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GWPC Comment on GasLand

EID Fact Check: Center for American Progress Weighs in on Hydraulic Fracturing

ICYMI – Top PA Environmental Regulator Calls GasLand’s Josh Fox A “Propagandist”

FLASHBACK – Sec. Hanger as CEO of top environmental group: “Since our founding by The Heinz Endowments and the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1998, PennFuture has changed the landscape in Pennsylvania for both environmental protection and the economy. … If we are to truly move our state, our nation, and our world into a new clean and green future and solve the problem of global warming, we know we have a long road ahead and many challenges to meet.” (4/14/08)

 

‘Gasland’ documentary fuels debate over natural gas extraction
Andrew Maykuth
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Wed, Jun. 23, 2010

John Hanger might think twice the next time a documentary filmmaker knocks on his door in the state capital.

In a documentary about natural gas development that premiered this week on HBO, Pennsylvania’s secretary of the environment receives a decidedly unflattering portrayal at the hands of Josh Fox, who made the movie Gasland.

Fox portrays Hanger – a liberal who spent years in the mainstream environmental movement – as an equivocating tool of the natural gas industry. In one of the film’s signature moments, Fox pulls out a bottle of water he says was polluted by a Marcellus Shale gas well and challenges the state’s top environmental regulator to drink it.

A clearly uncomfortable Hanger declines. At the end of the interview – Hanger appears for five minutes of the 105-minute film – the secretary detaches the microphone from his lapel and walks out of his own office.

In an interview with The Inquirer on Wednesday, Hanger was harshly critical of Fox, whom he called a “propagandist.”

Hanger dismissed Gasland, which won a Sundance Film Festival award, as “fundamentally dishonest” and “a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect.”

Fox, contacted in New York on Wednesday during a promotional tour, shot back: “It’s John Hanger himself who’s dishonest.” He said the secretary was disingenuous to present natural gas development “as anything other than a disaster.”

The flap encapsulates much of the polarizing debate that has erupted around shale-gas drilling, which relies upon a controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing.

Fox became interested in gas drilling early last year when an operator offered his family nearly $100,000 to lease its 19 acres in northeastern Pennsylvania, in the heart of the booming Marcellus Shale natural gas play. Fox sets out on a mission to expose the evils of natural gas.

Critics say Fox, who stars in his own movie in the style of Michael Moore, presents a one-sided portrait of natural gas extraction. Energy in Depth, an industry website, called Gasland “heavy on hyperbole, light on facts.”

NOTE: Click HERE to read the full Inquirer article on-line.

READ MORE

ICYMI: Toughest Questions on Veracity of GasLand Come from Daily Show’s Jon Stewart

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-21-2010/josh-fox

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (June 21, 2010)

Stewart: “The industry itself has put out, they put out, literally, to debunk your film, it’s from Energy In Depth – EnergyInDepth.org.  It says when you say there’s 596 chemicals, they say 12. … They say that fracturing was never under … [cut off by Fox].”

Stewart: “They say they were never under those auspices.  They say in this document that they were never under the Safe Drinking Water Act – that they were always regulated by the states, and that the states have very strict regulations.”

http://mediacenter.tveyes.com/MediaCenter/39625/486371.5222/CNN_06-18-2010_10.34.28.wmv

CNN: America’s Newsroom (June 18, 2010)

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/23979885/detail.html

WTAE-TV – Pittsburgh (June 21, 2010)

No Second Acts for GasLand

GasLand director Josh Fox is certainly a busy man these days, but apparently not too busy to review a 4,000-word rebuttal to his film sent around two weeks ago by Energy In Depth.

So what’d he think of the write-up? According to one columnist for a major national daily with whom we both spoke, Fox’s primary critique of the EID fact-check was that we had based it off an “earlier print of the film,” not the new and improved version purchased by HBO. That iteration was going to be different, we were told — different from the film he had previously screened in dozens of places all across the country. After all, it was an HBO product now. And certainly a network with more than 30 million U.S. subscribers couldn’t be expected to just run any picture show it got its hands on without conducting a thorough job of vetting and reviewing it first. Right?

Our curiosity was officially piqued. What would Fox decide to change? The possibilities were endless. He could decide to strike the portion of the film on Dunkard Creek, which even the local press in the area have derided as a “glaring error.” Maybe he’d decide to toss-in a quick mention of the report from Colorado regulators on the Markham well in Fort Lupton, which found the methane in the water had nothing to do with oil or gas development.

But then again, adding in that little disclaimer would sort of ruin the flammable faucet scene, wouldn’t it? How about that bit about the endangered species in Wyoming? That part’s factually incorrect as well, and easily confirmable as such. Would that segment make HBO’s final cut? EID had to find out – even if it meant staying up well past its bedtime to do it.

So we watched the film, again. And what do you know? Dunkard Creek’s still in there. And so is the flammable faucet. And so is the phantom claim that natural gas exploration in Wyoming is rendering the sage grouse extinct. Incidentally, if that’s true, someone should tell the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. It might want to discontinue its sage grouse hunting season. Ditto for the mule deer. We shouldn’t be hunting endangered species.

So what did he actually change, then? In the final analysis, unfortunately, not a whole lot. Take a gander for yourself:

Previous version: “In 2004, the EPA was investigating a water contamination incident due to hydraulic fracturing in Alabama. But a panel rejected the inquiry, stating that although hazardous materials were being injected underground, EPA did not need to investigate.” (31:32)

HBO version: “In 2004, the EPA was investigating water contamination incidents due to hydraulic fracturing across the country. But a panel rejected the inquiry, stating that although hazardous materials were being injected underground, EPA did not need to investigate.” (30:17)

Previous version: “What I didn’t know was that the 2005 energy bill pushed through Congress by Dick Cheney exempts the oil and natural gas industries from Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund law, and about a dozen other environmental and Democratic regulations.” (6:05)

HBO version: “What I didn’t know was that the 2005 energy bill pushed through Congress by Dick Cheney exempts the oil and natural gas industries from the Safe Drinking Water Act.” (5:03)

Two minor changes — that’s all we noticed in watching the “new” version of the film on HBO last night. Of course, we did pick up on a few little things we missed the first couple times around. For instance, Fox does an interview with one woman in Colorado, who is shown coughing on camera and stating that natural gas exploration is the reason “I’m never healthy.” In the next scene (27:48), she’s shown holding a cigarette. The woman also blames natural gas development for the occurrence of methane in her water well. For what it’s worth, Colorado regulators disagree: “COGCC sampled the McClure water well on 3/25/09. Sample results show naturally occurring biogenic methane gas in well and no impact from O&G [oil and natural gas] operations.”

Next up for GasLand? An encore airing on HBO slated for Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. EST. Check back at energyindepth.org for updates and additional points of debunkery from the film. Tough to imagine we’re through with this yet.

Friday Fact Check: Who Said It?

Energy In Depth Corrects the Record on State Disclosure


EID responds to mistaken assertions made during recent markup of Energy & Commerce Committee

WASHINGTON – The federal government mandates the disclosure of materials used in the commonly used, 60-year-old process of hydraulic fracturing – but do any of the states? Late last month during a markup in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) told her colleagues on the panel that “only three states have laws requiring reporting.” But according to the Ground Water Protection Council, the actual number is significantly higher than that – and as recently as this week, growing.

Earlier today, Energy In Depth executive director Lee Fuller sent a detailed letter and accompanying packet of information on disclosure to every member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, seeking to dispel any misconceptions that may exist on what is fundamentally a basic, verifiable question. The text of that letter, along with links to the various addenda included with it, can be found below.

June 11, 2010

The Honorable Henry Waxman
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6115

The Honorable Joe Barton
Ranking Member, Committee on Energy and Commerce
2322A Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6115
Dear Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Barton:

On May 26, the Energy and Commerce panel held a full committee markup of H.R. 5320, the Assistance, Quality, and Affordability (AQUA) Act of 2010, a bill that was reported favorably to the House by a vote of 45-1. One of the amendments brought up for consideration that afternoon, offered by U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), sought to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to target the continued use of hydraulic fracturing, a key energy technology never previously regulated under SDWA, but over the past 60 years, one that has been aggressively regulated by the many states in which the technique is commonly deployed.

Although the DeGette language was ultimately withdrawn — a motion that was supported by the chairman – the debate that was spurred by the introduction of the amendment included several assertions which, upon closer scrutiny, don’t quite reflect the current reality as it relates to state involvement in the regulation and oversight of fracturing activities. I appreciate the opportunity to correct that record on behalf of the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Energy In Depth, of which I have the pleasure to serve as executive director.

Reviewing the archived video of the debate on the committee’s website, Rep. DeGette on several occasions makes reference to what she believes to be an inadequate number of states currently requiring service companies to disclose information related to the materials used in the fracturing process. In particular, she suggests that “only three states have laws requiring reporting,” and that two other states “are considering implementing those laws” as well. All told, she estimates that “only one-tenth of the states require this type of reporting,” and proceeds to use that premise as the foundation for constructing a broader argument in support of her amendment.

But those numbers don’t quite align with research jointly published last year by the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC) and the U.S. Department of Energy. According to that report, of the 27 states in which 99.9 percent of oil and gas activity takes place:

Attached for your convenience, please find a previously unpublished addendum to the GWPC report providing a detailed summary of how these states regulate hydraulic fracturing, as well as other rules in place governing every stage of the energy exploration, production and delivery process. Please note that since this addendum was compiled, a number of states – such as Colorado, Pennsylvania, and most recently Wyoming – have updated their disclosure rules to provide for even greater level of transparency in the process.

In analyzing the disclosure requirements currently in place in the individual states, it’s important also to recognize that the federal government also requires the forthright disclosure of additives used in the fracturing process in the form of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), which are mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to be present at every well site in America where a minimum amount of chemicals are found. In states such as New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, these sheets and aggregations thereof can be accessed easily by navigating to the website of the appropriate state regulatory office. In other states, similar information can be obtained by submitting a simple request to the agency.

In closing, one additional comment made by Rep. DeGette during the debate over her amendment last week may warrant further explanation – specifically, the assertion that “in 2005, the oil and gas industry got itself exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the only industry which is exempt from that legislation.”

As senior members of the committee during that time, certainly you remember that the provision of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 dealing with hydraulic fracturing did not result in a substantive change to existing law; it merely clarified Congress’s long-standing position that hydraulic fracturing had never been – and, in fact, was never intended to be – regulated under SDWA. But that doesn’t mean other aspects of the process aren’t regulated under SDWA and a host of other federal rules and statutes. For your convenience, I’ve attached a fact sheet depicting the various forms of federal regulation (SDWA, Clean Water Act, etc.) that apply to each step of that process.

Thank you for the opportunity to address some of the misconceptions that exist regarding ongoing efforts by the states to discharge their long-held responsibilities related to the regulation of oil and natural gas. Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly should you have any additional questions, concerns or comments.

Sincerely,

Lee O. Fuller
Executive Director
Energy In Depth

cc: All members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

Enclosures

ICYMI – Longtime NYT Editor, Columnist on GasLand: “One-sided, flawed … in the Michael Moore mode”

Peter Applebome, a reporter and editor at the New York Times since 1987, writes thisabout GasLand in the Gray Lady:

Local PA newspaper calls out Josh Fox: “One glaring error in the film is the suggestion that gas drilling led to the September fish kill at Dunkard Creek in Greene County. That was determined to have been caused by a golden algae bloom from mine drainage from a [mine] discharge.” (Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter, 6/5/10)

Marcellus Shale group weighs-in: “Our understanding, based on previews of the film, is that it’s loaded with misleading claims and untruths, and completely fails to recognize the well-known fact that hydraulic fracturing has been used in this state for a half-century, and according to state and federal regulators, has never once been found to adversely impact the public’s underground drinking water supplies.” (Patriot-News, 6/2/10)

Washington Examiner: “[Lisa] Jackson forgot to mention “concerns” about hydraulic fracturing come only from environmental groups seeking to stop all uses of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. Jackson’s announcement followed the Washington premiere of the anti-fossil fuel “GasLand” propagandamentary produced by some of these same groups. Two more facts Jackson didn’t mention: Never in the 60-year history of hydraulic fracturing has it been linked to a single proven public health threat to water quality; and the EPA has already studied hydraulic fracturing, most recently in 2004, when it found no threat.” (Editorial, 3/19/10)

“Michael Moore has spawned imitators, including Josh Fox”: “Michael Moore, writer/producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story among others, has pioneered this kind of “documentary” that’s long on innuendo and short on facts, perfecting it as an art. It seems Mr. Moore has spawned imitators, including Josh Fox. … The drumbeat will only grow louder from the anti-drilling movement. Their two-pronged attack is to claim: 1) Hydraulic fracturing as a mining technique is unsafe, and 2) Your water will become contaminated with nasty chemicals and/or methane gas if there’s a drill anywhere near you. Both claims are false.” (Marcellus Drilling News, 2/23/10)

Interested in learning the facts? Click HERE to view Energy In Depth’s comprehensive fact-check of the “one-sided, flawed” claims perpetuated in GasLand.

The FRAC Act: One-Year Later

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act in the 111th Congress, a bill sponsored (but probably not authored) by Reps. Dianna DeGette (D-Colo.) and Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) While short on actual legislative text, the bill – the Senate companion to which was introduced the same day last year by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) – aims to give regulators in Washington unprecedented authority to regulate the commonly used energy technology known as hydraulic fracturing, never mind that states have been aggressively regulating the process for more than six decades already.

So here we are one year later. And despite the fact the no committee or subcommittee of either house of Congress has acted on the bill in any discernable way since its introduction, its threat to our economy and our nation’s energy security remains very real.

The Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based think tank, says the FRAC Act “is unwarranted,” writing this in a recent policy brief entitled “Pennsylvania’s Natural Gas Boom”:

Congress is considering a federal takeover of fracking oversight, which would only lessen Pennsylvania’s environmental protection. S. 1215, the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act, would require the hydraulic fracturing process to be monitored by the federal government under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

S. 1215 is unwarranted. Fracking occurs thousands of feet beneath aquifers, and there is no indication it causes contamination. According to DEP’s Bureau of Oil and Gas Management director, “there has never been any evidence of fracking ever causing direct contamination of fresh groundwater in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.”

Besides being unnecessary, the FRAC Act is poor policy, as it shifts responsibility away from local authorities who are better equipped to handle local situations. Pennsylvania’s regulatory agencies have made sure no water contamination in the state has occurred and should be supported as the correct regulatory bodies for protecting the state’s waterways.

The FRAC Act has lined up a few cheerleaders recently, though. In fact, there’s even a movie out now called GasLand that perpetuates tired, debunked talking points aimed at domestic energy production and the tens of thousands of jobs this industry continues to create. While the “documentary” has garnered some fanfare for its theatrics, it didn’t get quite the same reception when put under the microscope of an Energy In Depth fact-check.

But it’s not just Energy In Depth that understands how critical shale gas production, enabled by fracturing, is to our nation and to our economy. Other top opinion-leaders are speaking out, too. San Antonia Express columnist David Hendricks writes this in a recent column:

What if I told you a domestic fuel exists that emits only half the greenhouse gases of coal and can be found in abundant supply to last the United States at least 45 years?

Many of you already know what it is: natural gas. Technological advances are unlocking natural gas reserves in deep shale rock strata around the world. The more people search for new reserves, the more they find.

The United States has enough shale gas that prices can range in a comfortable zone for the next few decades.

The threat of Washington stripping energy-producing states of their ability to regulate fracturing is as real as the economic benefits this technology is bringing to regions of the country who desperately need jobs and affordable, domestic supplies of energy. Send Congress the message that responsible, heavily-regulated, job-creating American energy production is critical to our long-term security.

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Archive for June, 2010

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GWPC Comment on GasLand

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Posted in Letters / Memoranda | No Comments »

EID Fact Check: Center for American Progress Weighs in on Hydraulic Fracturing

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Posted in Issue Alerts | No Comments »

ICYMI – Top PA Environmental Regulator Calls GasLand’s Josh Fox A “Propagandist”

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

FLASHBACK – Sec. Hanger as CEO of top environmental group: “Since our founding by The Heinz Endowments and the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1998, PennFuture has changed the landscape in Pennsylvania for both environmental protection and the economy. … If we are to truly move our state, our nation, and our world into a new clean and green future and solve the problem of global warming, we know we have a long road ahead and many challenges to meet.” (4/14/08)

 

‘Gasland’ documentary fuels debate over natural gas extraction
Andrew Maykuth
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Wed, Jun. 23, 2010

John Hanger might think twice the next time a documentary filmmaker knocks on his door in the state capital.

In a documentary about natural gas development that premiered this week on HBO, Pennsylvania’s secretary of the environment receives a decidedly unflattering portrayal at the hands of Josh Fox, who made the movie Gasland.

Fox portrays Hanger – a liberal who spent years in the mainstream environmental movement – as an equivocating tool of the natural gas industry. In one of the film’s signature moments, Fox pulls out a bottle of water he says was polluted by a Marcellus Shale gas well and challenges the state’s top environmental regulator to drink it.

A clearly uncomfortable Hanger declines. At the end of the interview – Hanger appears for five minutes of the 105-minute film – the secretary detaches the microphone from his lapel and walks out of his own office.

In an interview with The Inquirer on Wednesday, Hanger was harshly critical of Fox, whom he called a “propagandist.”

Hanger dismissed Gasland, which won a Sundance Film Festival award, as “fundamentally dishonest” and “a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect.”

Fox, contacted in New York on Wednesday during a promotional tour, shot back: “It’s John Hanger himself who’s dishonest.” He said the secretary was disingenuous to present natural gas development “as anything other than a disaster.”

The flap encapsulates much of the polarizing debate that has erupted around shale-gas drilling, which relies upon a controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing.

Fox became interested in gas drilling early last year when an operator offered his family nearly $100,000 to lease its 19 acres in northeastern Pennsylvania, in the heart of the booming Marcellus Shale natural gas play. Fox sets out on a mission to expose the evils of natural gas.

Critics say Fox, who stars in his own movie in the style of Michael Moore, presents a one-sided portrait of natural gas extraction. Energy in Depth, an industry website, called Gasland “heavy on hyperbole, light on facts.”

NOTE: Click HERE to read the full Inquirer article on-line.

READ MORE

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Posted in Archive | No Comments »

ICYMI: Toughest Questions on Veracity of GasLand Come from Daily Show’s Jon Stewart

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-21-2010/josh-fox

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (June 21, 2010)

Stewart: “The industry itself has put out, they put out, literally, to debunk your film, it’s from Energy In Depth – EnergyInDepth.org.  It says when you say there’s 596 chemicals, they say 12. … They say that fracturing was never under … [cut off by Fox].”

Stewart: “They say they were never under those auspices.  They say in this document that they were never under the Safe Drinking Water Act – that they were always regulated by the states, and that the states have very strict regulations.”

http://mediacenter.tveyes.com/MediaCenter/39625/486371.5222/CNN_06-18-2010_10.34.28.wmv

CNN: America’s Newsroom (June 18, 2010)

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/23979885/detail.html

WTAE-TV – Pittsburgh (June 21, 2010)

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No Second Acts for GasLand

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

GasLand director Josh Fox is certainly a busy man these days, but apparently not too busy to review a 4,000-word rebuttal to his film sent around two weeks ago by Energy In Depth.

So what’d he think of the write-up? According to one columnist for a major national daily with whom we both spoke, Fox’s primary critique of the EID fact-check was that we had based it off an “earlier print of the film,” not the new and improved version purchased by HBO. That iteration was going to be different, we were told — different from the film he had previously screened in dozens of places all across the country. After all, it was an HBO product now. And certainly a network with more than 30 million U.S. subscribers couldn’t be expected to just run any picture show it got its hands on without conducting a thorough job of vetting and reviewing it first. Right?

Our curiosity was officially piqued. What would Fox decide to change? The possibilities were endless. He could decide to strike the portion of the film on Dunkard Creek, which even the local press in the area have derided as a “glaring error.” Maybe he’d decide to toss-in a quick mention of the report from Colorado regulators on the Markham well in Fort Lupton, which found the methane in the water had nothing to do with oil or gas development.

But then again, adding in that little disclaimer would sort of ruin the flammable faucet scene, wouldn’t it? How about that bit about the endangered species in Wyoming? That part’s factually incorrect as well, and easily confirmable as such. Would that segment make HBO’s final cut? EID had to find out – even if it meant staying up well past its bedtime to do it.

So we watched the film, again. And what do you know? Dunkard Creek’s still in there. And so is the flammable faucet. And so is the phantom claim that natural gas exploration in Wyoming is rendering the sage grouse extinct. Incidentally, if that’s true, someone should tell the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. It might want to discontinue its sage grouse hunting season. Ditto for the mule deer. We shouldn’t be hunting endangered species.

So what did he actually change, then? In the final analysis, unfortunately, not a whole lot. Take a gander for yourself:

Previous version: “In 2004, the EPA was investigating a water contamination incident due to hydraulic fracturing in Alabama. But a panel rejected the inquiry, stating that although hazardous materials were being injected underground, EPA did not need to investigate.” (31:32)

HBO version: “In 2004, the EPA was investigating water contamination incidents due to hydraulic fracturing across the country. But a panel rejected the inquiry, stating that although hazardous materials were being injected underground, EPA did not need to investigate.” (30:17)

Previous version: “What I didn’t know was that the 2005 energy bill pushed through Congress by Dick Cheney exempts the oil and natural gas industries from Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund law, and about a dozen other environmental and Democratic regulations.” (6:05)

HBO version: “What I didn’t know was that the 2005 energy bill pushed through Congress by Dick Cheney exempts the oil and natural gas industries from the Safe Drinking Water Act.” (5:03)

Two minor changes — that’s all we noticed in watching the “new” version of the film on HBO last night. Of course, we did pick up on a few little things we missed the first couple times around. For instance, Fox does an interview with one woman in Colorado, who is shown coughing on camera and stating that natural gas exploration is the reason “I’m never healthy.” In the next scene (27:48), she’s shown holding a cigarette. The woman also blames natural gas development for the occurrence of methane in her water well. For what it’s worth, Colorado regulators disagree: “COGCC sampled the McClure water well on 3/25/09. Sample results show naturally occurring biogenic methane gas in well and no impact from O&G [oil and natural gas] operations.”

Next up for GasLand? An encore airing on HBO slated for Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. EST. Check back at energyindepth.org for updates and additional points of debunkery from the film. Tough to imagine we’re through with this yet.

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Posted in Archive | No Comments »

Friday Fact Check: Who Said It?

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Posted in Fact Sheets | No Comments »

Energy In Depth Corrects the Record on State Disclosure

Friday, June 11th, 2010


EID responds to mistaken assertions made during recent markup of Energy & Commerce Committee

WASHINGTON – The federal government mandates the disclosure of materials used in the commonly used, 60-year-old process of hydraulic fracturing – but do any of the states? Late last month during a markup in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) told her colleagues on the panel that “only three states have laws requiring reporting.” But according to the Ground Water Protection Council, the actual number is significantly higher than that – and as recently as this week, growing.

Earlier today, Energy In Depth executive director Lee Fuller sent a detailed letter and accompanying packet of information on disclosure to every member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, seeking to dispel any misconceptions that may exist on what is fundamentally a basic, verifiable question. The text of that letter, along with links to the various addenda included with it, can be found below.

June 11, 2010

The Honorable Henry Waxman
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6115

The Honorable Joe Barton
Ranking Member, Committee on Energy and Commerce
2322A Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6115
Dear Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Barton:

On May 26, the Energy and Commerce panel held a full committee markup of H.R. 5320, the Assistance, Quality, and Affordability (AQUA) Act of 2010, a bill that was reported favorably to the House by a vote of 45-1. One of the amendments brought up for consideration that afternoon, offered by U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), sought to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to target the continued use of hydraulic fracturing, a key energy technology never previously regulated under SDWA, but over the past 60 years, one that has been aggressively regulated by the many states in which the technique is commonly deployed.

Although the DeGette language was ultimately withdrawn — a motion that was supported by the chairman – the debate that was spurred by the introduction of the amendment included several assertions which, upon closer scrutiny, don’t quite reflect the current reality as it relates to state involvement in the regulation and oversight of fracturing activities. I appreciate the opportunity to correct that record on behalf of the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Energy In Depth, of which I have the pleasure to serve as executive director.

Reviewing the archived video of the debate on the committee’s website, Rep. DeGette on several occasions makes reference to what she believes to be an inadequate number of states currently requiring service companies to disclose information related to the materials used in the fracturing process. In particular, she suggests that “only three states have laws requiring reporting,” and that two other states “are considering implementing those laws” as well. All told, she estimates that “only one-tenth of the states require this type of reporting,” and proceeds to use that premise as the foundation for constructing a broader argument in support of her amendment.

But those numbers don’t quite align with research jointly published last year by the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC) and the U.S. Department of Energy. According to that report, of the 27 states in which 99.9 percent of oil and gas activity takes place:

Attached for your convenience, please find a previously unpublished addendum to the GWPC report providing a detailed summary of how these states regulate hydraulic fracturing, as well as other rules in place governing every stage of the energy exploration, production and delivery process. Please note that since this addendum was compiled, a number of states – such as Colorado, Pennsylvania, and most recently Wyoming – have updated their disclosure rules to provide for even greater level of transparency in the process.

In analyzing the disclosure requirements currently in place in the individual states, it’s important also to recognize that the federal government also requires the forthright disclosure of additives used in the fracturing process in the form of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), which are mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to be present at every well site in America where a minimum amount of chemicals are found. In states such as New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, these sheets and aggregations thereof can be accessed easily by navigating to the website of the appropriate state regulatory office. In other states, similar information can be obtained by submitting a simple request to the agency.

In closing, one additional comment made by Rep. DeGette during the debate over her amendment last week may warrant further explanation – specifically, the assertion that “in 2005, the oil and gas industry got itself exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the only industry which is exempt from that legislation.”

As senior members of the committee during that time, certainly you remember that the provision of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 dealing with hydraulic fracturing did not result in a substantive change to existing law; it merely clarified Congress’s long-standing position that hydraulic fracturing had never been – and, in fact, was never intended to be – regulated under SDWA. But that doesn’t mean other aspects of the process aren’t regulated under SDWA and a host of other federal rules and statutes. For your convenience, I’ve attached a fact sheet depicting the various forms of federal regulation (SDWA, Clean Water Act, etc.) that apply to each step of that process.

Thank you for the opportunity to address some of the misconceptions that exist regarding ongoing efforts by the states to discharge their long-held responsibilities related to the regulation of oil and natural gas. Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly should you have any additional questions, concerns or comments.

Sincerely,

Lee O. Fuller
Executive Director
Energy In Depth

cc: All members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

Enclosures

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Posted in Archive | No Comments »

ICYMI – Longtime NYT Editor, Columnist on GasLand: “One-sided, flawed … in the Michael Moore mode”

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Peter Applebome, a reporter and editor at the New York Times since 1987, writes thisabout GasLand in the Gray Lady:

Local PA newspaper calls out Josh Fox: “One glaring error in the film is the suggestion that gas drilling led to the September fish kill at Dunkard Creek in Greene County. That was determined to have been caused by a golden algae bloom from mine drainage from a [mine] discharge.” (Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter, 6/5/10)

Marcellus Shale group weighs-in: “Our understanding, based on previews of the film, is that it’s loaded with misleading claims and untruths, and completely fails to recognize the well-known fact that hydraulic fracturing has been used in this state for a half-century, and according to state and federal regulators, has never once been found to adversely impact the public’s underground drinking water supplies.” (Patriot-News, 6/2/10)

Washington Examiner: “[Lisa] Jackson forgot to mention “concerns” about hydraulic fracturing come only from environmental groups seeking to stop all uses of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. Jackson’s announcement followed the Washington premiere of the anti-fossil fuel “GasLand” propagandamentary produced by some of these same groups. Two more facts Jackson didn’t mention: Never in the 60-year history of hydraulic fracturing has it been linked to a single proven public health threat to water quality; and the EPA has already studied hydraulic fracturing, most recently in 2004, when it found no threat.” (Editorial, 3/19/10)

“Michael Moore has spawned imitators, including Josh Fox”: “Michael Moore, writer/producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story among others, has pioneered this kind of “documentary” that’s long on innuendo and short on facts, perfecting it as an art. It seems Mr. Moore has spawned imitators, including Josh Fox. … The drumbeat will only grow louder from the anti-drilling movement. Their two-pronged attack is to claim: 1) Hydraulic fracturing as a mining technique is unsafe, and 2) Your water will become contaminated with nasty chemicals and/or methane gas if there’s a drill anywhere near you. Both claims are false.” (Marcellus Drilling News, 2/23/10)

Interested in learning the facts? Click HERE to view Energy In Depth’s comprehensive fact-check of the “one-sided, flawed” claims perpetuated in GasLand.

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The FRAC Act: One-Year Later

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act in the 111th Congress, a bill sponsored (but probably not authored) by Reps. Dianna DeGette (D-Colo.) and Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) While short on actual legislative text, the bill – the Senate companion to which was introduced the same day last year by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) – aims to give regulators in Washington unprecedented authority to regulate the commonly used energy technology known as hydraulic fracturing, never mind that states have been aggressively regulating the process for more than six decades already.

So here we are one year later. And despite the fact the no committee or subcommittee of either house of Congress has acted on the bill in any discernable way since its introduction, its threat to our economy and our nation’s energy security remains very real.

The Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based think tank, says the FRAC Act “is unwarranted,” writing this in a recent policy brief entitled “Pennsylvania’s Natural Gas Boom”:

Congress is considering a federal takeover of fracking oversight, which would only lessen Pennsylvania’s environmental protection. S. 1215, the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act, would require the hydraulic fracturing process to be monitored by the federal government under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

S. 1215 is unwarranted. Fracking occurs thousands of feet beneath aquifers, and there is no indication it causes contamination. According to DEP’s Bureau of Oil and Gas Management director, “there has never been any evidence of fracking ever causing direct contamination of fresh groundwater in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.”

Besides being unnecessary, the FRAC Act is poor policy, as it shifts responsibility away from local authorities who are better equipped to handle local situations. Pennsylvania’s regulatory agencies have made sure no water contamination in the state has occurred and should be supported as the correct regulatory bodies for protecting the state’s waterways.

The FRAC Act has lined up a few cheerleaders recently, though. In fact, there’s even a movie out now called GasLand that perpetuates tired, debunked talking points aimed at domestic energy production and the tens of thousands of jobs this industry continues to create. While the “documentary” has garnered some fanfare for its theatrics, it didn’t get quite the same reception when put under the microscope of an Energy In Depth fact-check.

But it’s not just Energy In Depth that understands how critical shale gas production, enabled by fracturing, is to our nation and to our economy. Other top opinion-leaders are speaking out, too. San Antonia Express columnist David Hendricks writes this in a recent column:

What if I told you a domestic fuel exists that emits only half the greenhouse gases of coal and can be found in abundant supply to last the United States at least 45 years?

Many of you already know what it is: natural gas. Technological advances are unlocking natural gas reserves in deep shale rock strata around the world. The more people search for new reserves, the more they find.

The United States has enough shale gas that prices can range in a comfortable zone for the next few decades.

The threat of Washington stripping energy-producing states of their ability to regulate fracturing is as real as the economic benefits this technology is bringing to regions of the country who desperately need jobs and affordable, domestic supplies of energy. Send Congress the message that responsible, heavily-regulated, job-creating American energy production is critical to our long-term security.

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