Trump agency rescinds Obama fracking rules
WASHINGTON — The Interior Department has rescinded a 2015 Obama administration rule that would have set new environmental limitations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public lands.
The regulation from the Bureau of Land Management, which had been opposed by the oil and gas industry and tied up in court, would have tightened standards for well construction and wastewater management and also required the disclosure of the chemicals contained in fracking fluids. It probably would have driven up the cost for many fracking activities.
It had been held in up litigation and had not taken effect; a Wyoming district court said it exceeded the agency’s authority.
Reversing the regulation, the Interior Department said Friday, clears up that legal question and also lifts a costly regulation for the industry, in line with President Donald Trump’s agenda to slash regulations and advance the United States’ “energy dominance.”
The agency said that rescinding the rule would save “up to $9,690 per well, or approximately $14 million to $34 million per year,” in industry compliance costs. It also noted that because of state, tribal and existing federal regulations, the move “would not leave hydraulic fracturing operations unregulated.”
Mike Freeman, an attorney with EarthJustice who defended the nowrepealed regulation in court, countered that it “was a reasonable and long overdue update of the agency’s old regulations, adopted in the early 1980s, about 35 years ago, and they were developed long before modern fracking became common.”
The current decision affects only public lands, which are a fraction of the total area used in fracking activities, but a significant one.
Industry groups hailed the decision.
Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute said: “If the rule were allowed to continue, development in several states, such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, could have been especially hard hit with slowed permitting and limited access to public lands, stunting economic growth and pushing away jobs.”