EPA Plan to Wrap Up Fracking Review in 2014 ‘Goofy,’ Deutch Says
The Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to wait until 2014 to finish studying the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water is “a little bit goofy,” the head of a U.S. shale-gas committee said.
The seven-member Energy Department panel, led by former CIA Director John Deutch, has a 90-day deadline to identify immediate steps to improve the safety of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, a technology that injects chemicals and water into rock formations to free trapped natural gas.
“I am concerned about the time schedule” for the EPA’s final report, Deutch said today during a meeting of his natural- gas subcommittee in Washington. To let three years pass “seems to me a little bit goofy from the point of view of industry interest or public interest,” he said.
Environmental groups are concerned that fracking to aid natural gas drilling, particularly in the Marcellus Shale formation in the eastern U.S., is tainting drinking water.
The initial report of the Energy Department advisory board subcommittee is due about Aug. 18, Tiffany Edwards, an agency spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
The Environmental Protection Agency will provide periodic updates on its study, Paul Anastas, the agency’s assistant administrator for research and development, told the Energy Department’s panel today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Wingfield in Washington at bwingfield3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net
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