Resistance to fracking disclosure may be 'Achilles' heel': Salazar

Washington (Platts)--14Feb2012/341 pm EST/2041 GMT

Concerns over potential contamination of drinking water from hydraulic fracturing could be allayed by new rules requiring disclosure of fracking chemicals that the US Interior Department will roll out in the coming weeks, and a failure to be transparent about the ingredients may doom the industry, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday.

Salazar said the department would soon release three rules to guide fracking on more than 700 million acres of federal land. The rules will require companies to fully disclose chemicals used in fracking fluid, set requirements to ensure the integrity of well bores and require companies to manage flowback water so it does not contaminate streams, Salazar said during a speech in Cleveland.

"To me, those rules are common sense," Salazar said in his speech to the City Club of Cleveland, which was broadcast online. "And if we do not move forward with that kind of program from the Department of Interior, my own view is that the failure of disclosure and the failure of giving the American people confidence that hydraulic fracturing will in fact work will end up being the Achilles heel of the energy promise of America."

Salazar said the rules will be formally released in the next several weeks, and he said he hoped they would serve as a template for state and federal regulation of fracking on private lands that are outside of Interior's jurisdiction.

The secretary also stressed the administration's broad support for natural gas in an effort to rebut industry criticisms of the impending regulations. Salazar pointed to President Barack Obama's pro-gas sentiments during the State of the Union address earlier this month and ongoing efforts to provide incentives for increased natural gas use in the transportation sector as evidence of that support.

A draft of the upcoming DOI disclosure rule obtained earlier this month by Platts drew some initial concern from industry groups. For example, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America said at the time that Interior should do a better job of incorporating the voluntary FracFocus disclosure database into its rulemaking.

During a question-and-answer session at the City Club, one audience member confronted Salazar with a different view. The man began to cry as he told the secretary of that his water well had been deemed explosive because of excess gas and that two of his neighbors were recently diagnosed with cancer, outcomes he blamed on fracking activity that had recently started near their property.

Salazar sympathized with the man's story, but maintained his overall support for continued gas development in Ohio and elsewhere. He said the potential contamination may have been caused by a drilling company acting irresponsibly and said that rules like the ones Interior is planning to release could prevent similar problems in the future.

--Nick Juliano, nicholas_juliano@platts.com

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