WASHINGTON, DC — Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey has introduced legislation that would increase environmental protections related to hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Called the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act, the bill would repeal a provision in the 2005 Energy Act that exempted fracking from some provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and prevented U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating fracturing or requiring a federal permit. The bill would also require drillers to disclose the chemicals that go into the ground during the hydraulic fracturing process.

“Communities can benefit from job creation and economic development that comes with natural gas extraction, but we need to get this right. There is no reason that we should be forced to choose among adequate environmental protection, energy security and economic gain,” Casey said. “Pennsylvania has a long tradition of valuing the environment. Our Commonwealth’s commitment to environmental protection is ingrained in our state’s constitution. This is a commonsense approach that will aid communities and allow our state to continue to be a leader in energy sources.”

Related bills have been introduced in the House by four Democrats who called the legislation the Frack Pack. One of the bills would remove the exemption from the SDWA. Another would address storm-water runoff within the gas and oil industries. A third would require testing of and reporting on the impacts of fracking on nearby water sources.

“These commonsense initiatives represent an unprecedented, bipartisan push to level the playing field surrounding our policies on oil and gas development,” said Rep. Jared Polis. “Our nation’s economy continues to benefit from domestic energy production, and as the industry grows, these policies simply close loopholes and make extraction processes safer, bringing the industry in line with protections required by nearly every other mineral development sector.”

The bills were announced on March 20, but if recent Senate activity is indication, there is not much appetite in Washington for allowing federal regulation of the drilling and fracking industries in the country.

In January, as the Senate debated the bill that would have moved the Keystone Pipeline forward, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand proposed an amendment that would have removed the exemption of fracking from SDWA, and allowed for regulation of fracking by the EPA.

The Senate overwhelmingly opposed the amendment, and voted 35 to 63 not to accept it, which leaves regulation of fracking in most cases up to the states.

Fracking on federal land, however, now is coming under federal regulation, as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on March 20 issued new rules for companies that frack on federal lands and Indian Reservations, and those rules will cover about 11% of wells in operation in the country.

The rules include one that says drilling companies must disclose the chemicals they use within 30 days of the completion of drilling a well, and in most cases companies will not be allowed to use open pits to contain fracking fluids.

Two industry groups have called the rules unnecessary federal overreach and filed a lawsuit against the BLM.