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Department of Energy panel backs ‘fracking’ chemicals disclosure
Energy Department advisers are backing mandatory disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, the controversial natural-gas-drilling method, in a new report that lauds expanded development while calling for several improved environmental safeguards.
The wide-ranging report arrives amid a legal and political battle over the method — dubbed “fracking” — that’s enabling a U.S. gas boom but raising fears of water and air pollution.
The report is the product of a subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.
The subcommittee, created early this year, is studying the issue as the Obama administration is seeking to show that it backs expanded U.S. energy development while heeding concerns that the growth of fracking presents environmental concerns.
But the panel of experts headed by MIT professor and former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Deutch is unlikely to bring a détente in the battle.
Indeed, even ahead of the report’s release, the Environmental Working Group circulated a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Wednesday from more than two-dozen scientists alleging the panel’s membership is unbalanced and calling for changes, citing ties between a number of members and the petroleum industry.
GOP fracking advocates call the panel unbalanced in the other direction because it lacks direct industry representation, and in June added language to Energy Department spending legislation in the House demanding that one-third of the members come from the natural-gas industry.
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Overall, the report is bullish on producing natural gas from shale formations, tapped through high-pressure injections of chemicals, water and sand to break apart rock formations and enable trapped gas to flow. Shale gas now comprises almost 30 percent of U.S. production — and is growing.
“This has brought lower prices, domestic jobs, and the prospect of enhanced national security due to the potential of substantial production growth,” the report states.
“But the growth has also brought questions about whether both current and future production can be done in an environmentally sound fashion that meets the needs of public trust,” the report adds, noting that it’s recommendations, if implemented, would reduce environmental harms.
The Obama administration tasked the panel with recommending steps to improve the safety and environmental performance of fracking.
Several key recommendations address improving transparency of shale gas development.
Deutch, a chemist who was also a senior Energy Department official in the Carter administration, said in an interview that seeing more public data about shale gas development is vital.
“It will inform industry to have more efficient operations, it allows regulators to have technically sound regulations in place to protect the public interest,” he said, adding it also will give the public a way to track environmental improvement.
The report calls for a national database, or portal, to link as many sources of public information and data about shale gas development as possible.
A second — and likely more controversial — recommendation calls for mandatory disclosure by the industry of chemicals used in the fracking process.
The panel argues that a voluntary registry created by the Groundwater Protection Council and Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission is inadequate, noting it will allow a “large universe” of chemicals used in fracking to go unreported.
The report notes that “public confidence in the safety of fracturing would be significantly improved by complete disclosure and that the barrier to shield chemicals based on trade secret should be set very high.”
“Therefore the Subcommittee recommends that regulatory entities immediately develop rules to require disclosure of all chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids on both public and private lands,” it states.
However, the report — in a finding likely to be highlighted by industry groups — also notes: “The Subcommittee shares the prevailing view that the risk of fracturing fluid leakage into drinking water sources through fractures made in deep shale reservoirs is remote.”
Elsewhere the wide-ranging report calls for efforts by gas producers in different regions to collect data on emissions of methane and other substances from shale gas operations and make them publicly available, and for industry and regulators to quickly step-up efforts to reduce emissions of methane, ozone precursors and other air pollution.
It also calls for a federal interagency effort to analyze the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas production.
Natural gas emits far fewer greenhouse gases than coal or oil when burned. But recently Cornell University researchers — in a contrarian paper heavily disputed by the industry – attacked the conventional wisdom that natural gas is more climate-friendly, arguing the advantage vanishes when emissions at other stages in the development process are considered.
Elsewhere, the new government report calls for steps to improve water management and for more study of the extent to which methane from shale gas operations could be migrating into water wells.
The report is the first of two from the panel. A second report several months from now will provide further advice to regulators to ensure protection of public health and the safety for the environment.
Deutch, in the interview, struck back at claims that the panel is unbalanced.
“All members of the panel fully disclosed their associations, whether with environmental groups or industry groups and we were selected because of our background and our experience, including our knowledge of industry,” said Deutch, who is currently a board member of Cheniere Energy and a past board member of oilfield services giant Schlumberger. “It is a balanced group.”
Other members of the seven-panel include Stephen Holditch, who heads the petroleum engineering department at Texas A&M University and once worked for Shell Oil Co.; Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp; prominent energy consultant Daniel Yergin; and Kathleen McGinty, who headed the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Clinton and whose current affiliations include the board of the power company NRG Energy.
