President Trump is scheduled today to make good on a promise to repeal President Obama’s onerous regulations placed on the oil and gas industry as a part of his anti-fossil fuel vendetta.
The regulations were purported to increase safety standards on fracking rigs, but in practice only added more costs and red tape to an industry which already has plenty of safety regulations.
The repeal is one more in a long line of dozens of repeals from Trump since inauguration which have poured gasoline on the fire of the record economic growth this year.
Though, it’s almost certain that envirochondriac econuts will sue the administration to block the repeal…because, you know, they care so much about the ‘safety’ of oil rig workers.
Here’s more from Washington Examiner…
The Trump administration on Friday will officially repeal the Obama administration’s 2015 fracking rule regulating oil and natural gas drilling on federal lands.
“We believe it imposes administrative burdens and compliance costs that are not justified,” the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management wrote in a notice that it will rescind the rule, to be published in Friday’s Federal Register.
The Interior Department initially proposed ending the rule in July and wrapped up the comment period in September.
The Obama-era rule targets the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has made the U.S. the world’s leading producer of energy. The rule is intended to increase the safety of fracking by reducing the risk of water contamination. It would have forced companies to comply with federal safety standards in the construction of fracking wells and to disclose which chemicals they used in the fracking process.
Killing the rule has been a top priority of the oil and natural gas industry, as well as Republican lawmakers from Western states.
The rule affects oil wells on public lands that are found mainly in the West.
“We applaud the Interior Department decision to completely rescind the Obama-era rule regulating hydraulic fracturing on federal lands,” Barry Russell, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said Thursday. “IPAA has long fought for independent oil and natural gas producers against an Obama-era federal rule that was overly restrictive and did not make hydraulic fracturing any safer than current state laws.”
