The argument that the federal government needs to leave the oversight of hydraulic fracturing to states is an old one, but the volume seems to have been cranked up on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.

The interesting thing this time around is that no one seems to be arguing back.

House members and senators, most of them Republicans, have been stepping up the claims that state officials understand the unique geologies of their states better than a federal bureaucrat, that regulation crafted in Washington, DC will not work in a gas field in North Dakota or Wyoming and that more rules will only lead to less production.

“We should be encouraging production… not stifling it,” said Representative Doc Hastings, a Washington Republican and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Hastings’ comments came during a hearing on HR 2728, the Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act (HR 2728), one of several bills aimed at leaving oversight of oil and gas fracking to states. It’s probably a safe bet that this, or other similar bills, will come to a full House vote when Congress returns from its recess in September.

The chances of a similar Senate vote are much slimmer and a veto from President Obama is a near certainty.
During this week’s hearing, Republicans framed attempts to boost federal oversight of fracking as a government overstep, costing a booming, jobs-rich industry both time and money and burying domestic energy production in red tape.

But recent statements from the Obama administration may signal that all this righteous fury may be woefully misplaced.
Hours after taking office this spring, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell indicated that she had no desire to press for additional federal oversight of fracking.

“One thing that’s clear to me from my own experiences is that one size doesn’t fit all,” Jewell said, echoing a well-trod industry argument against new federal oversight.

And Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who has become a cheerleader for natural gas as a bridge fuel to a low carbon economy, has backed the role of states in regulating hydraulic fracturing.

“I think in the end there has to be a very, very strong state role there” for states, Moniz said in an interview in June on “Platts Energy Week.”

Much of the concern comes from Interior’s Bureau of Land Management proposed rule to regulate fracking on federal lands, but environmentalists have blasted that proposal as being weaker than the regulations already in place in most states. In addition, many Republicans have expressed concerns over a multi-year study the Environmental Protection Agency is set to complete next year on the impact of fracking on groundwater. Many Republicans have said they believe the administration will use this study to justify sweeping new rules over fracking, although there have been no concrete signals this is likely.

This fear was apparent in a letter seven senior Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent this week to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. These Republicans pressed McCarthy on how EPA’s decisions to abandon investigations into groundwater contamination initially linked to fracking operations in Wyoming, Texas and Pennsylvania will weigh on the agency’s broader probe.

The fears of a regulatory overreach by BLM or a sweeping new regulatory push by EPA are nothing new, but last week a key senator may have open a new battlefront in the feared fracking oversight fracas.

In a speech at a Bipartisan Policy Center event, Senator Ron Wyden, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, unveiled an idea – he was careful not to call it a proposal – that would give states jurisdiction over “below-ground” gas and oil production while giving the federal government more of a role overseeing “above-ground” activity.
While still in its early stages of development, the rule would create uniform rules on spill reporting and chemical-disclosure requirements.

Wyden said idea is to address the industry’s argument that regulation of hydraulic fracturing in particular should be left to the states while also tackling concerns about transparency regarding fracking-related activities.

It would also give some validity to those long-standing fears that congressional Republicans have had, since it would give federal officials unprecedented oversight of gas and oil production on private and state lands.

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