ENVIRONMENTAL
GROUPS SUE EPA TO FORCE FRACKING CHEMICALS DISCLOSURE
A coalition of advocacy groups sued the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency for public access to information on toxic chemicals released
by the energy industry through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other
forms of oil and gas drilling.
Fracking involves the injection of water, chemicals and
sand below ground to extract oil and gas from shale formations. The process has
been criticized as environmentally dangerous, even as its use has driven U.S.
natural gas production to new highs amid litigation across the country.
Wednesday’s lawsuit, filed in Washington federal court,
follows a petition by the groups to the regulator in 2012 seeking a rule that
would require oil and gas companies to disclose such pollution to a government
database.
“Because federal and state disclosure requirements are
full of gaps and exemptions and otherwise have not kept pace with industry
expansion, public information about the oil and gas extraction industry’s use
and release of these toxic chemicals remains scant,” Adam Kron, a lawyer for
the Environmental Integrity Project, wrote in the complaint.
The need for disclosure is particularly pressing now
because the boom in fracking has increased the variety and volume of toxic
chemicals released into the air, ground and water, according to the lawsuit.
Liz Purchia, an EPA spokeswoman, declined to comment on
the complaint.
Toxic Disclosure
The nine environmental and open-government groups
bringing the suit want the EPA to require that oil and gas companies join coal
mines, electric utilities and other industries in reporting deadly chemicals
used or released to the Toxic Release Inventory database.
The suit was criticized by a petroleum industry advocate
as an attempt to force oil and gas producers into an unnecessary reporting
requirement.
“What EIP fails to grasp, and has actually refused to
acknowledge for several years, is that the TRI was never intended to cover oil
and gas production, which is already subject to numerous environmental
regulations at the state and federal level,” said Steve Everley, a spokesman
for the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
New Industries
EPA has the authority to add industries to the
disclosure program and the agency considered doing so for oil and gas producers, according to
Kron, the EIP attorney.
“At the end of the day, the TRI is just asking that you
put your data on the table,” Kron said earlier in a phone interview.
More than 400 measures to prevent or control fracking
have been passed by U.S. cities and counties, according to Food & Water
Watch, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group.
While New York’s highest court ruled in June that the
state’s municipalities
can ban the practice, a
voter-enacted prohibition in Longmont, Colorado, was struck down by
a state court judge in July.
Some states mandate reporting of fracking chemicals to
FracFocus, an industry-supported public database.
Critics of FracFocus say it is inadequate because it
leaves it up to oil and gas companies to decide which chemicals are trade
secrets exempt from disclosure.
The case is Environmental Integrity Project v. U.S. EPA,
15-cv-17, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).