Lawmakers Finally Ready to Crack Down on Hydraulic Fracturing
Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," a controversial natural gas drilling practice that involves the use of large quantities of a toxic fluid mixture to facilitate gas extraction, has enjoyed exemption from environmental laws for too long. On Tuesday Democratic representitives Dianna DeGette, Maurice Hinchey, and Jarred Polis introduced legislation aiming to reverse Bush era measures that had exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act and other environmental laws in 2005. In the Senate, Democrat Bob Casey introduced similar legislation.
"Families, communities, and local governments are upset that the safety of their water has been compromised by a special interest exemption, and we join them in that frustration," Rep Polis Dem/Co.
The above exemption stemmed from a controversial 2004 EPA study which stated that hydraulic fracturing posed "no threat to drinking water." Although the report took considerable fire from independent researchers, and government whistleblowers, it was a major factor in influencing congress to exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water act.
The new legislation would also repeal the natural gas drilling industry's Bush era exemption from the Federal Emergency Planning and Community Right To Know acts. Currently the exact compositions of these fluids are largely unknown to the public, though benzene and many other known carcinogens are known to be present in the fracking mixture. Environmental experts believe that up to 90% of the chemicals used are toxic to humans
The Hydraulic Fracturing process, invented by Haliburton, is especially useful in squeezing a bit more gas from older wells, and extracting natural gas from shale formations. Fracking involves injecting huge volumes of water laced with benzene and hundreds of other toxic chemicals, deep into the earth. Although the chemicals are injected well below the water table, as much as 60% of the fluid is later recovered and sometimes stored above ground in open pits. In recent years many groundwater contamination incidents have occurred damaging groundwater, and human health, while raising serious questions regarding the validity of the 2004 EPA study.
Fracking critics, myself included, widely speculate that then VP Dick Cheney, a former Haliburton exec, was behind the 2005 exemptions.
"It's time to fix an unfortunate chapter in the Bush administration's energy policy and close the 'Halliburton loophole' that has enabled energy companies to pump enormous amounts of toxins, such as benzene and toluene, into the ground that then jeopardize the quality of our drinking water," Rep. Hinchey Dem/NY
