The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an arm of the Department of the Interior (DOI), last updated its hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) rules in 1988, before many current technologies and techniques were adopted. Now, after more than 20 years, BLM has released a set of proposed changes to the regulations, including a requirement for disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking on federal lands, and standards for gas well construction.
Currently, most fracking occurs on private lands, and is subject only to state regulations. A recent report found that only 5% of active shale wells in the past decade were on federal lands.
An earlier version of the newly proposed rule would have required developers to disclose fracking chemicals before starting a well, but the more recent version allows companies to disclose chemicals after the well is closed. The New York Times reports that industry objected to the advanced disclosure rules, arguing that the permitting process would be slowed and industry trade secrets were at risk. Government officials have defended the new ex post reporting requirement, explaining that a record of the chemicals will allow them to trace contamination regardless of when the chemicals are disclosed.
A CNBC report outlines the new rule:
All the same, some in the industry are unhappy with the new rule, which the DOI estimates will cost $11,833 per well to implement. Barry Russel of the Independent Petroleum Association of America said in a statement that “B.L.M.’s proposed regulations, which would mandate one-size-fits-all regulations on well construction and hydraulic fracturing operations on these lands, are redundant. They will undoubtedly insert an unnecessary layer of rigidity into the permitting and development process.”
Native American tribes working to encourage natural gas development on tribal lands are also frustrated by the proposed rules. In a letter to the Department of the Interior, the National Congress of American Indians requested that the regulations exclude Tribal lands until a more involved consultation process can take place.
The BLM has acknowledged the potential for regulatory overlap between the federal and state rules and said “it is the intention of the BLM to implement on public lands whichever rules, state or Federal, are most protective of Federal lands and resources and the environment.”
Are these new rules redundant? What’s the optimal role of federal regulation of shale oil and gas as domestic production moves forward?
Disclosure of what chemicals are going into the ground is essential. Public health, drinking water, ecology, and other factors necessitate this, and allowing companies to disclose information only after they have made their profit is simply unjust.
If the industry is “arguing that the permitting process would be slowed and industry trade secrets were at risk”, they’ll have to deal with it. Natural Gas already has a supply boom and low prices, so slowing things down won’t be a problem for them.
This stonewall approach of professing that nothing bad has ever happened, so nothing bad ever will happen, is not handling the issue in a serious fashion. We need honest discussion about how to deal with difficult regulatory issues and increasing energy demand.
I agree with Jesse regarding the need to honestly discuss regulatory issues. Only by repairing the broken regulatory process can We the People insure that the very large economic (and environmental!) good of low natural gas prices will not be offset by the impacts of shoddy, cost-cutting engineering that potentially leads to environmental damage.
However, the focus on the particular “ingredients” in hydraulic fracturing makes for good media coverage but adds little to the protection of fresh water sands. Rather, the focus should be on those “ingredients” staying where they were put. That is, build the well correctly and the problem will be eliminated (read: spend the money and do it right). No energy company desires to reduce the efficiency of their actions via the migration of fluids to non-target strata, much less cause an environmental incident. The above comment signals an attitude of “Tough luck rapacious, evil energy companies, we’re gonna ‘get’ you!” As the signal regulatory problem today is the intense distrust between parties, such an attitude is at the heart of the difficulties. And one can either be a part of the solution or a part of the problem: there is no third option.
Joel – the above comment – meaning my comment? Your characterization is wrong, and the only one bringing up political polarization is you. I’d appreciate you not reducing serious concerns about health and environment as some form of towing the party line. You apparently are creating the very problem you profess to be the “heart of the difficulties”.
Furthermore, the notion that the ‘focus’ should be on ingredients staying put is very convenient, but doesn’t address the problem that something could, theoretically, possibly, maybe, potentially, go wrong. The element of ‘risk’, if you will. Keeping the general public ignorant about what is going on may be ideal for those who profit from energy, but why should their interests win out against the people living in the area, working the land, drinking the water?
Skirting the issue, bringing up political division, and talking about how the problem would simply not exist if everything went perfectly – that’s great, but that’s not a serious discussion about energy policy. That’s discussing things in a way that is palatable.
I very much support discussion and engagement on regulations. Many disasters could have been avoided if safety standards were improved – Fukushima is a great example, with experts inside and outside of the plant knowing the weaknesses and not buffering them.
But for real discussion, negatives and positives have to be discussed and understood. Particularly if you understand the nature of how chemicals can disrupt health. If you wait to disclose all information after the company has packed bags and left, what happens when there was a discovered leak (or whatever hypothetical bad situation) that happened years before? Health is not magically buffered from all problems until anyone – company or government – decides to reveal what has been influencing health. That needs to be respected.
And finally, I don’t have a problem with ‘natural gas’, and I don’t see energy companies as the problem. I’m simply being realistic about what kinds of things are affecting the situation. If energy companies, like natural gas, want to win the favor of people who are actually concerned, the answer is not by avoiding the issue, or claiming that nothing bad ever happened or ever will — or even saying that we shouldn’t talk about ingredients, but just make sure they stay put. The way to do that is by being honest.
I don’t see a way that the general public benefits from being kept in the dark about what goes into the ground.
Sir, you are hoist by your own petard. But before I lay out the trajectory of your flight, let’s get calibrated. I don’t work for an energy company. Nor do I have potential shale gas income or receive any natural gas royalties. I’m not a shill for the AGA or any other pro-industry group. I’m an energy consultant who believes quite strongly in “all of the above” as the correct answer to our overall future energy path and sees the current surplus – hence low price – of natural gas as a godsend to our country. It’s is both economically stimulative and counter-inflationary, making it unique among economic variables. Further, it allows the economic displacement of coal for power generation. It thereby reduces our overall CO2 footprint and eliminates the largest source of mercury poisoning. And that godsend is the result of hydraulic fracturing technology.
And now for your trajectory: To begin, your assumption that my objections to the tone of your original post are “some form of towing the party line” nicely demonstrates my point. I don’t belong to a party, either industrial or political. I’ve been an independent commercial agent for more than a decade and a non-member of a political party for twice that long.
I was once employed by an energy company. The engineers working for me carried out numerous hydraulic fracture treatments in more conventional sandstones in South Texas twenty years ago and NEVER had a problem with fluids migration because we did construct quality wells. As for your concern that “something could, theoretically, possibly, maybe, potentially, go wrong”, I would direct you to the following link: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/13434. The University of Buffalo’s Shale Resource and Society Institute issued a quantitative review of the practice in Pennsylvania shale gas fields. While there were numerous violations of lesser magnitude, among the 4,000 wells they found “… environmental violations were the result of 845 events, with 25 classified as “major” environmental events. The report defines major environmental events as major site restoration failures, serious contamination of local water supplies, major land spills, blowouts, and venting and gas migration.” Thus, less than 1% of the well operations exhibited the sort of problems you cite and worry are ubiquitous. They go on to note that the sort of regulatory improvements being discussed in the State of New York regarding the development of shale gas in that state should correct the problem.
Hydraulic fracturing is an industrial practice. A very large number of such possess the hypothetical risk that you describe. For example, the computers with which we write these posts contain electronic parts made of a dog’s breakfast of toxic ingredients, in particular, heavy metals. And while no one personal computer is of sufficient size to merit individual concern, there are literally hundreds of millions if not billions of them widely distributed in this country. Since that era began in the early 80′s, we have about 30 years of history regarding their impact on the environment. That’s half the history of hydraulic fracturing. Are you posting elsewhere regarding the dangers personal computers might present to the ecology?
I realize that fixing our broken regulatory practices doesn’t make good copy, but it is of far greater concern to our energy future and the protection of individuals and the environment. I would nominate the BP Macondo well disaster as the poster child for that statement. The hideous event could have been prevented by the construction of a use-appropriate well. In addition, BP’s environmental and safety record was so egregious that they should never have been allowed to start its drilling in the first place. In short, good regulation would have prevented it entirely.
In closing I would urge you to stop indicting (by innuendo, without specific charges) an industrial practice and begin indicting the companies and engineers that do it badly.
The broader point that I’m trying to make is that there are issues outside of straight ‘energy’ that energy policy has to address, and I feel very strongly about this situation. At the very least, if specific ‘bad things’ (types of toxins, damaging health issues to expect) are involved, then people can be prepared, or make an informed decision about allowing it to happen on their land. Maybe they will want to relocate, maybe they will want to get specific medical procedures done. Maybe they will reconsider the cost and effect. The more ‘mature’ way to handle the situation, I would advocate, is for all the risk to be openly disclosed; people are still going to want the money and jobs that energy brings, it’s not going to scare anyone away – especially in this moment in history. (I would also add, it certainly isn’t going to deter the interest in exploiting shale gas opportunities – there is simply too much money to be made therein).
As an advocate /for/ energy, and someone who knows the growing energy demand is going to cause huge issues over the course of this century and into the future, I don’t want to take options off the table. But what I do want is an earnest, no-nonsense discussion about what various types of energy and and cannot do, and what the cost associated with them are. If hydraulic fracturing chemicals are not disclosed, that’s a very significant element of the discussion left unsaid, and this in no way benefits the the stakeholders in the localized area; I don’t see any way around that, but I’m open to someone pointing one out. It benefits those who make profit from fracturing, and it can bring benefit to those who use the energy — and this isn’t ‘controversy’ or me attempting to turn human beings who work in the energy industry into monsters, it is simply calling a spade a spade, and an advantage an advantage.
So the question is, where do we draw the line between a localized risk and an expanded benefit? This is, of course, not a new issue, and I don’t attempt to answer that here, but I think it would benefit many if that kind of hard question was more openly discussed. We need to plan for the future in a way that accounts all of these issues, otherwise “energy policy” is just like any other field of study or discipline that is lost in a silo of knowledge and insights and opinions that don’t accurately map reality. (This is even more so the case when you go into the connections between energy, water, and land, etc)
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- – - Much of this discussion seems to be part of a misunderstanding, which I attempt to address below – - – -
As far as your (to Joel) calibration: I have no particular concerns about your employment – it is irrelevant to my comment. Much of the background information you supply seems unnecessary, as I have no particular interest in ‘you’, for the sake of what my point (above) is. If you became offended, I sincerely say that was/is not my intent.
When you say //”your assumption that my objections to the tone of your original post are “some form of towing the party line” nicely demonstrates my point. I don’t belong to a party, either industrial or political. I’ve been an independent commercial agent for more than a decade and a non-member of a political party for twice that long.”//, the only thing it appears to demonstrate is that there is miscommunication about what my point is. The only part of my response that I’m addressing ‘you’ was in the first paragraph, where I strongly disagree with your caricaturization of my comment, or my ‘attitude’. You said…
//”The above comment signals an attitude of “Tough luck rapacious, evil energy companies, we’re gonna ‘get’ you!”// — and, again, to that I say such is not the case. That is now how I feel or where I come from, and would appreciate you not reducing my input as being of that nature. My point is made regardless of political gridlock over the issue – and when I said towing the party line, that phrase was in reference to what I perceived as you labeling me as being an ideologue for a party. I make no claim of pointing you out as any political disposition, and miscommunication about that is regrettable.
//”In closing I would urge you to stop indicting (by innuendo, without specific charges) an industrial practice and begin indicting the companies and engineers that do it badly.”//
–Again, the only ‘issue’ I take is that hydraulic fracturing ought to disclose the ingredients put within the ground. People’s well beings are at stake, and not knowing you are exposed to something for six months, a year, five, or more, is a serious deal. *Return to the beginning of this post, to see the transition*
I hope we can continue to work on and discuss this important matters in a positive way – we have a lot of hard work to do and I know we need all the useful input we can get.
Two truths exist about the currently undisclosed contents of hydraulic fracturing fluids. The first is that the companies providing same, like many, many organizations from a wide variety of economic activities, proclaim they have by far the best way to achieve the customer’s (in this case the well operator’s) goals. Thus, each asserts her particular fracturing formula contains proprietary “magic goop” which provides an advantage over her competition’s product. As for the second truth, all of these formulations are limited variations on a theme, providing minimal distinction between products. Many providers resist disclosure for exactly that reason: their particular emperors have no clothes. In this regard, the companies involved have something in common with the sellers of shampoo or gasoline.
The open and frank discussion of issues does comprise an important part of any policy effort. Thus, I’ve no objection whatsoever to making these folks stand and deliver regarding contents. However, the efficacy of such descriptors of behavior as “simply unjust” and “stonewalling”, or suggesting “they’ll just have to deal with it” is questionable. Moreover, the extent to which fluid migration occurs is of far greater concern (hint: the right answer should be “Never”; if that’s not the current answer, better regulation is a starting point; heavily fining failures and even the pushing out of business of chronic failures is the continuation). If migration never occurs, the contents of the fracturing fluid are moot. If it does occur, it will cause harm even if the ingredients consist solely of mother’s milk and goodwill. Too much time and effort has already been expended on this sidebar.