The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with input from the departments of Interior and Energy, industry and the states, is expected “very shortly” to issue permitting guidance to oil and natural gas producers on the use of diesel in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson last Tuesday.

The EPA “is looking at its regulatory authority to find those places where [it] needs to provide, if not guidance, some direction” with respect to fracking fluids, she said at the Energy Information Administration’s annual conference in Washington, DC. “And the place where we do have a gap right now is…diesel injection,” Jackson told a crowd of more than 700 energy executives and policymakers.

“We now know that companies are using diesel. They’re injecting it as part of the fracking process,” she said. An inquiry by House Democrats, the results of which were released earlier this year, found that oil and natural gas companies injected more than 32 million gallons of diesel fuel or fracking fluids containing diesel fuel in wells in 19 states between 2005 and 2009 (see NGI, Feb. 7).

The guidance specifically would clarify the requirements for producers who are seeking underground injection control permits for the use of diesel as an ingredient in the fracturing of shale gas rock, according to Jackson.

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) exempts fracking from federal regulation. “Our belief is that this [use of diesel in fracking] is not exempt” under the SDWA, Jackson said. But others dispute this interpretation. Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) spokeswoman Ramona Nye earlier this year said language included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) relating to the use of diesel fuel in fracking “is extremely unclear and is open to interpretation,” making it uncertain if the use of diesel fuel in fracking operations is a violation of the SDWA. Nye noted that RRC regulations do not prohibit the use of diesel fuel in fracking activities.

Congress has been debating for years the issue of whether the federal government should repeal the SDWA to allow federal regulation of fracking. Critics contend that federal overrsight is needed because the practice poses significant risks to the public health and the environment, while producers argue otherwise. In March Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) reintroduced legislation to increase regulation of fracking (see NGI, March 21).

His legislation would repeal the exemption for all fracking fluids under the SDWA and require companies to disclose the chemicals they use during the process. Casey originally introduced the bill in June 2009, but the bill died in committee.

Asked about the blowout of the Chesapeake Energy well in the Marcellus Shale in northeast Pennsylvania, Jackson said, “We generally…prefer to allow the states to [be] the first level of response,” although she added “we do have a regulatory” role to play.

The New York Times reported last week that there was an battle going on within the EPA over whether the agency should intercede in Pennsylvania following a well blowout at a Chesapeake Energy Corp. site on April 19 (see related story).

If EPA action is called for, “Let me say…all our regional offices will handle [any] concerns,” Jackson said.

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