WASHINGTON DC – U.S. Reps Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Jared Polis (D-CO), and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) led 38 House members in urging the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) to strengthen its draft rule to require gas companies to publicly disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations on public and Indian lands.  In a letter sent today to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the House members urged the agency to require the disclosure of chemicals used in fracking before drilling begins, not just after as required in the draft rules.

"While we believe the draft rule released by the Department of Interior is a good first step to increase transparency regarding chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process, we urge you to strengthen the final rule by expanding the public disclosure requirement to apply both before and after hydraulic fracturing operations begin," the House members wrote in their letter to Salazar. "Before hydraulic fracturing operations begin, the public has a right to know what types of chemicals might be going into the ground near their communities, as well as what chemicals will be stored and transported, so that they have the option of conducting baseline water tests and take other precautions to safeguard their surface and ground water supplies.

Prior to publicly releasing its draft proposal, the DOI was privately working on a plan that would have required oil and gas companies to disclose the proposed chemicals they sought to use in the fracking process before operations commenced and the actual chemical constituents and percentage by mass after the operations were completed.  That pre-drilling requirement was ultimately dropped from the proposed draft that DOI issued on May 4.  The agency's draft proposal currently on the table only requires companies to disclose the chemicals used within a month of completion of the fracturing job.

Hinchey is a leader in Congress of the effort to protect drinking water and the environment from the risks of hydraulic fracturing. He is a co-author of the FRAC Act, which would mandate public disclosure of chemicals used in frack fluid before and after drilling takes place and allow the EPA to regulate fracking activities under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The congressman also authored the appropriations language that led to the current EPA study on hydraulic fracturing.