Federal 'fracking' rules wouldn't inhibit drilling, but not needed to protect drinking water: study

Federal regulation of fracturing deep oil and gas reservoirs such as the Marcellus Shale "would have little effect on companies' ability to drill for shale gas," says a study by Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of The Prize, a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil business. But the study also found that "a regulatory expansion is not needed to protect drinking water," reports Energy and Environment News (subscription only). "Drinking water supplies appear to have been safeguarded from contamination" by state regulators, says an executive summary of Yergin's report.