An ocean of gas or a “fractured” policy?
Posted June 24, 2010 at 7:11 am 
Filed in: Policy makers and stakeholders need to be paying attention to the current congressional debate on a technique used to extract natural gas from tight shale formations. As the country focuses on the disaster in the Gulf, key legislators are beginning to move in the area of hydraulic fracturing. Consequences to the American natural gas industry and our energy security may be more important than the fall-out from the Gulf disaster.
This morning’s E&E (http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2010/06/24/1/) has an educational article on the issue by Mike Soraghan.
In it, he reports on the efforts of Colorado Representative Diana DeGette to negotiate a ”plan to require public disclosure of the sometimes toxic chemicals that drillers use to flush gas out of the ground, according to sources on both sides of the talks.”
DeGette is no stranger to the issues surrounding fracturing, having authored a tough bill requiring EPA to regulate the technique.
Key industry reps are reportedly uncertain “whether to cut a deal with Democrats or hope that Republican gains in November’s midterm elections will stamp out any regulatory efforts.”
Our two cents? Cut a deal. An Obama EPA will not permit any weaker legislative solution from governing their regulatory authority, and the backlash against the Gulf tragedy is not going to put the industry in the driver’s seat on environmental matters for a long, long time.
As Soraghan reports:
“One version of the legislation in circulation on Capitol Hill would require companies to disclose to state regulators the chemicals that they put in their fracturing fluid, but not the formula of how they are mixed, which companies consider a trade secret. States would be required to post the ingredients on the Internet. If a state did not have a program to accomplish that, U.S. EPA would handle the disclosure.”
That’s a pretty middle-of-the-road approach that is fully consistent with other environmental laws. The industry would be well-advised to take that deal and lock it in.
To their credit, some in industry, like Chesapeake and Range Resources, are leading the way on transparency.
On the other hand, as usual, industry “groups like the Independent Petroleum Association of America say that fracturing is safe and state regulation is sufficient. They maintain there has never been a proven case of groundwater contamination from the injection process.”
For years, ”industry has vehemently fought EPA regulation, fearing that the agency would shut down production while it developed rules that could clamp down on gas production. There has been some give on disclosure, with some in the industry worried that some form of regulation is inevitable and they want to be involved in crafting it.”
The state of play is that this issue surfaced publicly most recently during last month’s House Energy and Commerce Committee reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which passed by a 45-1 vote. “In committee, DeGette introduced her amendment, then withdrew it, saying she wanted to negotiate a compromise with industry.”
Prospects for a deal look good, according to E&E, quoting a “House Democratic leadership aide”:
“I think we’re close to an agreement . . . I’m optimistic.”
Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
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