Energy companies oppose tougher regs on gas drilling
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WASHINGTON -- The oil industry's leading trade group, trying to fend off mounting concerns about hydraulic fracturing used to extract natural gas, warned Thursday that tougher government regulations threaten jobs, the economy and the abundance of low-cost fuel.
As many as 80 percent of natural gas wells drilled in the United States over the next decade are likely to use hydraulic fracturing techniques to extract the energy source, said Sara Banaszak, a senior economist for the American Petroleum Institute.
"Hydraulic fracturing is safe, and lawmakers should be cautious in their efforts to restrict it," she said in a conference call with reporters. "Adding unnecessary additional regulation of this practice could kill jobs and important economic activity and also hamper our nation's energy security."
The API's effort comes as several state and local governments consider new restrictions on hydraulic fracturing, including banning the practice altogether. The Pittsburgh City Council earlier this week voted unanimously to forbid natural gas drilling.
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania regulators worked Thursday to modernize the state's environmental protection laws, proposing new and tougher safety standards for well-drilling crews in the vast Marcellus Shale reservoir. The Independent Regulatory Review Commission, gatekeeper of state regulations, unanimously approved a set of standards at its meeting that will be published and finalized no later than January.
Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger's agency wrote the proposal, the latest of several sets of regulations to protect waterways and drinking water supplies from natural gas migrating underground, well-site chemical spills and the massive volumes of toxic sludge that comes out of newly drilled wells.
First Published November 19, 2010 12:00 am
