Congress May Close Huge Drilling Industry Loophole that Threatens Clean Drinking Water
By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica. Posted May 26, 2009.
Excerpt:
"The drilling process involves injecting millions of gallons of water and sand mixed with tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals -- some that are known to cause cancer -- deep into the ground, where as much as a third of those fluids typically remain after the gas is removed".
Congress is having second thoughts about the environmental dangers posed by the burgeoning gas drilling industry.
Four years after Vice President Dick Cheney spearheaded a massive energy bill that exempted natural gas drilling from federal clean water laws, Congress is having second thoughts about the environmental dangers posed by the burgeoning industry.
With growing evidence that the drilling can damage water supplies, Democratic leaders in Congress are circulating legislation that would repeal the extraordinary exemption and for the first time require companies to disclose all chemicals used in the key drilling process, called hydraulic fracturing.
The proposed legislation has already stirred sharp debate.
