{"id":3449,"date":"2020-10-26T10:40:31","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T15:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/?p=3449"},"modified":"2020-10-26T10:40:31","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T15:40:31","slug":"extracting-the-middle-ground-is-it-time-to-federally-regulate-fracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/?p=3449","title":{"rendered":"Extracting the Middle Ground: Is it Time to Federally Regulate Fracking?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patrick Gilsenan<\/em><\/span>
\nAssociate Editor<\/em><\/span>
\nLoyola University Chicago School of Law, Weekend JD 2023<\/em><\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/em><\/span>
\nThe use of fracking has made the United States the global leader in natural gas and crude oil production.\u00a0 However, the practice is not without controversy.\u00a0 Activist groups have called for a ban against fracking as scientists have warned of potential health and environmental impacts, while energy lobbyists have fought bitterly against any restrictions or regulations.\u00a0 As it stands, U.S. regulating of fracking has been mostly left ineffectively to the states, with exemptions to federal regulations on the books. As the societal costs of fracking become better understood, regulators and policy makers must make difficult decisions regarding the practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What is fracking?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, is a technique<\/a><\/span> that uses a \u201chigh-pressure injection of water, chemicals and sand into shale deposits to release gas and oil trapped within the rock.\u201d\u00a0 Improvements in recent years have made the extraction of gas and oil from the earth far more efficient, which has led to a rapid increase in the technique\u2019s use and a subsequent boom in energy production.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the last ten years, fracking has led to the United States leading<\/a><\/span> the world in oil and natural-gas output, having more than doubled its crude oil output and raising gas production by roughly two-thirds.\u00a0 In addition to aiding energy independence, peer-reviewed studies find that fracking is responsible for creating 550,000 jobs<\/a><\/span>, while industry groups<\/a><\/span> suggest that banning it could result in 7.5 million jobs lost.\u00a0 If anything, industry groups want fracking to be promoted further.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the economic benefits of fracking, environmental groups such as the Sierra Club<\/a><\/span> are committed to ending fracking altogether as they believe \u201cfracking poses unacceptable risks to our communities, our environment and our climate.\u00a0 Other groups, such as the National Resources Defense Council, inc. (\u201cNRDC<\/a><\/span>\u201d) are more open to changes in regulation, calling for stronger safeguards, and empowering communities to either regulate or block fracking within their borders.\u00a0 According to the NRDC, \u201cunchecked fracking has been linked to air pollution, water contamination, and other serious health risks. Yet a lack of regulation and oversight has allowed oil and gas producers to disregard potential harm to communities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The damage being done to our communities, our water, and our climate<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One frequent narrative around fracking is that we don\u2019t know enough about the health impacts yet to conclude it\u2019s harmful, as fracking as it\u2019s done today is relatively new.\u00a0 Scientists have noted<\/a><\/span>, though, that we now have over a decade of research, and \u201cenough evidence at this point that these health impacts should be of serious concern to policymakers interested in public health.\u201d\u00a0 A systematic review of scientific articles that studied environmental and community impacts was recently published by the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Health<\/a><\/span> that identified several documented health impacts of people living close to fracking sites, including health issues such as negative impacts on pregnancy and birth outcomes.\u00a0 In one such study from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, \u201cresearchers found that expectant mothers living in the most active area of fracking drilling and production activity were 40 percent more likely to give birth prematurely.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency (\u201cEPA\u201d) has also conducted its own studies regarding the health impacts of fracking.\u00a0 In a 2016 report<\/a><\/span> on the impacts of fracking on drinking water, the EPA found scientific evidence that hydraulic fracturing activities can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances.\u00a0 Per the executive summary<\/a><\/span>, several specific factors were identified that make the negative impacts more severe.\u00a0 These factors include the withdrawing of water when water resources are limited; injecting fluids directly into groundwater resources; injecting fluids into wells that allow them to leak into the groundwater; not adequately treating wastewater before disposing of it; and dumping wastewater into unlined pits, where it can leak out.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, the EPA\u2019s findings were resoundingly rejected<\/a><\/span> by industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute (\u201cAPI\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

Other recent studies have found relationships between the sudden boom in fracking and climate change<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 Robert Howarth of Cornell University concludes in a recent study that \u201cshale-gas production in North America over the past decade may have contributed more than half of all of the increased emissions from fossil fuels globally and approximately one-third of the total increased emissions from all sources globally over the past decade.\u201d\u00a0 This is due to methane released in the process of extracting natural gas, which per the Environmental Defense Fund<\/a><\/span>, has contributed to 60% higher emissions than the EPA\u2019s estimates. According to New Scientist<\/a><\/span>, the leakage of methane is so high that it \u201cundermine[s] the dominant narrative in the US that its energy sector has become much cleaner in recent years as it switched to burning natural gas instead of coal for power.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

First, mitigate the harm<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, fracking is primarily regulated at a state level.\u00a0 However, this has led to inconsistent and modest-at-best regulations.\u00a0 According to a 2015 study<\/a><\/span> done by the NRDC, even when states do have adequate regulations, they generally lack the resources to operate sufficient compliance programs to enforce them.\u00a0 Some state regulators such as West Virginia<\/a><\/span>\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection didn\u2019t write up violations at all, and rather offered \u201ccompliance assistance\u201d to frequent offenders.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the federal level, the EPA is responsible for creating standards and laws promoting the health of individuals and the environment, including clean water through the Safe Drinking Water Act<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 Through the Energy Policy Act of 2005<\/a><\/span>, however, fracking was explicitly exempted from EPA oversight through the Halliburton Loophole<\/a><\/span>, except when diesel is used.\u00a0 Previous efforts to expand, or at least restore, federal regulations can serve as a roadmap to potential changes.\u00a0 In 2015, Democratic congressmen introduced a suite of bills known as the Frack Pack<\/a><\/span> that sought to close loopholes in major environmental laws.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neither political party has incorporated banning fracking into its platform, and Vice President Joe Biden has recently reiterated that he would not ban fracking<\/a><\/span>, despite Republican claims otherwise.\u00a0 Although for now fracking appears to be here to stay, policy makers can and should develop stronger regulations to mitigate the damage it causes.\u00a0 Potential solutions can range from closing the Halliburton Loophole to return jurisdiction to the EPA, providing grants to state regulators to ensure that existing state regulatory authorities are adequately resourced to enforce their own rules, and passing specific federal guidelines to address the concerns raised in the EPA\u2019s 2016 report and the harms identified in recent studies.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The use of fracking has made the United States the global leader in natural gas and crude oil production.\u00a0 However, the practice is not without controversy.\u00a0 Activist groups have called for a ban against fracking as scientists have warned of potential health and environmental impacts, while energy lobbyists have fought bitterly against any restrictions or regulations.\u00a0 As it stands, U.S. regulating of fracking has been mostly left ineffectively to the states, with exemptions to federal regulations on the books. As the societal costs of fracking become better understood, regulators and policy makers must make difficult decisions regarding the practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[729,741,1205,1690],"class_list":["post-3449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-energy","tag-environmental-regulation","tag-journal-of-regulatory-compliance","tag-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}