State regulators have no idea how many oil and gas wells have been
fracked in California despite having requested and received $3 million
in new funding in 2010 to regulate the practice. Lacking actual data,
they insist that drilling companies rarely use the technology in
California—a head-in-the-sand stance that has now been contradicted by Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) research showing that fracking has been used in the state since 1953 and is now widespread.
The state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources says it does
not plan to monitor or manage use of the technology unless the
legislature requires it or the agency is handed “evidence of manifest
damage and harm.”
“On the one hand, the Division remains in denial about fracking for
oil,” said Bill Allayaud, EWG’s director of government affairs for
California. “On the other hand, they ask for and receive funding to
regulate it and then don’t do it—and have no plans to do it.”
