Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) resident scholar Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., argued that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) position on hydraulic fracturing has been influenced by the environmental movement.
“If there were any truth to the claim that fracking contaminates water, the EPA’s [2015] study would have found it. Instead what the EPA found since the release of that paper was a lot of pushback from the environmental community,” said Matthews.
According to IPA, in EPA’s 2015 paper, it recognized that there were isolated cases in which hydraulic fracturing chemicals affected groundwater. But it did not find evidence of widespread or systemic impacts. In its final version, the agency asserts: “EPA found scientific evidence that hydraulic fracturing activities can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances.”
“The reference to no ‘widespread, systemic impact’ has apparently been removed,” Matthews said.
Source: Institute for Policy Innovation
