Scientific American: New Fracking Rules Deliver Progress and Controversy

The new rules announced Friday by the Obama administration governing how energy companies frack for oil and gas on federal lands managed to anger environmentalists and the industry alike, but represent a significant step toward protecting drinking water resources in some of the most heavily drilled parts of the country.

The rules mark the first time the federal government has stepped in to enact protections to limit risks posed by a technology that has been both criticized for causing environmental harm and credited with making the nation one of the leading producers of oil and gas.

Fracking involves injecting large volumes of water, sand and toxic chemicals underground with explosive force that fractures the rock and helps it release trapped hydrocarbons. It has been associated with water and air pollution almost every place that it is practiced, and become a lighting rod for environmental opposition to domestic energy production. ProPublica has been covering issues related to fracking since 2008, including the gaps in federal oversight and the government’s consideration of ways to address it.

The rules exclude drilling on private land and apply only to lands or mineral resources directly managed by the U.S. Department of Interior, including tribal lands, which make up a relative minority of all the wells drilled in the United States. They fall short of some of the most stringent fracking regulations already in place in some states, but establish a baseline of best practices and update arcane federal drilling rules almost three decades old.

Read the full article from Scientific American HERE