Freudenthal lame ducks Halliburton

From New West:

"In June, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission unanimously ruled that ingredients would be reported to the commission – at the insistence of Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, a member of that body. At the time, it was unclear how that would work and whether ingredients would be public.

In a phone interview with New West, Freudenthal said he’d pushed a straightforward argument –that the actual formula or recipe for fracking fluid could remain a commercial secret, but that the ingredients had to be revealed to the state and, by extension, the public. Several energy companies were not enthusiastic about this approach, said the governor, but none of them pushed back as hard as Halliburton, the leading developer of hydraulic fracturing technology.

“Halliburton sent a big-time lawyer to talk to us, but it didn’t go well for him,” Freudenthal said.

In crafting what environmentalists dubbed the “Halliburton loophole,” Congress relied on a 2001 energy task force chaired by (former Vice-Dork and erstwhile Halliburton Chair, Dick) Cheney, which reported on the many advantages of hydraulic fracturing, and that most fracking fluid is recovered.

Gov. Freudenthal confirmed Wyoming is the only state to require that fracking ingredients be made public. “What other states do is up to them,” he said. “What’s important is that we got ahead of this. This big play on the Niobrara shale (in southeast Wyoming) is going to mean a lot of fracking.” From now on, said the governor, Wyoming will have the necessary records and data to determine the least-harmful methods of future fracking.

“This is huge,” said Deb Thomas, an organizer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council. She and her group have been working for years to get state and federal agencies to investigate a growing number of complaints from Wyoming citizens about water contamination that occurs near drilling sites.

John Robitaille, vice-president of Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said he’s somewhat comforted that the commission is willing to look at industry claims of confidentiality if requested.

He said it is “too early” to know whether industry can live with these new regulations or not: “We’ll just have to get some experience with this under our belt.”

Freudenthal is no Liberal and leaves office after elections. Wyoming voters, recently polled as America's most conservative, might just get a taste of what an angry lame duck Democratic governor will do to enshrine into law safe food, safe water, safe shelter, safe sex in another red state where Republicans=cheap food, cheap water, cheap shelter, and cheap sex.

Update from the Rapid City Journal:

BISMARCK, N.D. -- Testing showed that underground water supplies are safe after a ruptured oil well leaked more than 2,500 barrels of crude oil and water in western North Dakota, and it appeared the leak had been cleaned up, the state Health Department said Tuesday.

The ruptured oil well, dubbed Franchuk 44-20 by the company, used horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, a process that uses pressurized fluid and sand to break open oil-bearing rock some two miles underground.