Amy Mall, Senior Policy Analyst, Washington, D.C.

FracFocus is a website where oil and gas producers can upload data regarding the chemicals used in wells that have been hydraulically fractured ("fracked"). Producers can upload the data voluntarily, but some states that have disclosure laws go further and require producers to upload data. This all sounds like a good thing, and in theory it is. The public needs more information and details about fracking operations. But how does FracFocus work in reality?

In 2011, I blogged about my concerns regarding FracFocus. Now there are three new reports that look at FracFocus in greater depth and found the following:

• A new NRDC issue brief with detailed analysis of state disclosure laws revealed that the standardized FracFocus disclosure form contains fields for only a very limited subset of the information that state disclosure rules require. Because the information provided by FracFocus is so limited, there is not a single state in which disclosures on the site contain all information required by the state rule. By submitting data to FracFocus, a company appears to be complying with state requirements, but it may not be.
• A new in-depth investigation from Bloomberg found that producers failed to list almost half of the wells they fracked in eight states from April 11, 2011 (when ...

Link to original article / Continue Reading...

On Switchboard, NRDC experts respond to the day's news and share their views, insights and expertise on energy conservation, global warming science, and many other environmental topics.