On August 28, 2015, WLF filed formal comments with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), urging the agency to revise its recent draft report on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) to make more explicit its findings that fracking poses no threat to drinking water. Fracking is a technological innovation that makes it possible to economically extract oil and gas resources that were previously inaccessible. Congress requested EPA to undertake a study to determine whether fracking poses a threat to drinking water. A close reading of EPA’s draft report reveals that EPA found no evidence that fracking poses such a threat, but the draft report does not say so explicitly. WLF urged EPA to revise its report to make its safety findings more explicit, in order to quell unwarranted claims being made by fracking opponents. In particular, it should state that fracking does not threaten to pollute ground or surface water when conducted in accordance with existing state regulations.
