Fracking may come to the state sooner than environmental activists had hoped after a state Senate committee failed to pass a bill this week that would ban the controversial gas extraction technique for 18 months.
The bill’s fate is now in the hands of delegates on the House Environmental Matters Committee, who are scheduled to hear it today. The legislation would prevent oil and natural gas companies from using hydraulic fracturing — a process that uses highly pressurized water and chemicals to obtain previously unreachable oil and gas from shale rock formations — until the state completes studies to determine its environmental effects.
And the debate reached the campus last week when the Student Government Association could not agree on a bill that would have supported a ban. The legislature ultimately voted 21 to 2 to table the decision indefinitely.
Opponents of a ban point to the economic implications for the state and country, as U.S. oil production has reached its highest level in 15 years and the boom has led to more than a half million jobs. But environmentalists, including Del. Heather Mizeur (D-Montgomery), the House bill’s sponsor, note that because fracking’s environmental impacts are still not completely understood, the state should not be so quick to drill.
At the SGA meeting, Grace Sweeney, a member of Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit organization, said investing in fracking would not fall in line with the university’s green goals. Instead, she said, it would only encourage the state’s dependence on “dirty fossil fuel that will run out eventually.”
Gov. Martin O’Malley set aside $1.5 million in his proposed budget for fiscal year 2014 to study fracking. He also issued an executive order that prohibits the state’s environmental department from approving drilling permits until the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative completes its study.
By next year, a final report should be done evaluating the risks and benefits of fracking for public health and the local economy, Mizeur said. Although O’Malley’s proposed funding is a “good start,” Mizeur said, it’s not enough to conduct all the necessary research, which she said would likely cost about $4 million.
“I am skeptical of hydraulic fracturing”, she said. “But as long as we don’t have enough facts, we simply don’t know which approach we should take.”
Fracking would have “severe health effects” on state residents, said J.T. Stanley, the SGA bill’s sponsor. He noted the drilling process requires about 600 chemicals and could risk polluting drinking water if there are spills.
Other legislators, however, simply argued an SGA vote should not anticipate a state decision.
While Mizeur’s bill and the Senate bill would only temporarily ban fracking, Sen. Karen Montgomery (D-Montgomery) and Del. Shane Robinson (D-Montgomery) took their bills one step further. The legislation calls for a ban on the entire drilling process and on depositing wastewater caused by fracking.
Fracking is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), a federal law that ensures the quality of Americans’ drinking water. Under SDWA, the Environmental Protection Agency sets standards for drinking water quality and oversees the states, localities and water suppliers who implement those standards.
