'Emergency' fracking bill goes to public hearing today
A public hearing will be held at 1 p.m. today on emergency legislation to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Maine.
LD 1453, “An Act To Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing To Prevent Threats to Maine's Drinking Water,” is sponsored by Rep. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake. It was referred to the Legislature’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on April 18.
The only context provided on the Legislature’s bill-tracking website is a brief summary, which is preceded by an emergency preamble. Here’s the summary:
“This bill requires the Department of Environmental Protection to provisionally adopt major substantive rules by December 31, 2017 regulating hydraulic fracturing in order to prevent threats to drinking water resources from hydraulic fracturing.”
The emergency preamble acknowledges that “hydraulic fracturing has the potential to affect drinking water resources” and asserts “it is necessary to enact regulations immediately that preserve Maine’s drinking water resources.”
The bill calls for the Maine DEP to adopt rules regulating “hydraulic fracturing in order to prevent threats to drinking water sources from hydraulic fracturing" and defines hydraulic fracturing as “a stimulation technique used to increase production of oil and gas involving the injection of fluids under pressures great enough to fracture the oil-producing and gas-producing rock formations.”
If adopted, the bill requires the Maine DEP to submit those rules to the Legislature by Dec. 31, 2017.
As an emergency measure, the legislation “takes effect when approved,” according to the Legislature’s website.
The Legislature’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources will host the 1 p.m. hearing in the Cross Building, Room 216, and is slated to follow up with a work session scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday, also in Room 216.
What's driving the legislation?
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in its most recent state profile for Maine, dated 2015, does not show Maine having any oil, natural gas or recoverable coal reserves.
Nick Bennett, staff scientist and healthy waters project director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, told Mainebiz in a phone interview that he was eager to find out more about the bill at today’s hearing.
“I’m uncertain regarding the aims and relevance of the bill,” he said. “We’ll be at the hearing today to find out.”
A phone message left this morning with the clerk of the committee to have either of its chairmen — state Sen. Thomas Saviello, R-Wilton, and state Rep. Ralph Tucker, D-Brunswick — respond to additional questions from Mainebiz had not been returned in time for the noon publication of today’s Daily Report.
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