GOP lawmaker warns Interior’s fracking rule could lead to cascade of new regs

A House Republican seeking to thwart the Interior Department’s (DOI) regulation of fracking, the controversial oil-and-gas development method, said he’s trying to prevent what he believes will become a cascade of rules from multiple federal agencies.

Interior’s draft rules envision deferring to state regulations unless they’re weaker than the planned federal rules or don’t exist. But Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) predicted on Platts Energy Week TV that federal rules would grow from there, noting “that’s’ the way a lot of federal regulations start.”

{mosads}“What concerns me about the DOI’s proposal is that it is the nose under the tent, if they can get in and say OK, we are only going to regulate where there states have no regulations or we feel like the regulations are not strong enough, then eventually you get a national standard over an area that they really don’t have the expertise to deal with and more importantly they don’t have the federal statutory authority to do it, and again, the states do a great job,” he said in the interview broadcast Sunday.

Interior’s planned rules would govern chemical disclosure and other elements of hydraulic fracturing on federal and Indian land, not fracking on state and private lands in Pennsylvania, North Dakota and elsewhere that has driven much of the nation’s oil-and-gas production boom.

But Flores, a former oil-and-gas industry executive, said the Obama administration is “determined to try to regulate hydraulic fracturing” through multiple federal agencies.

A panel of the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on Flores’ legislation that would block the looming Interior regulations last Thursday. Flores predicted that the bill will eventually pass the full House.

“I would expect that this bill will ultimately wind up being part of a HEAT package of bills that hits the House floor,” he said, referring to the GOP’s House Energy Action Team (HEAT) that’s led by Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).