Forests A Subcommittee on Public Lands

The Bureau of Land Management's Final Rule on Hydraulic Fracturing Forests A Subcommittee on Public Lands

The Bureau of Land Management manages nearly 250,000,000 acres of surface property and 700,000,000 acres of subsurface estate in the United States. The BLM plays a critical role in meeting the nation's energy needs, and with more than 100,000 wells to monitor and oversee, the BLM continues to make lands for oil and gas development available in excess of industry demand. In supporting this energy development, the oil and gas program's highest priority is ensuring that operations are safe and responsible. The hydraulic fracturing rule is critical to meeting that responsibility. Over 90 percent of the wells that are drilled on public lands are hydraulically fractured. Today's wells are often much deeper and coupled with advanced horizontal drilling techniques. While these technological advances and the tremendous increase in their use has facilitated greater access to oil and gas resources, it has also necessitated that the BLM revisit its existing rules, which were last updated over 30 years ago. The BLM's new rule establishes reasonable, common sense standards requiring operators to construct sound wells, to disclose the chemicals they use, and to safely recover the wastewater that comes back from that drilling process.