THE CASE AGAINST HYDROFRACKING - Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 60

used, over 650 of them contained “known or possible human carcinogens, regu-
lated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as hazardous air pollutants.” The
report also revealed that between 2005 and 2009, 279 products had at least one
component listed as “proprietary” on their Occupational Safety and Health Admin-
istration (OSHA) material safety data sheet, meaning that the company that pro-
duced and used it chose not to make it public. The congressional committee noted
that “Companies are injecting fluids containing unknown chemicals about which
they may have limited understanding of the potential risks posed to human health
and the environment.” 50
As for the small percentage of chemicals that are kept confidential, energy of-
ficials defend the use of trade secrets as necessary for innovation. This position is
controversial, not least because every one million gallons of fluid blasted under-
ground contains 10,000 gallons of chemicals. 51 Without knowing what chemicals
are being used, it is impossible to test a site for them. While under the Safe Drink-
ing Water Act the EPA regulated most types of underground fluid injection, the
2005 energy bill—permitting the “Halliburton Loophole”—stripped the agency of
its authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing, and hence to determine whether the
chemicals it uses are dangerous.
As noted in the previous chapter, the argument behind this special exemption
was that state regulations sufficiently protect the environment, and that companies
should be able to withhold the identity and amount of chemicals used as a trade
secret. The result is that drilling regulation is left to a patchwork of state laws, and
it is up to drillers to decide what constitutes a trade secret. 52
This has hydrofracking opponents howling that the fox has been left to guard
the chicken coop. According to the EPA website, “Several statutes may be lever-
aged to protect water quality, but EPA's central authority to protect drinking water
is drawn from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The protection of [drinking
water] is focused in the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program, which reg-
ulates the subsurface emplacement of fluid.” 53 The site goes on to point out that
while the Energy Policy Act of 2005 “provided for exclusions to UIC authority,”
and specifically excluded hydrofracking from its regulation, some aspects of it, in-
cluding the use of diesel fuel in fracking, was still regulated by the UIC program. In
1986, Congress enacted EPCRA—the Emergency Planning and Community Right
to Know Act—a statute that requires drillers to maintain detailed information about
each additive used in hydrofracking, information that should be available to feder-
al, state, and local governments, to help first responders in case of an emergency
(such as a well blowout). But fracking opponents say EPCRA does not help the