If there was any doubt before, there isn't now: Many in Texas believe the state is fighting an outside invader again. This time, however, the enemy is not armies from Mexico, but aggressive bureaucrats from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
"In recent years, EPA has taken increasingly greater liberties regarding its jurisdiction in an attempt to gain control of regulation of the oil and gas industry," Texas Railroad Commissioner David J. Porter said on Feb. 5. "The power to regulate this industry, and many others, has always been an expressed right of individual states."
States are more acutely aware of the wide range of factors when formulating effective regulations, he told the US House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. "For example, geology, hydrology, climate, topography, historical development of the field or shale, state and federal laws, population density, and local economies all must be considered," Porter said.
"Frankly, it is impossible to craft 'one-size-fits-all' regulations that effectively govern every oil field or shale play across the United States," he maintained.
Porter said EPA made spectacular announcements about gas resource development impacts on drinking water that it later had to withdraw or substantially modify not only in Parker County, Tex., in 2010, but subsequently in Dimock, Pa., and Pavilion, Wyo. "The federal agency appears to be developing a habit of capturing the public's attention with sensational accusations only to later discreetly back-pedal on its claims," he observed.
BLM's fracing proposals
The US Bureau of Land Management also appears to be champing at the bit to oversee hydraulic fracturing, according to Bernard L. Weinstein, associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business in Dallas.
BLM wants to make drilling companies disclose all chemicals used in frac fluids, tighten well bore integrity standards, and develop water management plans for flowback fluids, he told the committee. EPA, meanwhile, is studying fracing's potential impact on drinking water supplies, and is receiving comments on proposals to reduce methane emissions and volatile organic compound releases from fraced wells, Weinstein said.
"These are examples of federal regulators arriving late to a party to which they weren't invited and aren't needed," he declared.
Federal regulators did not testify at the hearing, which also examined proposed power generation requirements originating in Washington. It focused on Texas because the committee's chairman, LaMar Smith (R), is part of the state's congressional delegation.
"The Lone Star State is merely a case study," he said in his opening statement. "So while we will hear testimony today from the perspective of several Texans, the chilling impacts of federal intrusion are felt by residents of every state."