Outcomes of the Halliburton Loophole: Chemicals regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act in US fracking disclosures, 2014-2021

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has enabled the United States to lead the world in gas and oil production over the past decade; 17.6 million Americans now live within a mile of an oil or gas well (Czolowski et al., 2017). This major expansion in fossil fuel production is possible in part due to the 2005 Energy Policy Act and its "Halliburton Loophole," which exempts fracking activity from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). To begin quantifying the environmental and economic impacts of this loophole, this study undertakes an aggregate analysis of chemicals that would otherwise be regulated by SDWA within FracFocus, an industry-sponsored fracking disclosure database. This paper quantifies the total disclosures and total mass of these chemicals used between 2014 and 2021, examines trends in their use, and investigates which companies most use and supply them. We find that 28 SDWA-regulated chemicals are reported in FracFocus, and 62-73% of all disclosures (depending on year) report at least one SDWA-regulated chemical. Of these, 19,700 disclosures report using SDWA-regulated chemicals in masses that exceed their reportable quantities as defined under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Finally, while the most common direct-supplier category is "company name not reported," Halliburton is the second-most named direct supplier of SWDA regulated chemicals. Halliburton is also the supplier most frequently associated with fracks that use SDWA regulated chemicals. These results show the necessity of a more robust and federally mandated disclosure system and suggest the importance of revisiting exemptions such as the Halliburton Loophole.

Keywords: Environmental regulation; FracFocus; Hydraulic fracturing; Safe drinking water act; Unconventional oil and gas production.

Fig. 1.

a: Chemicals listed in SDWA’s National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (n = 94); SDWA’s Drinking Water Standards and Health Advisories (n = 212) and Open-FF (n = 1240) from 2014–2021. 28 total SDWA-regulated chemicals are disclosed in Open-FF during this period. Figure lb: Number of unique SDWA-regulated chemicals reported per disclosure. Fracks use a median of one chemical per frack; the maximum number of SDWA-regulated chemicals in one frack is seven. Total number of fracks for each column is reported in the number above the column.

Fig. 2.

a: Total disclosures within FracFocus per year, from 2014 to 2021. The total number of disclosures in our filtered data set is 117,515. Fig. 2b: Percentage of total disclosures including at least one SDWA chemical (blue: bottom line) or proprietary chemical (orange: top line) within FracFocus per year, from 2014 to 2021. The numbers above and below each dot represent the total mass of SDWA chemicals and proprietary chemicals for each year, in millions of pounds.

Fig. 3.

Calculated mass used per year for 28 SDWA chemicals from 2014 to 2021. Fig. 3a shows the chemicals used in the smallest masses; Fig. 3b shows the chemicals used in intermediate masses; Fig. 3c shows the chemicals used in the largest masses.

Fig. 4.

Total number and percentage of all disclosures for each SDWA chemical that surpass its Reportable Quantity as defined by CERCLA.

Fig. 5.

Top 25 operators using SDWA-regulated chemicals, ranked in order of number of disclosures, 2014–2021. The percentage at the end of the bar represents the percentage of that company’s disclosures that use at least one SDWA chemical.

Fig. 6.

a: Top suppliers of 28 SDWA-rcgulated chemicals from 2014 to 2021. This figure shows the top 25 suppliers who provide these chemicals, ranked in order of the total number of disclosures that include SDWA-rcgulated chemicals. The percentage at the end of the bar represents the percentage of that company’s total disclosures that use at least one SDWA chemical. Fig. 6b: Top associated suppliers of the 28 SDWA-rcgulated chemicals from 2014 to 2021. This figure highlights the 25 suppliers who are most frequently associated with a fracking event that used SDWA-rcgulated chemicals, but are not necessarily identified as the direct supplier. The percentage at the end of the bar represents the percentage of the disclosures each supplier is associated with that utilize at least one SDWA-rcgulated chemical.