“Discussion Draft” of First-Ever California Fracking Regulations
Raises a Howl from Environmentalists After 50 years of drilling
for oil and gas using the controversial practice of hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, the state of California has finally
proposed regulations for the previously unmonitored process―and
some environmental groups find them wholly lacking. The Center
for Biological Diversity called “discussion draft” regulations
by the California Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil,
Gas, and Geothermal Resources fatally flawed because they “would
keep California's fracking shrouded in secrecy and do little to
contain the many threats posed by fracking.” Kassy Siegel,
director of the center’s Climate Law Institute, said the
proposal was “worse than nothing” and is going to have to be
“completely rewritten if the goal is to provide real protection
for our air, water and communities.” Fracking entails injecting
millions of gallons of pressurized water, chemicals (some
toxic), sand and other sub