Fracking Oversight Group To Coordinate Federal Regulations

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Friday it is creating a high-level working group to coordinate federal oversight of natural gas production, amid industry complaints that excessive regulation could stymie a natural gas boom that has pushed prices to 10-year lows.

In an executive order signed Friday, President Barack Obama said the group was needed to make sure a host of federal agencies that oversee drilling work together.

"It is vital that we take full advantage of our natural gas resources, while giving American families and communities confidence that natural and cultural resources, air and water quality, and public health and safety will not be compromised," Obama said.

Natural gas production has soared in recent years as drillers use techniques such as hydraulic fracturing to gain access to wells that were hard to reach in the past.

Hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, involves blasting mixtures of water, sand and chemicals deep underground to stimulate the release of gas. It is often combined with horizontal drilling, which can increase production far beyond a vertically drilled well.

Industry groups welcomed the working group, which appeared timed to counter criticism from some business leaders and Republicans, who have accused Obama of having a double standard on drilling — saying he supports it, while cracking down on it.

"We have called on the White House to rein in these uncoordinated activities to avoid unnecessary and overlapping federal regulatory efforts and are pleased to see forward progress," said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry.

Gerard and other industry leaders met with White House officials Friday.

Dave McCurdy, president and CEO of the American Gas Association, said the new working group will help promote consistency among administration policies.

The group, headed by White House energy adviser Heather Zichal, includes representatives of about a dozen agencies that oversee various aspects of drilling, including the Interior, Transportation and Energy departments, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The EPA is poised to regulate air pollution from oil and gas wells as soon as next week. The agency also has pursued tighter rules on wastewater from drilling operations.

The Interior Department, meanwhile, is expected to issue new rules in the next few weeks on natural gas drilling on public lands.

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Twitter: (at)MatthewDalyWDC

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Comments

[oil patch]

02:37 PM on 04/16/2012

An executive at Halliburton drank a glass of frac fluid to prove that it is safe.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/22/halliburton-executive-drinks-fracking-fluid_n_933621.html

That is what my dad called,"putting your money where you mouth is", so let's see all you liberals prove otherwise.

[Deb Galante Seles]

03:31 PM on 04/17/2012

Yeah, what's a single glass of water vs. having to truck in your water because of the nearly 600 contaminants present in the water? Or having livestock drinking this water day after day after day and the effects on food produced there? Big deal...one glass of water. Big hero. Who can afford his health care if he got sick from it.

[oil patch]

07:06 PM on 04/17/2012

i see a lot of words above that are found in the english dictionary but it just amounts to drivel, typical liberal

[intolleft]

07:48 PM on 04/15/2012

The Obama administration will do anything to slow domestic energy production down. Even going around congress....again.

[oakhilliron]

12:25 AM on 04/15/2012

I can see oversight groups needing to work together-what I don't see is why we need more government to do that job. Or why another executive order was signed. Too bad they did not publish the text of that order or the persons who will make up the group. Past history of this administration and its attitude on fossil fuels tells me this is going to cost us more in taxes and jobs.

[pjlim]

02:00 PM on 04/14/2012

As far as I'm concerned, allowing fracking in our communities and keeping the environment sage and citizens healthy are mutually exclusive.....if not impossible!

[oakhilliron]

10:25 PM on 04/14/2012

You are wrong. Wells have been fracked in our area-some many years ago and some as recently as the last year. Not one problem with any local water wells.

[wtg246]

11:49 AM on 04/14/2012

Republicans passed legislation in 2005 that exempted halliburton and others from clean water act and much more so that if and when they polluted wells and waterways they couldn't be held accountable. Well, in Pennsylvania and Colorado waterways and wells are being polluted from this. Photos of cows dead laying in fields or animals with patches of hair missing. Too much govt regulation? I don't think so. Yet ceo's for fracting continue to claim it's so safe and have nothing to say when shown these photos. Better get your head out of the sand and start paying attention to legislation that is passed instead of sound bites paid for by billionaires.

[eyepatch]

04:01 PM on 04/14/2012

......very well said! and the 2005 legislation allows
for the total secrecy of the composition of the
Hydraulic Fracturing fluid used in the process!

The industry will tell us that the pollution of the
ground water is not the byproduct of Hydraulic
Fracturing, but ground water pollution seems to
follow the process...

[celcius232]

11:54 PM on 04/14/2012

Pure conjecture subscribed to by groundwater and geological illiterates.

[intolleft]

07:49 PM on 04/15/2012

Disseminating misinformation exhibit A

[GeorgiaModerate]

11:05 AM on 04/14/2012

With all I've read about the chemicals used in fracking, I welcome a little oversight and transparency. Do we really want to risk permanently polluting the ground water?

[isis]

10:30 AM on 04/14/2012

This is a good idea. Fracking can be done safely but so far it hasn't been. I would rather see more windmills and solar panels but if we must keep on with fossil fuels, some regulations are needed. The industry has not been good about policing itself.

[celcius232]

11:56 PM on 04/14/2012

Right, I have regularly seen non-problems solved with more Federal regulation.

[idyllick]

12:12 PM on 04/15/2012

Curious to know which oil/gas company is sponsoring your posts.
You have no concrete info to back your statements.

Fracking causes run off pollution and now has been fond to be the source of the earthquakes in Ohio
http://www.usatoday.com/money/story/2012-03-09/fracking-gas-drilling-earthquakes/53435232/1

[cosmicdart]

09:39 AM on 04/14/2012

Safe nuclear reactors that are used to produce, electricity, hydrogen, and distill fresh drinking water would be the ultimate green answer if we could mass produce small transportable safe nuclear reactors. CO2 and hydrogen could be converted to methane to operate our cars, and trucks. Solar on rooftops would also help. Nuclear reactors in subs seem to be safe and transportable and they supply all the electricity and drinking water needed by the sub. Why does the navy have something that we don't have?

[Seattle Guy]

06:53 PM on 04/14/2012

Fusion.

[hip167]

04:43 AM on 04/14/2012

OF COURSE HE DID WT-F DID YOU THINK HE WOULD DO HE HAS STOPPED OUR SELF RELIANCE ON FORIEGN OIL EVERYWHERE HE CAN AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNTIL THIS FOOL OF FOOLS IS REMOVED FROM OFFICE.I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH IGNORANCE EMBODIED IN ONE PERSON IN ALL MY LIFE,IT IS AMAZING

[indyvet]

01:22 PM on 04/14/2012

Caps lock on. Stopping our reliance on forien oil is a bad thing?

[ttigerlilyx2]

02:32 PM on 04/14/2012

'I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH IGNORANCE EMBODIED IN ONE PERSON IN ALL MY LIFE'

Dear me, hip167, have you looked in a mirror lately?

[deinekatalin]

01:50 AM on 04/14/2012

another high ranking group ..

[sheryllynne1]

11:48 PM on 04/13/2012

Some more wasteful spending........you like spending our money so much---do something constructive for a change...drill for domestic oil, mine coal and develop new fuel sources----we need to be independent of foreign oil period!!!! You are killing our country!!

[icewomancometh]

02:36 AM on 04/14/2012

Just because conservative personalities are always screaming about the job losses in the coal and oil industries doesn't mean it's actually happened. Do you have any evidence of Obama KlLLlNG the country due to an intrusive federal government?

[abbienormal]

04:16 AM on 04/14/2012

No, she doesn't because there is no evidence of that.

[oil patch]

02:31 PM on 04/16/2012

I have proof, all my friends and colleagues who lost their jobs and contracts when obama put an end to GOM drilling 2 years ago.

[ny1989]

02:39 AM on 04/14/2012

The rapid expansion of fracking for extracting gas has a number of unknown and a potentially dangerous consequences for people. Basically, the process involves drilling a sealed pipe down under the the ground water, through the thick rock shale formations, then turning the pipe and injecting a significant amount of water mixed with chemicals to free the gas. those chemicals, which include things like benzene (a significant carcinogen), heavy metals (which can cause all sorts of health problems), and radioactive isotopes, are subject to very limited oversight, since fracking fluids are exempted from the clean water act as potential pollutants. A mistake in the drilling process, which has happened a few times in the past couple of years, could seriously damage a given area, contaminating groundwater and potentially giving people cancer. This gets even more complicated when the drilling is set to occur in places like Upstate New York, it has the potential to damage the water supply for New York City, which would cost billions to undo. Unlike drilling in West Texas or North Dakota, drilling in the Northeast has the potential to make a huge number of people's lives more difficult. Taking an extra couple of months or years to try and mitigate those negative effect is, in my book, worth whatever it costs.

[oil patch]

02:30 PM on 04/16/2012

We have been completing wells in the northeast since 1859 and stimulating (hydraulic fracturing) them since 1947. If it was not both safe and profitable, we would not be drilling up there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_industry_in_the_United_States

[KsAPigButt]

08:06 PM on 04/13/2012

Mr. President, I sure wish you would put just half your efforts that you're putting into the oil and gas industry and drilling, to the development of biofuels, flexible fuel engines, and all other ways to get us off the dependency of fossil fuels. We can't wait until the 13TH hour. You and I might not be around at that 13TH hour, but your children and grandchildren will be.

[ny1989]

02:56 AM on 04/14/2012

While biofuels and flex fuel engines are decent, they're still a relatively expensive alternative that end up only becoming at all financially viable with significant government subsidies. But at this point, because of a few very very scary incidents, we tend to ignore perhaps the best option for increasing our energy production: Nuclear power. If we were to take some of the billions we funnel into subsidizing oil, gas, and ethanol production every year and put it toward expanding the American EV market, while simultaneously begin building Gen III nuclear reactors that burn thorium instead of Uranium (we have the 4th largest domestic thorium deposits), we could completely eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. Combining that nuclear power with certain renewables in appropriate places, along with common measures for reducing consumption, we could have an energy profile that was both robust and relatively removed from a standard market system.

[KsAPigButt]

03:50 AM on 04/14/2012

I'm not a nuclear fan. And from what I've read and heard recently, flex fuel engines are not that hard or expensive to convert to.

[abbienormal]

04:18 AM on 04/14/2012

They are not relatively expensive when you include the costs of fossil fuels to the environment.

[mykittywinks]

08:05 PM on 04/13/2012

Thats what wrong with the country FRACKING OBAMA!!!!!!!

[Cody30]

06:54 PM on 04/13/2012

What BS.Rape the land and kill the people with pollution...that is fracking.Good old US business running our country,and government telling citizens what they want to hear.

[oakhilliron]

11:28 PM on 04/14/2012

Fracking has been used for decades without damaging the land or polluting the water.

[tuezdaygirl]

09:28 AM on 04/16/2012

You are completely correct Cody30! I am so sick and tired of giant corporations destroying and raping anything they want in the name of profit! I live in FL and the Deep water Horizon spill continues to kill dolphins, fish and other creatures...they wash up all the time. We are told the Gulf is healthy and the fish are perfectly healthy to eat. Complete BS!

[ondbuyu]

06:43 PM on 04/13/2012

This anything like Obama announcing that Green Energy projects
is taking a little EXTRA TIME??? Thats his way of saying the
BILLIONS he is shoving toward his HAND PICKED crooked
solar companies has slowed down...................