The U.S. Interior Department’s proposed guidelines for natural gas fracking on public lands don’t specify how drillers will disclose the chemicals they use.
Environmentalists prefer the disclosure to the public be made on the web as well as by certified mail to landowners living within two miles of the fracking, Dusty Horwitt, senior counsel of the Environmental Working Group, said in a telephone interview.
The draft of the measure only says the information “will become a matter of public record.”
“There are some good elements in the rule,” Horwitt said after being shown a draft.
Among his concerns are an exemption from disclosure of trade secrets. “Our concern is whether the exemption would swallow the rule,” he said.
The Obama administration will require companies operating on public lands, such as Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK), to report a complete makeup of chemicals used in the fluid, and the volume of fluid used. The agency also will require drillers to disclose the source, access route and transport for all water anticipated to be used in the well, according to the draft rule obtained today and confirmed by the Interior Department.
Bloomberg
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