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Washington Times --
05/14/2005
'Fracking' regulation
may undo energy bill
By Hil Anderson
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Environmentalists have launched a new offensive against
an oil-drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing
that could throw up a roadblock to the new energy bill
Congress is considering, much as the dispute over the
issue of liability for the gasoline additive MTBE
contributed to the bill's breakdown during the last
session.
So far, the oil industry and its allies on Capitol Hill
have been able fight off proposals for tighter
regulation of the practice, which critics said can lead
to the pollution of underground water supplies that
supply rural towns and ranchers.
Hydraulic fracturing is the process of injecting
hundreds or even thousands of gallons of highly
pressurized fluids into the ground in order to fracture
rock formations and allow oil and natural gas trapped in
them to flow into wells where they can be brought to the
surface.
Critics have claimed the practice has fouled underground
water repeatedly with not only hydrocarbons, but also
the sometimes-toxic fracturing fluids. Environmentalists
are particularly concerned about the increasing use of
fracturing to coax gas out of hard-to-reach deposits
known as tight sands, and from coal seams that often are
much nearer to the surface than conventional gas
reserves.
Energy companies insist hydraulic fracturing -- known in
the oil-and-gas business as fracking -- is safe and
should not be placed under the burdensome jurisdiction
of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. Nevertheless, their
staunch opposition to regulation has stirred up
opponents who contend that if fracturing is so safe, why
is the industry fighting a level of environmental
oversight and reassurance?
"This is supposedly an open society. Would you want
hydraulic fracturing taking place next to your water
well without you being able to know what the risks are?"
asked Wes Wilson, an Environmental Protection Agency
engineer based in Colorado who has been a public critic
of his own agency's handling of the issue.
It is a question some members of Congress want answered
as the Energy Policy Act of 2005 moves from the House to
the Senate -- perhaps by the end of this month -- where
it previously ran aground in large part over provisions
granting the industry a level of protection from
liability for groundwater contamination from methyl
tertiary-butyl ether -- better known as MTBE.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee defeated
proposed amendments to the energy bill late Wednesday
that would have banned the use of diesel fuel as a
fracturing fluid and require further study before the
exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act would take
effect.
Wilson last year sent a dour critique to Congress of the
EPA's 2004 final report on fracturing and whether or not
it posed enough of a threat to be regulated under the
act. In a conference call with reporters Wednesday,
Wilson and other speakers characterized the EPA report
as basically glossing over the matter.
The EPA report was issued last year based on what
critics characterized as a spotty review of current data
and a lack of field testing of water in areas where
fracturing takes place.
Critics included the Oil and Gas Oversight Project, the
organizers of Wednesday's conference call, which
contended the EPA was, in effect, giving the oil
industry a pass in order to clear the way for the
increased domestic production, which is a cornerstone of
the Bush administration's energy policy.
In a policy statement urging that fracturing not be
regulated, the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists told Congress the technique had been used in
oil fields since the 1940s and was becoming increasingly
important as drillers go after "tighter" deposits of oil
and natural gas -- meaning deposits that are more
difficult to recover.
Geoffrey Thyne, a geochemist with the Colorado School of
Mines in Golden, told reporters on the conference call
as many as 90 percent of new wells in the near future
will require fracturing, which means virtually the
entire industry will have a new layer of regulation to
contend with at a time when they already are scrambling
to meet increasing energy demand.
At the same time, increased monitoring under an EPA
mandate conceivably could turn up instances of well
contamination that could leave the drilling companies
vulnerable to lawsuits from landowners.
"It is required at this point to use hydraulic
fracturing in the tight sands that the administration
has earmarked as part of our national security," Thyne
said. "They are basically being required to use it."
Such a dilemma is similar to the one the industry found
itself in with MTBE, and refiners argue they should not
be held liable for using a product that was virtually
mandated by the Clean Air Act.
Shielding oil companies from massive damage suits is one
thing, but critics of the move to block regulation of
fracking said it is quite another simply to ignore
instances of pristine wells becoming poisoned and allow
drillers to leave landowners and cash-strapped rural
towns holding the bag for finding alternative water
supplies.
The EPA may not see any reason to get involved in
fracturing, but Senate Democrats could decide in the
coming weeks that it would be better to err on the side
of caution and hold up the energy bill until there are
better guarantees fracturing is as safe as it is cracked
up to be.
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