EPA Proposes New Rules on Emissions Released by Fracking

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by Nicholas Kusnetz
ProPublica, July 29, 2011, 4:23 p.m.
A jogger runs past a 150-foot derrick positioned over a natural gas well site along a trail at a Trinity River embankment on Dec. 19, 2008 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
Prohibited from regulating hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act, yesterday the EPA took to the air, proposing federal regulations to reduce smog-forming pollutants released by the fast-spreading approach to gas drilling.

If approved as currently written, the rules would amount to the first national standards for fracking of any kind, the EPA said. The agency sets guidelines when companies inject fluids underground for various purposes, but in 2005 Congress prohibited the EPA from doing so for fracking. Regulation has been left to the states, some of which compel companies to report what chemicals they use and have imposed tougher well-design standards.

http://www.propublica.org/article/epa-proposes-new-rules-on-emissions-released-by-fracking

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1. If it was not for the EPA

Texas would be a toxic wasteland. Or more so anyway.

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