Browsing the homepage top stories that included the article regarding the stripped down version of the Energy Bill, I noticed this important line regarding the future of natural gas.
"Providing incentives for turning the nation‘s heavy truck fleet to natural gas and toward electrification of the nation‘s transportation sector."
Those who support natural gas exploration and extraction as a clean energy resource might not have seen "Gaslands". Or you may have, but the writing is on the wall, and I concede that natural gas will be in our future, but it does not mean that I am not concerned with "how" we get to it.
The stripping down of the energy bill may be concerning on many levels, but for those of us in the Marcellus Shale regions, the continued exemption of the gas drilling companies from the Clean Water Act is downright frightening.
Although states have considerable environmental powers to oversee the drilling process, there are many problems that they face, not withstanding lack of sheer manpower to monitor the thousands of rigs scheduled to be drilled. Federal EPA regulators are powerless with the current law or lack of it. Senator Bob Casey and others are trying desperately to repeal the infamous "Halliburton Loophole" before explorations begin by introducing FRAC Act (The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (H.R. 2766),(S. 1215).
What is the Halliburton Loophole? The Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congressmen James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Joe Barton of Texas inserted language to "Amend the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996 to exempt hydraulic fracturing related to oil and gas production . . . and, thus, exclude this practice from . . .regulations related to the protection of underground sources of drinking water."
As reported by The New York Times in February 2010, "Two of the world's largest oil field services companies [Halliburton and BJ Services] have acknowledged to Congress that they used diesel in hydraulic fracturing after telling federal regulators they would stop injecting the fuel near underground water supplies."
Josh Fox, director of "Gaslands", states:
Widespread frustration with state agencies Like COGCC and PA DEP. Frustration among citizens with their state agencies was very common in my travels, in Colorado, in Pennsylvania, in Texas, and in Arkansas. Citizens pointed out time and time again how they felt their state environmental agencies were not up to the job, or even worse, were in cahoots with the gas companies. In Dimock, Pennsylvania, we were told that Cabot Oil and Gas and DEP reps often walked in together with an air of camaraderie; in Texas, complaints about the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the Railroad Commission were rampant. It is indeed part of the thesis of Gasland that state agencies are either overwhelmed or not to be trusted when it comes to gas drilling. Mike and Marsha make that point quite clearly. Among folks living in gaslands, state agencies are not living up to their responsibilities to protect citizens and are widely suspected of corruption....PA DEP secretary John Hanger said there was no
contamination of Dimock’s water in the beginning of his interview, but he promptly reversed his position when I offered him some Dimock water to drink, stating that the families that had been contaminated had been given replacement water by the gas companies.
I support, along with many of the readers here, new clean energy resources, but we must be mindful that "natural gas" is not a clean free ride as of yet. Due diligence and holding this industry accountable in regards to "clean water" is not only critical, it must be mandatory.