Oversight Hearing on:

• "DOI Hydraulic Fracturing Rule: A Recipe for Government Waste, Duplication and Delay"

Member Statements:

The Honorable Doc Hastings
Chairman

Witnesses and Testimony:

PANEL I

The Honorable Alan Olson
Montana State Senate
Chairman, Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee

Lynn D. Helms
Director
North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources

Cindy DeLancey
Executive Director
Wyoming County Commissioners Association

John Byrom
President and CEO
D.J. Simmons, Inc.
(Truth in Testimony Form)

John Amos
President
SkyTruth
(Truth in Testimony Form)

Sara Kendall
DC Office Director
Western Organization of Resource Councils
(Truth in Testimony Form)

Background:

For the past 60 years, states have been successfully regulating the process of hydraulic fracturing, a process used on 90 percent of all wells and responsible for 30 percent of our domestic oil and natural gas production. With states regulating the process, there has not been one instance of ground water contamination according to President Obama’s former Environmental Protection Agency Chief Lisa Jackson. Even with successful state regulation, the Department of the Interior is working on a proposed rule to regulate hydraulic fracturing. Right now, oil and natural gas production is down on federal lands while surging on state and private lands. This dichotomy is directly related to the Obama Administration’s restrictive policies on energy production on federal lands.

Since November of 2010 when the Obama Administration mentioned possible new federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, House Natural Resources Committee Republicans have conducted aggressive oversight of this issue with multiple oversight hearings to learn from stakeholders about how costly, damaging, and duplicative federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing would be on job creation and energy development in America. Aggressive oversight of this issue is especially important now because Interior Secretary Jewell announced that the Interior Department would be releasing its new proposed rule of hydraulic fracturing within weeks.

Related Documents:

• Full Committee Hearing Notice - April 30, 2013
• Full Committee Witness List - May 6, 2013