Today the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced the release of a highly-anticipated final rule addressing hydraulic fracturing on millions of acres of Federal and Indian lands. According to BLM, there are more than 100,000 oil and gas wells on federally-managed lands, and more than 90 percent of wells currently being drilled use hydraulic fracturing. This rulemaking supplements existing BLM requirements for oil and gas operations and now requires, for example, the disclosure of hydraulic fracturing fluid information within 30 days of completing fracturing operations for each well. The agency reportedly received more than 1.5 million public comments during the rulemaking process. The final rule will be effective 90 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
The Bureau of Land Management’s revised proposal to regulate hydraulic fracturing on federal lands remains controversial, inviting more than 600,000 comments from 250 public interest groups calling for stricter regulations, as well as strong opposition from industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute and the Western Energy Alliance. BLM released the revised proposal in May. The deadline for public comment, which was extended once, passed last Friday, August 23rd. BLM will review the comments before publishing a final rule. BLM holds 700 million acres of federal mineral estate and 56 million acres of Indian mineral estate.
Updating previous posts, the Western Energy Alliance (WEA) recently released an economic analysis in response to the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) latest version of its proposed fracking rules for wells on federal lands. Bloomberg BNA reports that WEA believes that although positive changes were made in the latest revised rules, BLM did not consider a number of factors, such as initial delay costs associated with implementing the rule in light of current staffing levels. BLM estimated that its revised proposal would cost industry between $12 million to $20 million annually, which is substantially lower than the estimated costs of the original proposal ($37 to 44 million annually). However, WEA found that BLM’s latest proposal will still have a significant financial impact on the industry. WEA and other industry groups have urged BLM to abandon the proposed rules.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has extended the comment period by 60 days for the revised proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing on federal lands. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell indicated that various interest groups had requested more time to review the 171-page proposal issued in May. The comment period was set to expire on June 24, 2013, but comments will now be accepted through late August.