Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, running for reelection in one of the most closely watched races in the country, recently said he opposes efforts to "constrain" the fracking industry, which employs more than 20,000 Pennsylvanians. But Casey has repeatedly introduced a bill during his 17-year Senate tenure that would give the federal government "rigorous oversight" of fracking and which industry groups say would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Fracking, a process used to extract natural gas, has become a hot-button issue in Pennsylvania, thanks to the Keystone State’s heavy reliance on the industry and pressure from the Democratic Party base to regulate or ban the practice. Many of those concerns center on Vice President Kamala Harris’s comments in 2019 that she is "in favor of banning fracking." Harris has disavowed the position in her latest presidential bid, but Republicans have used her statement in ads running in Pennsylvania.
Casey, who campaigned with Harris in Pittsburgh last month, has sought to reassure voters that he supports fracking, telling an interviewer in August he has a "long record" of supporting it, and of "opposing efforts to ban it or constrain it."
While Casey has not called to ban fracking, he has repeatedly introduced a bill, the FRAC Act, that energy producers say would hamstring the industry. The bill, which Casey has introduced six times, would require natural gas producers to disclose chemicals used in the fracking process. The bill would also close what Casey has called a "loophole" to empower the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct "rigorous oversight" of the industry.
Energy groups oppose the FRAC Act, arguing it creates unnecessary and redundant regulations that would curtail natural gas drilling, kill jobs, and lead to higher energy prices.
In 2009, the consulting group IHS Global released a report on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute that said new federal regulations similar to those in the FRAC Act would result in a "20.5% reduction of new wells drilled over a five year period and a 10% loss of natural gas production within five years." The American Petroleum Institute, citing that report, asserts the FRAC Act could cost 676,000 jobs, while an outright ban on fracking would kill 3 million jobs.
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a consortium of energy companies drilling in Pennsylvania, has said the FRAC Act would require "duplicative" permitting requirements that would cause unnecessary delays and expenses on drillers.
NextTier Oilfield Services, a group that services drilling sites, said its 2021 annual report that the FRAC Act could foster additional federal regulations that "could lead to operational delays or increased operating costs, making it more difficult to perform hydraulic fracturing and increasing the costs of compliance and doing business for us and our customers."
Casey, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, has dismissed those industry concerns as a ploy to avoid having to disclose the chemicals used in the fracking process.