Appropriation

California’s first legislative attempt (AB 591) to address hydraulic fracturing (fracking) will be placed in the state Senate Appropriation Committee’s suspense file when the legislature returns from its summer recess. It is then to be voted on closer to the end of the legislative session in an appropriations panel meeting. The bill is aimed at chemical disclosure of fracking chemicals. The bill’s author, Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, said “several reports” from the oil and gas industry suggest that California is on the “cusp of a boom” in unconventional oil and gas recovery. Chemicals used and sources and amounts of water in the fracking process would be disclosed as a result of AB 591, Wieckowski said.