EPA faces lawsuit for not requiring fracking chemicals to be named

Nine environmental groups are suing the EPA for not requiring oil and gas drilling companies to report the names of key hazardous fracking chemicals into the publicly accessible Toxic Release Inventory Database, according to a report from the Bloomberg news service.

The groups accusing the EPA of negligence believe that although the agency had the authority to force oil and gas companies to reveal what hazardous chemicals they are using in fracking, it has instead relied on those industries’ self-reporting. It is also possible for oil and gas companies under current requirements to claim that chemicals used are trade secrets and thus do not have to be revealed to the public.

As a result, publicly available data on the hazards of the fracking chemicals is extremely limited and seen by as inadequate. Their concerns are heightened due to the rise of fracking in the U.S.