My media column for the Saturday Rocky Mountain News, discussed gross misstatements of fact which had appeared in a November 13 article by ProPublica, an organization which supplies investigative articles for free to the mainstream media. A shorter version of that article had appeared in the November 17 Denver Post.
Today, ProPublica author Abrahm Lustgarten has written a defense of his article. He claims that my article is “indisputably misleading.” Let’s take a look at each of the three charges which I leveled at the ProPublica article.
1. I wrote:
The theme of the ProPublica article, headlined “Buried Secrets,” is the natural gas industry’s refusal to disclose a list of all chemicals which are injected into the ground in hydraulic fracturing. The article accurately characterizes the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission as the “most stringent” regulatory agency regarding hydraulic fracturing.
The COGCC promulgated its final draft rules on Nov. 7, before the Nov. 13 ProPublica article, and before its Nov. 17 appearance in the Post. The article misdescribes the new regulations, and, significantly, omits the fact that the commission’s new disclosure rule is nearly identical to what the drilling company Halliburton proposed in its June testimony to the commission. Section 205 of the new regulations protects drillers’ trade secrets about the precise chemical recipes, while mandating full disclosure when specifically needed by the state for health or environmental protection.
In the spring, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had proposed draft regulations which would have required natural gas drillers to disclose the exact recipes for the fluids which are injected into the ground in hydraulic fracturing. During summer hearings, the industry vehemently objected, and said that they would pull out of Colorado, rather than disclose their trade secrets. Lustgarten’s article accurately describes this part of the story.
Then, according to Lustgarten:
In August, the industry struck a compromise by agreeing to reveal the chemicals in fracturing fluids to health officials and regulators — but the agreement applies only to chemicals stored in 50 gallon drums or larger. As a practical matter, drilling workers in Colorado and Wyoming said in interviews that the fluids are often kept in smaller quantities. That means at least some of the ingredients won’t be disclosed.
“They