Two Developments Bode Well for Fracking’s Future

It hasn’t been a good month or so for those who want to stop the practice of fracking. That’s because two significant cases have dispelled misinformation about fracking and dealt a blow to federal attempts to regulate it.

First, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) concluded a major study that looked at fracking practices off the coast of California, finding no significant environmental impacts. As reported in The Hill and elsewhere, the two federal agencies reviewed data from twenty-three drilling platforms off the coast of California for a period dating from 1982 through 2014. The results were not what anti-fracking forces were expecting.

See the Official Finding Here

“The comprehensive analysis shows that these practices, conducted according to permit requirements, have minimal impact,” BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement.

“Overall, most resources will not be impacted or impacts will be negligible,” the report goes on to state. “In some cases where impacts are somewhat more pronounced, such as with discharge of produced water, the impacts are minor, short-term and localized.”

Offshore fracking permits had been suspended in the state until further study could be completed. These new findings open the door for further energy development off of California’s coast.

Second, a federal judge in Wyoming ruled last month that federal regulators lack the authority to set rules for fracking, dealing a blow to those who want to curtail the extraction of fossil fuels. According to a report from the Associated Press, “U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl said the Bureau of Land Management can’t set the rules because Congress has not authorized it to do so. The judge, who was nominated by Obama in 2011, wrote that the court’s role is not to decide whether hydraulic fracturing is good or bad for the environment, but to interpret whether Congress has given the Department of Interior legal authority to regulate the practice.”

Officials in Colorado, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming have opposed the Bureau of Land Management’s attempt to regulate fracking, a significant source of both energy and jobs in those states. The ruling in U.S. District Court means that federal authorities will have a tougher time standing in the way of fracking’s future. It also means a setback to the administration’s environmental and energy agenda, which many have argued is built on overreaching federal authority and circumventing Congress. It could also be a setback for anyone wanting to extend President Obama’s environmental agenda in a future presidency.

In an article published in the Wall Street Journal, Amy Harder explains, “That bodes trouble for the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, who has vowed to continue and double down on Mr. Obama’s environmental agenda irrespective of Congress’ interest in working with her if she wins the election in November.”

For their part, the American people are largely committed to the use of American fossil fuels to grow the economy and build energy independence. In fact, a recent poll commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API) finds that a majority of Americans support the expanded production of U.S. oil and gas. According to API CEO Jack Gerard, the survey “makes clear that when it comes to energy, what matters to most Americans is that they want and expect reliable and affordable energy.”

Fracking is, of course, just part of the nation’s energy puzzle. But it is an important part, one that policy makers would do well to protect. These recent developments are a step in the right direction.