The Environmental Protection Agency is creating stricter rules for U.S. oil and gas drilling. On Friday, EPA announced that it may eventually require hydraulic fracturing companies to reveal to the government—and maybe even to the public—which chemicals they use, Lindsay Abrams writes for Salon.
Even though these chemicals can end up in drinking water, fracking companies do not have to say which chemicals they use because they're "trade secrets." Some companies lost their fracking fluids on FracFocus.org, but critics are not impressed. "We want to be sure that there is some agency that is actually collecting this information about what is being used in these shale plays across the country," Deborah Goldberg, a lawyer at Earthjustice, said. "The disclosure we are getting right now is spotty.
Also, the EPA said it's considering "incentives and recognition programs that could be used to support the development and use of safer chemicals in hydraulic fracturing." (Read more)
Even though these chemicals can end up in drinking water, fracking companies do not have to say which chemicals they use because they're "trade secrets." Some companies lost their fracking fluids on FracFocus.org, but critics are not impressed. "We want to be sure that there is some agency that is actually collecting this information about what is being used in these shale plays across the country," Deborah Goldberg, a lawyer at Earthjustice, said. "The disclosure we are getting right now is spotty.
Also, the EPA said it's considering "incentives and recognition programs that could be used to support the development and use of safer chemicals in hydraulic fracturing." (Read more)
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