Fracturing Regulations are Effective in State Hands Act

Summary: Fracturing Regulations are Effective in State Hands Act  This bill gives states the sole authority to promulgate or enforce any regulation, guidance, or permit requirement regarding hydraulic fracturing on or under any land within their boundaries. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a process to extract underground resources such as oil or gas from a geologic formation by injecting water, a propping agent (e.g., sand), and chemical additives into a well under enough pressure to fracture the geological formation. Hydraulic fracturing on federal land must comply with the law of the state in which the land is located.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Fracturing Regulations are Effective 
in State Hands Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds that--
            (1) hydraulic fracturing is a commercially viable practice 
        that has been used in the United States for more than 60 years 
        in more than 1,000,000 wells;
            (2) the Ground Water Protection Council, a national 
        association of State water regulators that is considered to be 
        a leading groundwater protection organization in the United 
        States, released a report entitled ``State Oil and Natural Gas 
        Regulations Designed to Protect Water Resources'' and dated May 
        2009 finding that the ``current State regulation of oil and gas 
        activities is environmentally proactive and preventive'';
            (3) that report also concluded that ``[a]ll oil and gas 
        producing States have regulations which are designed to provide 
        protection for water resources'';
            (4) a 2004 study by the Environmental Protection Agency, 
        entitled ``Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of 
        Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane 
        Reservoirs'', found no evidence of drinking water wells 
        contaminated by fracture fluid from the fracked formation;
            (5) a 2009 report by the Ground Water Protection Council, 
        entitled ``State Oil and Natural Gas Regulations Designed to 
        Protect Water Resources'', found a ``lack of evidence'' that 
        hydraulic fracturing conducted in both deep and shallow 
        formations presents a risk of endangerment to ground water;
            (6) a January 2009 resolution by the Interstate Oil and Gas 
        Compact Commission stated ``The states, who regulate 
        production, have comprehensive laws and regulations to ensure 
        operations are safe and to protect drinking water. States have 
        found no verified cases of groundwater contamination associated 
        with hydraulic fracturing.'';
            (7) on May 24, 2011, before the Oversight and Government 
        Reform Committee of the House of Representatives, Lisa Jackson, 
        the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, 
        testified that she was ``not aware of any proven case where the 
        fracking process itself has affected water'';
            (8) in 2011, Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey 
        stated, ``We have not seen evidence of any adverse effect as a 
        result of the use of the chemicals that are part of that 
        fracking technology.'';
            (9)(A) activities relating to hydraulic fracturing (such as 
        surface discharges, wastewater disposal, and air emissions) are 
        already regulated at the Federal level under a variety of 
        environmental statutes, including portions of--
                    (i) the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 
                U.S.C. 1251 et seq.);
                    (ii) the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300f et 
                seq.); and
                    (iii) the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.); 
                but
            (B) Congress has continually elected not to include the 
        hydraulic fracturing process in the underground injection 
        control program under the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 
        300f et seq.);
            (10) in 2011, the Secretary of the Interior announced the 
        intention to promulgate new Federal regulations governing 
        hydraulic fracturing on Federal land;
            (11) a February 2012 study by the Energy Institute at the 
        University of Texas at Austin, entitled ``Fact-Based Regulation 
        for Environmental Protection in Shale Gas Development'', found 
        that ``[n]o evidence of chemicals from hydraulic fracturing 
        fluid has been found in aquifers as a result of fracturing 
        operations''; and
            (12) on October 1, 2014, the Ground Water Protection 
        Council and State Oil and Gas Regulatory Exchange released a 
        report entitled ``State Oil and Gas Regulations Designed to 
        Protect Water Resources'' that describes the cutting edge of 
        State-based oil and gas regulations, concluding that ``In step 
        with dramatic industry growth over the past five years, states 
        have substantially improved groundwater protection laws and 
        regulations governing oil and natural gas production.''.

SEC. 3. DEFINITION OF FEDERAL LAND.

    In this Act, the term ``Federal land'' means--
            (1) public lands (as defined in section 103 of the Federal 
        Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702));
            (2) National Forest System land;
            (3) land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of 
        Reclamation; and
            (4) land under the jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers.

SEC. 4. STATE AUTHORITY.

    (a) In General.--A State shall have the sole authority to 
promulgate or enforce any regulation, guidance, or permit requirement 
regarding the treatment of a well by the application of fluids under 
pressure to which propping agents may be added for the expressly 
designed purpose of initiating or propagating fractures in a target 
geologic formation in order to enhance production of oil, natural gas, 
or geothermal production activities on or under any land within the 
boundaries of the State.
    (b) Federal Land.--The treatment of a well by the application of 
fluids under pressure to which propping agents may be added for the 
expressly designed purpose of initiating or propagating fractures in a 
target geologic formation in order to enhance production of oil, 
natural gas, or geothermal production activities on Federal land shall 
be subject to the law of the State in which the land is located.