Consider the FRAC Act, cosponsored by Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), which would allow the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the chemicals gas drillers use. The bill has sparked outrage within the industry and the Republican Party, whose leaders seem to be trying to outdo each other in condemning the EPA.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, for example, has promised to padlock the EPA's doors if she's elected to the White House. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, pledges to impose a moratorium on all federal environmental regulation, saying it should be left to the states.
But here in Pennsylvania, state regulators have allowed natural-gas companies to discharge tainted waste water into rivers that supply drinking water to more than 16 million people. Although federal law requires drillers to know what waste they are producing and to treat it before releasing it into waterways, treatment plants in Pennsylvania have been dumping untold amounts of drillers' mystery liquids.
That's where the EPA comes in - or where it should. Thus far, the agency hasn't stepped in to enforce the law. So we still don't know what chemicals have been discharged or what they have done to our water supply.
But here's what we do know: During the last big energy booms in Pennsylvania, in the 19th century, extraction industries wreaked havoc on the environment. We shouldn't let that happen again.
The state's first great energy resource was coal, which helped fuel the young nation's industrial revolution. Since then, Pennsylvania has produced more tons of coal than any other state. But the coal industry also polluted nearly 2,500 miles of streams through so-called acid mine drainage, killing fish and plants. Nationwide, a third of the waters affected by acid mine drainage are in the Keystone State.
