In this edition:
- A survey of homeowner opinions on shale gas development risks
- Commentary on legal challenges to EPA’s Clean Power Plan
Fracking Contamination Concerns
A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers “the first case published with a complete story showing organic compounds attributed to shale gas development found in a homeowner’s well.” The study’s authors analyzed drinking water from three Pennsylvania houses, noting that “contamination may have stemmed from a lack of integrity in the drill wells” rather than the fracking process itself.
An RFF survey of public opinion in Pennsylvania and Texas about shale gas development risks revealed that 41 and 31 percent of respondents, respectively, are “extremely concerned or very concerned” about risks to groundwater and surface water sources. The survey also showed that the public is willing to pay to reduce such risks—on average, $25 to $30 per year per household for every 1,000 fewer drinking water wells with problems.
Clean Power Plan Legality
Last Tuesday, the attorneys general of West Virginia and Oklahoma briefed a senate panel on their upcoming legal challenge to EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), which they say is “based on conflicting statutes within the Clean Air Act.” EPA maintains that the courts have already confirmed the plan’s legitimacy.
In a new blog, RFF Visiting Fellow Nathan Richardson of the University of South Carolina School of Law addresses another legal challenge to the CPP. Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that “§102(c) of the Clean Air Act gives Congress the authority to veto” the plan, Richardson explains: “At most, §102(c) might give Congress the right to reject multistate plans under the CPP if those plans are ‘binding’ . . . McConnell seems to read §102(c) as giving Congress a vote on the CPP, independent of the executive. It does not.”
