White House will fight ruling against regulation of fracking on public lands

The Obama administration will fight a federal judge's ruling overturning its effort to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public lands, a decision that struck another blow to the president's environmental legacy.

"We'll continue to make our case in the courts," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a briefing Wednesday. "We believe that we have a strong argument to make about the important role that the federal government can play in ensuring that hydraulic fracturing that's done on public land doesn't threaten the drinking water of the people who live in the area."

The ruling, issued late Tuesday by Wyoming-based U.S. District Court Judge Scott W. Skavdahl, blocks the Bureau of Land Management from enforcing a 2015 rule that set detailed standards for the construction of oil and gas wells drilled into about 700 million acres of federal land. Though it would apply only to acreage under BLM's control, it was seen as a model for states to follow as they regulate drilling on private land.

"It's part of a general push back by the courts" to the Obama administration's environmental regulations, said James Coleman, a law professor who specializes in energy issues at Southern Methodist University. "You're definitely seeing skepticism of the extent to which the Obama administration is arguably bypassing Congress."

The fracking rule would have forced companies to disclose the chemicals they pump underground and seal off wastewater in storage tanks. The Interior Department, in an email, called Tuesday's ruling "unfortunate."

"It prevents regulators from using 21st-century standards to ensure that oil and gas operations are conducted safely and responsibly on public and tribal lands," the department said.

The regulation never went into force, amid a legal challenge from oil-industry groups and four states - Colorado, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming - that argued the measure duplicated local drilling requirements and boosted the cost of extracting oil and gas from federal lands.

Skavdahl said the fracking rule exceeded BLM's powers. The legal question is "not whether hydraulic fracturing is good or bad for the environment," he wrote, but whether Congress gave the Interior Department the power to regulate it.

"Congress has not delegated to the Department of Interior the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing," Skavdahl wrote. "The BLM's effort to do so through the fracking rule is in excess of its statutory authority and contrary to law."

Independent Petroleum Association of America spokesman Neal Kirby said the decision reaffirms the group's view that "states are - and have for over 60 years been - in the best position to safely regulate hydraulic fracturing."

Environmentalists who supported the rule said it is essential to safeguard water supplies and neighboring communities as energy companies increasingly use hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from wells nationwide. The technique involves pumping sand, water and chemicals underground to free oil and gas from the pores of dense rock formations.

In a brief, environmental groups argued that the mandates would not cost much - about one-fourth of 1 percent of the cost of drilling each new well - and in exchange would limit the risk of groundwater contamination, chemical spills, wildlife deaths, and other accidents.

"While there is no way to ever make fracking safe, the oil and gas industry has repeatedly proven that it needs more standards to keep the public safe from the dangers of fossil fuels, not less," said Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign.