Hydraulic Fracturing

Floor Speech

Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of serving as co-chairman of the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, a bipartisan group working to identify challenges and further utilizing this clean, abundant energy resource.

One of these challenges has to do with the swarm of misinformation that surrounds the process of hydraulic fracturing, the extraction process which is stringently regulated at the State level.

On April 29, after a 16-month investigation, regulators in my home State of Pennsylvania found that hydraulic fracturing, contrary to highly publicized claims, is not to blame for high methane levels found in drinking water in the town of Franklin Forks. Instead, it was due to naturally occurring methane. The same incident was used by environmentalists as an example of the dangers of fracking and the subject of numerous media reports.

Mr. Speaker, science and facts--not rhetoric and scare tactics--must guide our energy policy. The fact of the matter is that there has been no confirmed reports of groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing. Even former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has testified to this fact.

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