Talk:Regulation of fracking

--Lkashef (talk) 18:31, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I am planning on working on amending this article. The first issue that I will be addressing is that there no actual policies are mentioned throughout this article. In the introduction, there is a brief overview how bans have come and gone, yet no specific policies have been mentioned. Furthermore, this article also failed to mention in the introduction that along with being exempt from the United States’ Safe Drinking Water Act, it is also exempt from the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NRDC) With the Clean Air Act, there has been slight governance in 2012 when it was ruled that there must be a limit to the emissions of air pollutants from fracking[1].

This article was clearly written before the EPA resealed their 2014 study on fracking, and needs to be updated to contain this information. This study highlights the most environmentally harmful practices involved in fracking, which mainly include spills, improper dumping, and ground water contamination (EPA).[2] The recommendations of this study were to be mindful of low water availability, increase spill management, and to cease injecting chemicals directly into ground water ensure no further water contamination. These recommendations could shape future policies and should be included as well. These updates should be added to the Risk-based approach section as an update.

Finally, in the last section, Institutional discourse and the public I would expand on the final sentence where it discusses the Fracking Rule. In March 2015, the Bureau of Land Management issued the Fracking Rule, “imposing stringent well casing and wastewater storage requirements, as well as requiring drillers to disclose what chemicals they are using in fracking operations”.[3] This law has since been removed from the website as the Trump Administration has taken over.

Overall, there is a lack of mention of policies that are being discussed and decided on today, as well as outdated information. A current and proposed policy section should be added into this article to highlight what is being done to improve upon fracking and the environment, as well as state regulations.

"Fracking" (PDF). NRDC.gov. February 2013. EPA,ORD, US. "Executive Summary, Hydraulic Fracturing Study - Final Assessment 2016". www.epa.gov. Retrieved 2017-04-18. "BLM Had Authority To Craft Fracking Rule, 10th Circ. Told - Law360". www.law360.com. Retrieved 2017-04-18.