During Full Committee markup of the CLEAR Act (H.R. 3534), an amendment offered by Reps. John Fleming (R-LA), Bill Shuster (R-PA), Dan Boren (D-OK), Mike Coffman (R-CO), and Doug Lamborn (R-CO) to strike Sec. 239, which requires the disclosures of hydraulic fracturing liquids to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, was defeated in a 19 to 25 vote. Click here to view the roll call.

This requirement would make retrieving valuable shale oil and gas extremely difficult by essentially blocking producers’ ability to use a time tested process known as hydraulic fracturing.

“The language in the CLEAR Act would impose bureaucratic regulation of hydraulic fracturing by the EPA – something that has been effectively done by individual States for over half a century. This is bad for jobs and American made energy. It amounts to nothing more than another attempt at destroying jobs in my already devastated State and across the country and reducing our supply of clean, natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing which has been used commercially for more than 50 years and today is used in an estimated 85 to 90 % of all the oil and gas wells drilled in the U.S. is necessary to produce from unconventional natural gas formations,” said Rep. Fleming.

On May 11, 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Association (EIA) released their Annual Energy Outlook that included a special highlight on gas shale production with and without hydraulic fracturing. The EIA discovered through the use of hydraulic fracturing for the high development of shale gas, by 2035 the U.S. would increase onshore natural gas production in the lower 48 states by 17%, decrease natural gas prices by 14%, and decrease net U.S. imports of natural gas by 44%. Conversely, if hydraulic fracturing is unavailable to develop shale or low-permeability natural gas, U.S. production could be reduced as much as 39%, causing prices to increase by $2.00 per million BTUs and forcing the U.S. to rely on a 207% increase of natural gas from foreign countries.

The CLEAR Act has been touted by the Democrat Majority as a response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, yet provisions such as this one have nothing to do with offshore drilling. At a time when the Gulf Coast is losing thousands of jobs due to President Obama’s deepwater drilling moratorium, Congress should not be taking steps to kill onshore natural gas jobs—an industry that accounts for over 2.8 million domestic jobs.

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