts that suggested unregulated fracturing poses a threat to human health, and that the Agency did not include information that suggests fracturing fluids may pose a threat to drinking water long after drilling operations are completed.”
An aide for Sen. Kerry has indicated that the three senators have not included the oil companies’ proposal in their draft bill. Sen. Graham also said that there is not yet language to continue to protect fracking included in the bill, but said, “we need to use the fracturing process to get gas. But it needs to be transparent, and we understand the environmental impact of it.”
The Safe Drinking Water Act loophole isn’t the only exemption natural gas producers enjoy. They are also free from reporting the specific toxic chemicals used for fracking, even though many other industries must report their toxic emissions under the 1986 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
The Right-to-Know Network, a project of OMB Watch, notes: “Studies have identified a long list of toxics that may be included in these fracking fluids, and numerous cases of drinking water contamination have been documented.” A study by Environmental Working Group “found that at least 65 chemicals used by the natural gas industry in Colorado—many of them used in hydraulic fracturing—were listed or regulated as hazardous substances under six federal statues including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Superfund.” And the OGAP report found that, “The EPA states that many chemicals in hydraulic fracturing fluids are linked to human health effects. These effects include cancer; liver, kidney, brain, respiratory and skin disorders; birth defects; and other health problems.”
The natural gas industry’s most common defense to these claims is …
