EPA Requests $14 Million to Continue Fracking Study

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

March 22, 2012 | 12:24 PM

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testifies at a Congressional hearing in May, 2011.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson speaks to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works today about her agency’s budget request for $8.344 billion dollars. In Jackson’s prepared remarks, she touches upon fracking.

“As I’ve mentioned before, natural gas is an important resource which is abundant in the United States, but we must make sure that the ways we extract it do not risk the safety of public water supplies. This budget continues EPA’s ongoing congressionally directed hydraulic fracturing study, which we have taken great steps to ensure is independent, peer reviewed and based on strong and scientifically defensible data. Building on these ongoing efforts, this budget requests $14 million in total to work collaboratively with the United States Geological Survey, the Department of Energy and other partners to assess questions regarding hydraulic fracturing. Strong science means finding the answers to tough questions, and EPA’s request does that.”

EPA recently released the results of 11 water tests in Dimock, Susquehanna County. Although the EPA found contaminants in the water, the agency says the levels would not create a health threat. But public health professionals and scientists consulted by the residents disagree.