Close the Halliburton loophole and restore the EPA's rightful authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. Require the oil and gas industry to disclose the chemicals it uses.
Why is this important?
Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton.
It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves injecting a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals, some of them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them open and release natural gas.
