The U.S. and the Precautionary Principal

Fracking: yet another instance of the United States’ refusal to adhere to the “precautionary principle” in environmental affairs. Today’s Earth Matters blog by Andrew Schenkel was devoted to Halliburton and its opposition to the EPA’s request that it provide the agency with the formula of chemicals it uses in the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of rocks in order to extract natural gas. I can’t help but wonder if Schenkel’s choice of topic (not that vilifying Dick Cheney is anything new) is related to former president Bush’s interviews on the Today Show, which brought Dick Cheney’s name back into public discourse this week. The public is primed to revisit the subject of the former vice-president and his company’s dirty dealings.

Schenkel's post reports that the EPA requested that nine companies provide the EPA with their recipes for the chemical cocktails they use in fracking, and that Halliburton is the only company that has not yet complied with the request. According to the Wall Street Journal, the EPA has, thus, subpoenaed the documents so that it may confirm whether they endanger public health by contaminating ground water. Halliburton’s PR staff has cried foul, saying that the agency has not given them sufficient time to gather the 50,000 pages they requested. However, Schenkel reports that they have also objected to the request on the grounds that the EPA is requesting proprietary information, which, if leaked, could cost Halliburton any advantage its recipe is giving it in the industry. Halliburton’s website also boasts that the EPA has studied and reviewed the fracking process, but also saying that once the highest risk chemicals are identified, they will “work to eliminate” them from their fracking formula.

The EPA’s actions mark an important step toward the use of the precautionary principle by American regulatory bodies. The European Union has already stated that this principle will guide its regulations with regard to public health and safety and environmental health, but the United States has not embraced it on the same level. Little wonder why. In essence, the principle states that the use of any substance or action that may cause harm to human health or the environmental may be restricted or prohibited until scientific evidence can prove that it does not cause undo harm. This is in contrast to the rule of thumb that a product or practice may be employed until scientific evidence proves it to be unsafe. The principle is opposed by untold numbers of firms whose profits rely on innovative products containing chemicals in new combinations or practices that affect the environment, and the U.S. government is unlikely to oppose its big business lobbies any time soon in order to implement this principle. The government has also been promoting natural gas as an important energy resource on which the U.S. should focus going forward.

The precautionary principle is the way of the future, though. We will learn eventually that it pays to think long-term. Just because the technology does not yet exist to prove conclusively that something is safe, doesn’t mean we should just use it and cross our fingers. Profits are important and alternative energy sources are certainly in demand, but that kind of short-run thinking is extremely harmful for the public. In taking Halliburton to task for not disclosing the chemicals it is using in its processes, the EPA is publicly acknowledging just that.