Ohio legislators approve new drilling rules

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Rules reg­u­lat­ing oil and gas well con­struc­tion, water han­dling, and the dis­clo­sure of chem­i­cals used in drilling cleared final leg­isla­tive hur­dles Thurs­day before head­ing to Gov. John Kasich.

The Ohio Sen­ate by a 21–8 vote approved the new reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing hydraulic frac­tur­ing in the Utica and Mar­cel­lus shale for­ma­tions run­ning under sec­tions of the state. The pro­vi­sions are part of the wide-ranging energy bill that also addresses Ohio’s clean energy stan­dard and makes dozens of other changes. The Ohio House approved the mea­sure 73–19 ear­lier in the day.

The energy bill now heads to Kasich, who is expected to sign it.

“We’ll be bet­ter stew­ards of our envi­ron­ment because of it, and our kids and grand­kids will thank us for it,” Kasich said in statement.

Some envi­ron­men­tal groups turned against the bill Wednes­day after a pro­vi­sion was added lim­it­ing who can sue energy com­pa­nies for chem­i­cal trade secrets. Among them were the Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Coun­cil and the Sierra Club, which had pre­vi­ously been neutral.

The Kasich admin­is­tra­tion said it fought to guar­an­tee that own­ers and adja­cent neigh­bors of well prop­er­ties could file trade secret chal­lenges. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists argued, how­ever, that the lan­guage requires all oth­ers to show cur­rent or poten­tial harm from the secret chem­i­cals before a law­suit would be allowed.

The lan­guage could also pre­clude the envi­ron­men­tal groups them­selves from wag­ing legal bat­tles against drillers over their trade secrets, though they could sue on behalf of an affected person.

Other pro­vi­sions of the bill are being touted as among the tough­est in the nation.

Well oper­a­tors would be required to dis­close within 60 days the chem­i­cals they used to ini­tially drill and hydrauli­cally frac­ture, or frack, a well. Frack­ing is a high-pressure drilling tech­nique that involves blast­ing thou­sands of gal­lons of water into the earth to frac­ture shale for­ma­tions and release gas, oil and nat­ural gas liquids.

The bill also would require chem­i­cal report­ing when oper­a­tors first drill through under­ground drink­ing water sources. Chem­i­cals used to ser­vice or plug a well could be requested by state regulators.

The leg­is­la­tion also would allow doc­tors treat­ing peo­ple injured dur­ing well con­struc­tion and pro­duc­tion to share pro­pri­etary infor­ma­tion with not only other med­ical providers but with pub­lic health agen­cies and the patient.

Well oper­a­tors would face manda­tory daily fines of up to $20,000 for safety and envi­ron­men­tal violations.

Posted by AP News on May 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.