Colorado and Texas to Require Disclosure of Fracking Chemicals
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper thinks the state's legislation will become a model for other states, according to the Denver Post, because it goes further than other states with disclosure laws by requiring all chemicals to be named (or in cases where the oil and gas commission is convinced a specific chemical should be kept a trade secret, then the chemical family needs to be named), as well as the concentrations in which they are used.
Texas will publish information released about fracking chemicals on a website, FracFocus.org.
This is big news: EPA recently admitted that fracking chemicals are responsible for aquifer contamination in Wyoming. Regulation of the industry has been less than reliable, basic environmental protections like the Clean Air and Safe Drinking Water Acts haven't helped much because the oil and gas industry is exempt from these laws, and operators have been allowed by most states to keep secret the chemicals they inject into the ground as proprietary information.