Growing Hydraulic Fracturing Operations Have Not Caused Any Groundwater Contamination

Harold Fitch, the man charged with overseeing Michigan's 15,000 oil and gas wells, told a House subcommittee Friday that growing hydraulic fracturing operations in his state have not caused any groundwater contamination or any other serious environmental risks. 

While issues have arisen over flowback water and increased water withdrawals for drilling operations, Michigan has addressed these with new state regulations, such as new requirements for monitoring water withdrawals, said Fitch, director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's office of oil, gas and minerals. 

Despite a push from environmentalists to get the federal government more involved in oversight of fracking operations, Fitch and other state officials who testified before the subcommittee on Environment and the Economy stressed that this was unnecessary. 

"Michigan's oil and gas statutes, regulations and administrative procedures are tailored to the legal structure and doctrines, environmental conditions, geology, topography, climate and community sensitivities specific to our state," Fitch said in his testimony. "A one-size-fits-all federal approach would not be as effective or efficient in accommodating these unique issues." 

Matthew Lepore, director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates the state's more than 50,000 oil and gas wells, said since the start of the domestic oil and gas boom his state has imposed several regulations to address environmental concerns. These include a controversial fracking fluid disclosure and groundwater testing rules and a rule enacted Monday mandating new "setback" rules establishing distances between oil and gas facilities and occupied buildings. 

Lepore said that states were "perfectly capable" of setting their oil and gas policy and said that while there is a role for the federal government, specifically in research, regulation should be left to the states. 

"There is no one on my staff that is interested in seeing oil and gas development adversely impact the environment," Lepore said. 

The hearing came amid growing fears by congressional Republicans that the Obama administration will use the Environmental Protection Agency's impending study on the impact of fracking on drinking water to heavily regulate or even ban the drilling practice.

While Democrats at the hearing stopped well short of calling for a fracking ban, Representatives Jerry McNerney, a California Democrat, and Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, said they would like to see a federal rule requiring fracking fluid disclosure. 

DeGette said she plans next month to reintroduce the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC Act), which would remove an exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act and require disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking fluids. 

Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and the committee's ranking member, said state regulators are constrained by actions of their state legislatures, making for sometimes ineffective regulation. 

"The states' track records are not flawless," Waxman said. 

In her testimony, state Representative Pricey Harrison, a North Carolina Democrat, said that "state efforts to protect the environment and public health have time and again proven insufficient to attain the level of environmental protection demanded by the American people." 

But Republicans at the hearing stressed states, rather than the federal government, were best suited to regulate drilling. 

"Only those policies that impact citizens from more than one state should be made by the federal government," said Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican and the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. 

"It is well-known that the states, rather than EPA, have been dominating the regulatory space for hydraulic fracturing for decades," said John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican and chairman of the subcommittee. "When you consider the amount of additional resources and new experience that would need to be infused into EPA to replace what states already do well, it defies conventional budgetary wisdom that this is a good public policy move."