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Waxman questions EPA monitoring of key extraction method |
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The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is questioning U.S. EPA efforts to protect groundwater from petroleum industry efforts to boost production from oil-and-gas wells.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) raised questions about agency oversight of hydraulic fracturing in a letter sent yesterday to EPA Assistant Administrator Benjamin Grumbles.
At issue is a technique that involves the injection of diesel fuel into rock seams to increase oil and gas production. Three companies signed a 2003 memorandum of agreement with EPA requiring that they use non-diesel fluids, but Waxman is accusing EPA of lax enforcement of the agreement.
In written testimony at a hearing before Waxman's committee last month, Grumbles said Halliburton Energy Services, Schlumberger Technology Corp. and BJ Services Co. "have certified in written reports that they have converted to non-diesel fluids and are in full compliance with the MOA."
But Waxman countered that the reports were no more than "a hastily collected set of three e-mails amounting to just half a dozen sentences."
"The basis for your statement appears to be less than impressive," Waxman wrote. Moreover, he said, EPA received the e-mails two days before the hearing, with one arriving minutes before Grumbles was to testify.
"If EPA has a solid basis for its assurances that these companies are not using diesel fuel when fracturing oil and gas wells, please provide it to the Committee," Waxman wrote. He asked Grumbles to reply by Dec. 12.
EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said the agency would respond but declined to comment further.
Waxman also noted that two of the three e-mails did not expressly state that the companies no longer use diesel. "Only BJ Services explicitly states that diesel fuel is no longer used," he wrote. "This is relevant because a company can be in compliance with the MOA and still use diesel as a fracturing fluid."
Waxman also sent letters to the CEOs of the three companies and to the president and CEO of Encana Corp. requesting documents showing the number of wells the companies hydraulically fractured in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and proof of the chemical makeup and total volume of their production during those years. He requested evidence of the percentage of products derived from hydraulic fracturing and for any documents related to the products' health and environmental effects
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Last Updated ( Friday, 21 December 2007 )
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