What Does Big Oil and Gas Fear?

0This hydraulic fracturing study seems perfectly reasonable to me.  The EPA should do it.  Why is the Oil and Gas industry opposing it?

A federal study of hydraulic fracturing set to begin this spring is expected to provide the most expansive look yet at how the natural gas drilling process can affect drinking water supplies, according to interviews with EPA officials and a set of documents outlining the scope of the project. The research will take a substantial step beyond previous studies and focus on how a broad range of ancillary activity – not just the act of injecting fluids under pressure – may affect drinking water quality.

The oil and gas industry strongly opposes this new approach. The agency’s intended research "goes well beyond relationships between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water," said Lee Fuller, vice president of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of America in comments (PDF) he submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The "lifecycle" approach will allow the agency to take into account hundreds of reports of water contamination in gas drilling fields across the country. Although the agency hasn’t settled on the exact details, researchers could examine both underground and surface water supplies, gas well construction errors, liquid waste disposal issues and chemical storage plans as part of its assessment.

The EPA begins public hearings today in Washington to nail down the scope of the study.

Plans for the study have attracted international attention and have been the focus of intense debate among lawmakers and the oil and gas industry. The findings could affect Congress’ decision whether to repeal an exemption that shields the fracturing process from federal regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The EPA is undertaking the study in response to a wave of reports of water contamination in drilling areas across the country and a Congressional mandate issued in an appropriations bill last fall. The agency had previously examined hydraulic fracturing in a 2004 study that was limited in scope and was widely criticized.

"When we did the 2004 study we were looking particularly for potential for impacts from hydraulic fracturing fluid underground to underground sources of drinking water," said Cynthia Dougherty, the EPA’s director of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. "So it was a much narrower focus."

For the latest study, the EPA sent its scoping document to its Science Advisory Board asking for the group’s input in designing the fracturing study. In the document, the EPA explained that information gained from looking at the impact from the start to the end of the process, called a lifecycle assessment "can help policymakers understand and make decisions about the breadth of issues related to hydraulic fracturing, including cross-media risks and the relationship to the entire natural gas production cycle."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Alternet>

In order to set a better regulatory policy covering drilling for gas, we need to understand the environmental costs and risks involved in this process.  Only then can we set a policy that mandates procedures that minimize the risk of ground water contamination and procedures to repair environmental damage as part of the cost of production.  If the study discovers that the process is benign, it could result in less regulation to the oil and gas industry.

To me it seems probable that the oil and gas industry have already done sufficient research on their own, knows that they are contaminating ground water, and kept the results secret.  They do not want to bear the cost of preventing environmental damage, and they want to externalize the cost of environmental clean-up by leaving it for taxpayers.

Corporations have no consciences.  They exist only to make profit.  As we have seen that for Big Coal, profit trumps the lives and safety of miners, for Big Oil and Gas, profit trumps the need for clean water.  They cannot be trusted.  They have the GOP in their pocket.