What The Frack's In The Ground? A State-By-State Look At Fracking Disclosure Regulations

Background

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Hydraulic frac­tur­ing chem­i­cals are exempt from fed­eral dis­clo­sure laws. That’s due to famous lan­guage inside a 2005 fed­eral law known as the “Hal­libur­ton Loop­hole,” which exempts drillers from the Clean Water Act.

A grow­ing num­ber of states – Penn­syl­va­nia among them – have passed their own dis­clo­sure reg­u­la­tions, though. Wyoming was first, in Sep­tem­ber 2010. Arkansas, Penn­syl­va­nia and Michi­gan fol­lowed suit. In June 2011, Texas became the first state to pass a law requir­ing com­pa­nies to dis­close what chem­i­cals are being shot into the ground at each well.

Sev­eral other states, includ­ing Col­orado and Mon­tana, are in the process of writ­ing dis­clo­sure regulations.

A web­site called Frac­Fo­cus is becom­ing a national clear­ing­house for infor­ma­tion about frack­ing chem­i­cals. It’s run by the Ground­wa­ter Pro­tec­tion Coun­cil, and received a ring­ing endorse­ment from the fed­eral Depart­ment of Energy’s August report on shale drilling, which called for an “imme­di­ate” increase in well-by-well chem­i­cal disclosure.

All five state reg­u­la­tions and laws allow com­pa­nies to claim “trade secrets,” and keep infor­ma­tion about cer­tain chem­i­cals from being released to the pub­lic. Four of the five – Penn­syl­va­nia is the out­lier – have set up web­sites where peo­ple can read well-by-well chem­i­cal information.

Pennsylvania’s Demo­c­ra­tic U.S. Sen­a­tor, Bob Casey, is lead­ing the push to close the fed­eral dis­clo­sure loop­hole. But while the energy indus­try is on-board with state-level dis­clo­sure reg­u­la­tions, the bulk of drilling com­pa­nies oppose fed­eral require­ments, call­ing them redundant.