WASHINGTON - A key Energy Department advisory panel will issue a qualified endorsement of shale gas exploration Thursday, saying that hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," can continue safely as long as companies disclose more about their practices and monitor their environmental impact.
The committee's report could ease the way for greater domestic gas exploration, even as it calls for new standards to limit harmful air emissions from bringing to the surface gas buried deep in shale formations.
But the report remains largely silent on who should regulate shale gas exploration, and whether regulators should apply laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping massive amounts of fluid - a mixture of water and chemicals - underground, which cracks the shale and drives gas to the surface. With major deposits in several regions of the country, including the Northeast and the Midwest, firms are tapping into the resource at an unprecedented rate.
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Shale gas accounted for less than 2 percent of total U.S. natural-gas production in 2001. It is now close to 30 percent, and the Energy Information Administration projects that it will amount to 45 percent by 2035.
As drilling activity has moved closer to residential areas - and as some researchers have found unusually high methane concentrations in nearby drinking water - local activists have called for a stop to further drilling. But industry officials, many politicians and some environmentalists have argued that the country must exploit an energy source that does not release as much carbon dioxide as other fossil fuels when burned.
John Deutch, a chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who chaired the advisory panel, said in an interview that the group offered "a different approach" to overseeing fracking.
"You measure, you disclose what you measure, and you use these measurements to improve the way you operate in the field and reduce your environmental impact," he said.
Said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund and a panel member: "If the recommendations are adopted, shale gas resources in the United States will be tapped in a way that avoids some of the environmental problems … and minimizes and recognizes others."
On Wednesday, the Environmental Working Group released a letter signed by 28 scientists objecting to the panel, noting that six of its members had connections to industry.
