Saturday, February 12, 2011

Weekend Edition: What the Frack?

Readers know by now that GOPers never met a government regulation they liked.  They pine for the days of Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover when capital was king and anything for a buck ruled unopposed.  Unhindered by government regulation forced upon them by the Depression, they raped the land and enriched their Washington friends.  It was the era of Tea Pot Dome and the Ohio Gang, vividly described by Upton Sinclair in his novel of the era "Oil!" (most of which Hollywood lost in translation to the silver screen).  Witness the current fever pitch being wiped up in the House against federal regulation of all sorts that "strangles business".  Ronnie Reagan rides again.  But even the Obamacon trembles before the onslaught of anti-government, real, red blooded 'Mericans led by Representative Darrell Issa(R). We all know Obama really is a Muslim born in Indonesia: wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

The Charlatan, a bona fide Texas oilman who never brought in a well, was hell bent for leather to reduce regulation of his oil & gas industry.  He largely achieved his goal.  A congressional investigation found that between 2005 and 2009, oil & gas companies used 32 million gallons of diesel fuel oil in 19 states to fracture rock formations containing natural gas deposits without permits to do so and in apparently violation of the Safe Water Drinking Act.   In 2003 the EPA signed an agreement with the three largest providers of hydraulic fracturing (Haliburton, BJ Services, Schlumberger) to eliminate the use of diesel fuel in coal bed methane formations near underground sources of drinking water. The memorandum of understanding did not address hydraulic fracturing in other types of underground formations. The Charlatan exempted hydraulic fracturing from the provisions of the Act in 2005, except for diesel fuel.

EPA conveniently assumed the industry had stopped using diesel fuel. Even Rep. Darrell Issa said so at a 2007 hearing on hydraulic fracturing in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform then chaired by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA). Think again, Sherlock. No environmental reviews were done, so there is no data on whether the fracking operations using diesel were done near sources of underground drinking water until Waxman's investigation began in February, 2010. Diesel contains a number of toxic substances, including benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene. All of these chemicals have been linked to cancer and damage to the central nervous system, liver and kidneys. Fracturing operations have dramatically increased in an effort to recover more natural gas from fields that have been produced without enhanced recovery efforts. The Marcellus Shale in the northeast is a target of enhanced recovery, and the Delaware River Basin Commission will hold public hearings on allowing drilling in the watershed which provides drinking water to more than 15 million people. Light your tap water, lady? {12.7.10}