{"id":12174,"date":"2012-06-07T11:10:38","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T16:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=12174"},"modified":"2012-06-07T11:21:27","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T16:21:27","slug":"have-you-talked-to-your-doctor-about-fracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/07\/have-you-talked-to-your-doctor-about-fracking\/","title":{"rendered":"Have You Talked to Your Doctor About Fracking?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo by Joe Raedle\/Newsmakers<\/p>

Pediatrician Wilma Bausas examines Jonathan Valdez, 2, in El Paso, Texas in 2000.<\/p><\/div>\n

In December, Texas enacted fracking disclosure rules<\/a>, which require drilling companies to itemize what chemicals they use in the hydraulic fracturing process.\u00a0Any well that got a permit from February 1, 2012 on has to make the disclosure on the website FracFocus.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there was an exception for “trade secrets,” chemicals that are part of a proprietary mix for each company that they don’t want others to find out about.<\/p>\n

And then there was another exception<\/em> to that exception. If, say, someone winds up in the emergency room after being exposed to frac fluid, a doctor can find out from the company what those trade secret-exempt chemicals are.<\/p>\n

And… wait for it… there’s an addendum to that<\/em>. Doctors who learn what exactly those trade secret fracking chemicals are have to follow a “gag rule.” They have to sign a form with the drilling company saying they’ll keep those chemicals confidential.<\/p>\n

As Scott Detrow reports for our fellow StateImpact site in Pennsylvania today<\/a>, that “gag rule” went through very quietly in the Lone Star State, but has been making waves in the East.<\/p>\n

From Detrow’s report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“In Penn\u00adsyl\u00adva\u00adnia and Ohio, med\u00adical pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adals have voiced con\u00adcern the restric\u00adtions would inter\u00adfere with their abil\u00adity to treat patients and share infor\u00adma\u00adtion with peers. But the Texas Med\u00adical Asso\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtion endorsed the Lone Star State\u2019s new rules. And of the\u00a0hun\u00addreds of pub\u00adlic com\u00adments<\/a>\u00a0filed in response to Colorado\u2019s reg\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtions \u2014 nearly all of them crit\u00adi\u00adciz\u00ading the rule as weak \u2014 \u00a0just six peo\u00adple men\u00adtioned the doc\u00adtor nondis\u00adclo\u00adsure lan\u00adguage. Not a sin\u00adgle major Col\u00adorado or Texas news\u00adpa\u00adper men\u00adtioned the doc\u00adtor lan\u00adguage in its cov\u00ader\u00adage of the states\u2019 new dis\u00adclo\u00adsure standards.<\/p>\n

The wide range of reac\u00adtions under\u00adscores how dif\u00adfer\u00adently the pol\u00adi\u00adtics of reg\u00adu\u00adlat\u00ading frack\u00ading is play\u00ading out from state to state. What was praised as a rea\u00adson\u00adable com\u00adpro\u00admise in Col\u00adorado has been demo\u00adnized as an indus\u00adtry give\u00adaway in Pennsylvania.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Detrow also notes that the amounts of chemicals in question are likely very small. “99 per\u00adcent of frack\u00ading fluid is made up of water and sand,” he writes, and “in the grow\u00ading num\u00adber of states with dis\u00adclo\u00adsure reg\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtions and laws, com\u00adpa\u00adnies are required to dis\u00adclose the major\u00adity of that remain\u00ading one percent.” But a fraction of that one percent falls under the trade secret exemption, and that’s what has some physicians in Pennsylvania and Ohio worked up.<\/p>\n

To learn more about why, you can read the full story over at StateImpact Pennsylvania.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In December, Texas enacted fracking disclosure rules, which require drilling companies to itemize what chemicals they use in the hydraulic fracturing process.\u00a0Any well that got a permit from February 1, 2012 on has to make the disclosure on the website FracFocus.org. But there was an exception for “trade secrets,” chemicals that are part of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":12178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[15,50],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12192,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12174\/revisions\/12192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}