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While state regulators and the drilling industry say the rules should help resolve concerns about the safety of drilling, critics and some toxicologists say the requirements fall short of what’s needed to fully understand the risks to public health and the environment. The regulations allow companies to keep proprietary chemicals secret from the public and, in some states, from regulators. Though most of the states require companies to report the volume and concentration of different drilling products, no state asks for the amounts of all the ingredients...
EPA Finds a Way to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing
Lisa P. Jackson, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced Tuesday that new regulations are coming for hydraulic fracturing companies who use diesel fuel as part of the injection solution to fracture rock and recover natural gas. The EPA has regulated the injection of fluids underground, but current law exempts fracturing fluids from EPA regulations.
Rewarding Polluters: Energy Stimulus Prevents NEPA Oversight
The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy and Duke Energy, chemical manufacturer DuPont, and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the firms with histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA exemptions.