Tag: Maurice Hinchey

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., on Thursday praised the work of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in proposing tough new air quality standards aimed at dramatically reducing smog- and cancer-causing pollution stemming from the ongoing shale gas boom opened up by the controversial hydraulic fracturing process.

Congressman Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., a co-sponsor of the FRAC Act with Colorado Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, on Sunday called for a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe of the natural gas industry after a New York Times article brought up allegations of an “Enron-style Ponzi scheme.”

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis on Thursday followed up his reintroduction this week of the FRAC Act -- which would tighten federal regulation of natural gas drilling’s impacts to water quality -- with the BREATHE Act, a bill that would remove two exemptions for gas drilling under the Clean Air Act.

U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, both Colorado Democrats, have once again introduced the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC Act) to regain federal regulatory authority over the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Colorado Democratic U.S. Reps Diana DeGette and Jared Polis are leading supporters of a move to force natural-gas drilling companies to disclose the chemicals they use to blast gas out of the ground in an increasingly controversial process called "fracking." The two lawmakers were joined Thursday by 46 members of Congress in sending a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking him to back a proposal in which the Interior Department would require disclosure of all materials used in fracking operations conducted on public lands. The DeGette and Polis bloc faces strong opposition in Congress and, turns out, their main opponents are pulling down large donations from oil and gas companies.

Even as the Garfield County commissioners today take up debate on a resolution regarding the FRAC (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals) Act, an...

The new documentary “Split Estate” is getting all the publicity on Colorado’s Western Slope lately, but a filmmaker from Milanville, Pa., shot a raw,...

Using some rather pointed language aimed at Bush administration energy policies in general and former Vice President Dick Cheney in particular, Colorado Rep.’s Diana DeGette, D-Denver, and Jared Polis, D-Boulder, Tuesday introduced the FRAC Act aimed at closing a natural-gas drilling loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Officials for the natural gas industry are quick to point out that a process called hydraulic fracturing has been in use for more than 60 years without a single documented case of groundwater contamination by the chemicals used to make gas flow more freely from wells. But U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette is just as quick to respond that it’s hard to document contamination when no one outside of the industry knows exactly what kinds of chemicals are being injected along with high-pressure water into wells to force open rock formations thousands of feet below the surface.