Last week Wyoming’s petroleum industry helped kill draft legislation that would give greater power to landowners to challenge Wyoming’s trade secret exemption in the disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Senate File 157 also mandated that oil and natural gas operators conduct baseline testing of groundwater aquifers prior to drilling and fracking, a requirement aimed at having the data necessary to hold operators liable for potential spills and water contamination. During his tenure, Wyoming’s former oil and gas supervisor Tom Doll said he had strongly encouraged oil and gas operators to conduct baseline testing, in part, because it could also potentially exonerate companies if a question of groundwater and drinking water contamination ever arose. But it was never made a requirement.