Oil firms are pledging to step up disclosure of fracking operations in California as the Brown administration and state lawmakers move to write rules governing the controversial procedure.
The Western States Petroleum Assn. on Tuesday released the results of a membership survey showing that major oil companies used hydraulic fracturing on 628 wells in the state in 2011, the overwhelming majority of which were located in Kern County. The information was first reported last month to regulators who requested it amid public and legislative pressure.
California, the fourth-largest oil producing state in the country, does not require oil companies to disclose where they use the procedure or what chemicals they inject into the ground to tap oil deposits. Other states have imposed moratoriums and drawn up rules after toxic chemicals were discovered in drinking water near fracking operations.
California has clearly gone off the deep end.
They are $16 Billion in debt, but they want to ban an *extremely* profitable technique for developing one of their major natural resources (and thus collecting huge tax revenues!) not based on any proven risk (there has never been a case of environmental or human disasterfrom fracking) but based only on their hysterical *fear* that something awkward *might* happen.
I say let them ban it, and wallow in their self-imposed misery until they are willing to change their ways. I figure about a generation or two should drive environmentalism into extinction
I keep seeing the same disproven warnings “toxic chemicals discovered in drinking water near fracking operations” attached to “news stories”. I hope someone who reads the Times calls them on it.