Big changes could be coming to the nation’s booming fracking industry. The Obama Administration announced today new regulations for fracking on public lands.
It’s a move that is sure to ruffle some feathers throughout the oil and natural gas industry.
Fracking is an oil mining process in which chemicals are blasted into shale rocks at high pressure. Environmental experts are concerned about what those chemicals could wind up doing to the nation’s water supplies.
The regulations will require companies to disclose the chemicals that they use while mining, and will allow government inspectors to investigate chemical storage and mining practices at will. Most fracking is done on private lands, however, which means the new regulations won’t apply to some of the nation’s largest suppliers. Roughly 100,000 oil wells fall under the new guidelines.
Today on AirTalk, Larry Mantle talks to experts on both sides of the debate about the effect that these new laws will have on the industry and the environment.
Guests:
Amy Mall, land policy expert with the National Resources Defense Council
John Felmy, chief economist with the American Petroleum Institute