Energy, Utilities & Water  April 24, 2015

Colorado joins lawsuit challenging BLM fracking rules

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman announced Friday that the state has joined a a lawsuit that challenges the hydraulic fracturing regulations issued last month by the Federal Bureau of Land Management.

Colorado joins Wyoming and North Dakota in the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Wyoming.

The BLM regulations would require energy companies drilling on federal lands to disclose the chemicals they pump underground along with water and sand as part of the oil and gas extraction process known as fracking. The rules would also require companies to store the used water in tanks instead of open pits.

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The lawsuit – filed by the states against the U.S. Department of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, the BLM, and BLM director Neil Kornze – argues that the BLM’s new rules “exceed the agency’s statutory jurisdiction, conflicts with the Safe Drinking Water Act, and unlawfully interferes with the States’ hydraulic fracturing regulations.”

“Colorado has robust regulations on oil and gas development, including hydraulic fracturing, and our agency regulators are doing a good job implementing them,” Coffman said in a prepared statement. “I believe it is important to test BLM’s novel assertion of regulatory authority in an area that has been traditionally — and in this case expressly —reserved for the states.”

Coffman went on to state that fracking should be regulated but that Colorado is already doing so.

“This lawsuit will demonstrate that BLM exceeds its powers when it invades the states’ regulatory authority in this area,” Coffman said. “It will also allow further dialogue on this important public policy issue as Colorado continues to refine its regulatory approach to the industry.”

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman announced Friday that the state has joined a a lawsuit that challenges the hydraulic fracturing regulations issued last month by the Federal Bureau of Land Management.

Colorado joins Wyoming and North Dakota in the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Wyoming.

The BLM regulations would require energy companies drilling on federal lands to disclose the chemicals they pump underground along with water and sand as part of the oil and gas extraction process known as fracking. The rules would also require companies to store the used water in…

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