On April 13, President Obama issued an executive order creating an interagency task force to coordinate federal oversight and regulation of shale gas development.  The executive order was made in response to complaints by  the NAM and others that a dozen federal agencies were considering oversight or regulation of shale gas and hydraulic fracturing—in addition to robust state regulation of the industry.

Fast-forward two months, and very little seems to have changed.  Since then, we’ve received a final regulation from EPA on fracking emissions and two new proposed rules from Interior and EPA that toughen the regulation of fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process.

But even though the pace of regulation isn’t slowing down, the feds are at least coordinating, right?  Maybe not.  We’ve seen little evidence that the interagency task force is impacting these proposed regulations.  To top it all off, we’re getting mixed messages from the regulators themselves. 

On Friday, a top administration official stated that the proposed Interior regulation will be delayed because “there are some pretty significant things within that proposal that need to be fixed and addressed.”  Come Monday, a spokesperson for Interior and that same White House official both declared that the regulation is on track and will be issued by the end of the year.

When the Executive Order was issued in April, NAM CEO Jay Timmons praised the establishment of a ‘one stop shop’ for research and information to promote shale gas development, and looked forward to providing input to the working group to ensure that manufacturers and our nation’s energy needs are well represented.  Unfortunately, none of that seems to be happening—at least yet. 

Ross Eisenberg is vice president of energy and resources policy, National Association of Manufacturers.

Federal News Radio’s report, “Obama’s regulatory reforms draw mixed reviews,” provides a thorough round-up of the reaction to President Obama’s new positioning on federal regulations, including the Executive Order, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review.” It’s informative to read the comments Cass Sunstein, the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

“The Executive Order makes clear that the look back process will occur with full understanding of the agency’s priority settings and resource constraints in a tough budgetary environment. So we expect the agencies will take this process very seriously but do so in way that recognizes resources are not unlimited.”

Sunstein said agencies will have to find a way to do the look back based on the resources they have already.

“I don’t anticipate any additional budgetary assistance for the look back,” he said. “We do anticipate a rule of reason where agencies will be expected to make their own choices about how to balance the cost because in many of the agencies there either is some process of look back and because of all agencies there is considerable expertise about the existing set of programs, we don’t think this will require huge resources to be invested.”

Phew, exhaled the EPA officials. We have so many pending regulations that we really don’t have the budget and personnel to go back a look at the old ones. Carry on!

And at least one activist sees the new review process as an opportunity for MORE regulations. Gary Bass, head of OMBWatch, commented: “Bass said by looking back at existing regulations agencies may find not only outdated policies, but also gaps where new ones are needed.” (continue reading…)