[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3247 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 3247
To ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
January 28, 2020
Mr. Sanders (for himself and Mr. Merkley) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Fracking Ban Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that--
(1) the chemicals injected into the ground during the
hydraulic fracturing process include acids, detergents, and
toxic chemicals that put drinking water at risk;
(2) hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, extracts natural gas
containing methane, a greenhouse gas that traps more than 86
times the heat of carbon dioxide in the short term;
(3) the process of fracking results in further methane
leakages that could increase carbon pollution in the United
States by 25 percent by 2050;
(4) fracked natural gas is not a bridge fuel, as previously
understood;
(5) even if every coal plant were replaced by fracked gas
electricity by 2030, emissions would remain on track to grow
through 2050 due in part to pervasive methane leaks that make
fracked gas as dangerous as coal;
(6) similarly, even if methane leaks could be totally
eliminated, the direct emissions from burning the huge volumes
of natural gas the United States plans to produce in the next
decade do not fit in safe climate scenarios;
(7) the American Petroleum Institute reports that ``up to
95% of natural gas wells in the next decade in the United
States will be fracked'';
(8) renewable energy and storage eliminate any need for
fracked gas;
(9) all the technologies needed to support a transition to
100 percent renewable electricity exist at commercial scale and
equal or cheaper costs compared to fossil fuels;
(10) significant carbon reductions are impossible if even
10 percent of electricity comes from natural gas going forward;
(11) in some instances, fracking operations violate
property rights by taking the land of property owners for
drilling and transportation of fracked gas;
(12) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the
Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, or Transco, seized
private land and began construction for a fracked gas pipeline
before the landowners could appear in court to protest and once
the landowners did file an official protest, the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission allowed Transco to continue construction
while the case was decided in court;
(13) scientists, along with governmental agencies in the
United States and Canada, report that fracking and fracking
wastewater injections can be linked to earthquakes all across
North America, including in the States of Pennsylvania,
Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Arkansas and in British Columbia;
(14) fracking contaminates ground and surface water with
toxic chemicals though waste discharge, underground migration
of fracking gas and chemicals into drinking water sources, and
spills;
(15) numerous scientific studies have shown that the
chemicals referred to in paragraph (14) cause serious negative
health impacts such as cancer and birth defects;
(16) in addition to toxic chemicals injected underground,
fracking fluid traveling back up to the surface contains
additional toxic substances such as heavy metals, arsenic,
barium, strontium, uranium, radium, and radon;
(17) fracking pollutes the air and substantially
contributes to ground-level ozone, which can cause serious
negative health impacts such as strokes, heart attacks, and
asthma;
(18) research shows that expectant mothers living near
heavy fracking in the State of Pennsylvania were significantly
more likely to experience a high-risk pregnancy or give birth
prematurely;
(19) studies have linked drilling and fracking to elevated
incidences of infant deaths, high-risk pregnancies, and low
birth weight in the States of Colorado and Texas;
(20) the fracking industry regularly disposes of waste that
will remain radioactive for thousands of years by spraying it
on roads next to homes and farms;
(21) the climate crisis represents a national emergency to
the future stability, prosperity, and general welfare of the
United States and a growing body of scientific research has
demonstrated that leakage, venting, and flaring of methane and
other greenhouse gases in the course of oil and gas production
and transmission significantly contributes to increased climate
change;
(22) a global rise in temperatures of more than 1.5 degrees
Celsius would result in irreversible and catastrophic changes
to public health, livelihoods, quality of life, food security,
water supplies, human security, and economic growth;
(23) limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires
global carbon pollution emissions to be cut in half by 2030,
and completely eliminated by 2050;
(24) the United States is on track to account for 60
percent of world growth in oil and gas production by 2030 and
extract enough new oil and gas by 2050 to make it impossible to
avoid a rise in temperatures of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius;
(25) fracking can expose workers to toxic substances like
radon, the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United
States, in concentrations hundreds of times more radioactive
than the legal limit for nuclear power plant discharges, as
well as other dangerous substances like silica dust;
(26) low-income communities, communities of color,
indigenous communities, and other environmental justice
communities in the United States are disproportionately exposed
to pollution from hydraulic fracturing;
(27) more than 17,000,000 individuals in the United States,
including 1,400,000 young children and 1,100,000 elderly
people, live within a mile of an oil or natural gas well or an
oil or natural gas processing, transmission, and storage
facility;
(28) the air in many African-American communities violates
air quality standards for ozone smog, and more than 1,000,000
African Americans live within a half mile of oil and natural
gas wells or processing, transmission, and storage facilities;
(29) children in African-American communities experience
138,000 additional asthma attacks and 101,000 lost school days
each year due to ozone increases from natural gas emissions;
(30) frontline and vulnerable communities that are
currently being exposed to fracking will also be hit hardest by
the impacts of climate change;
(31) several States, including the States of Vermont, New
York, Washington, and Maryland, and cities, counties, and towns
across the United States, have banned hydraulic fracturing;
(32) the Federal Government should follow the lead of the
States, cities, counties, and towns that have banned hydraulic
fracturing by banning hydraulic fracturing on all onshore and
offshore land in the United States;
(33) the Federal Government should commit to transitioning
toward energy efficiency and 100-percent-sustainable energy
sources, such as wind and solar;
(34) exporting liquefied natural gas requires supercooling
fracked natural gas, an energy intensive process that makes the
climate impacts even worse;
(35) the process described in paragraph (34) requires major
investments in expensive new dirty energy infrastructure that
poses risk of disastrous explosions;
(36) the Interstate Commerce Clause of section 8 of article
I of the Constitution of the United States provides Congress
the power to regulate or ban fracking due to the substantial
role of oil and gas in the stream of interstate commerce and
the fact that produced waters generated from the practice of
hydraulic fracturing are transported across State lines;
(37) under the Foreign Commerce Clause of section 8 of
article I of the Constitution of the United States, Congress
has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and
the practice of hydraulic fracturing has a substantial and
growing effect on national and international oil and gas
markets;
(38) the Federal Government must provide fossil fuel
workers, and the communities in which they live, with a just
and fair transition away from the fossil fuel industry,
including by guaranteeing the incomes, training, healthcare,
and pensions of affected workers, creating new, high-wage,
unionized, green jobs, and investing in economic development
and infrastructure in fossil fuel communities;
(39) the Federal Government must assist frontline and
vulnerable communities that have been most polluted by the
fossil fuel industry by cleaning up pollution, remediating
negative health impacts, and building resilient infrastructure
to prepare for the unavoidable impacts of climate change;
(40) the Federal Government must hold the fossil fuel
industry accountable by requiring the fossil fuel industry to
pay for the costs of cleaning up pollution and preparing
communities for the unavoidable impacts of climate change;
(41) hydraulic fracturing activities and related
infrastructure create public nuisances for local communities,
impact disproportionally affected communities, and create a
public nuisance nationwide by exacerbating negative impacts of
climate change, including worse heat waves, floods, droughts,
extreme weather, spread of disease, and sea level rise; and
(42) hydraulic fracturing is not in the national interest
of the United States.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Acid.--The term ``acid'' means any fluid injected into
crude oil- or natural gas-bearing geological formations to
create, dissolve, etch, erode, or increase the permeability of
fractures or fissures.
(2) Committee.--The term ``Committee'' means the Just
Transition Committee established under section 4(d)(1).
(3) Fracking; hydraulic fracturing.--The terms ``fracking''
and ``hydraulic fracturing'' include the practice of injecting
acids, chemicals, proppants, solvents, and other fluids
underground to create fractures or fissures in oil- or natural
gas-bearing geological formations to extract oil or natural
gas.
(4) Frontline and vulnerable community.--The term
``frontline and vulnerable community'' means a community in
which climate change, pollution, or environmental destruction
have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social,
environmental, and economic injustices by disproportionately
affecting indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant
communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural
communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly,
the unhoused, people with disabilities, or youth.
(5) Produced waters.--The term ``produced waters'' means
liquids produced as a byproduct during the fracking process.
(6) Proppant.--The term ``proppant'' means any material
intended to keep a hydraulic fracture open during or after the
extraction of oil or natural gas.
(7) Solvent.--The term ``solvent'' means any fluid,
including steam, injected into oil- or natural gas-bearing
geological formations for the purpose of liquefying, decreasing
the viscosity of, or increasing the flow of any other injected
fluid or oil or natural gas.
SEC. 4. PROHIBITION ON HYDRAULIC FRACTURING.
(a) In General.--No Federal agency may approve any Federal permit
for the expansion of hydraulic fracturing or fracked oil and natural
gas infrastructure, including new hydraulic fracturing operations, new
pipelines, new liquefied natural gas or oil export terminals, new
natural gas storage, new ethane cracker plants, new natural gas power
generation plants, or other infrastructure intended to extract,
transport, or burn natural gas or oil.
(b) Survey.--
(1) In general.--Not later than January 31, 2021, the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall
complete a national survey of all oil and natural gas wells in
the United States to identify all wells where hydraulic
fracturing has been used or is in the process of being used.
(2) Inclusions.--The survey under paragraph (1) shall
include, with respect to each well identified under the survey
as a well where hydraulic fracturing has been used or is in the
process of being used, data on--
(A) the location of the well;
(B) the proximity of the well to homes, schools,
and other inhabited structures;
(C) the historic, current, and future production
rates of the well; and
(D) any known health and safety violations of the
well.
(c) Revocation of Permits.--Effective on February 1, 2021--
(1) all Federal operating permits for any well identified
under the survey under subsection (b) as a well where hydraulic
fracturing has been used or is in the process of being used and
found to be operating within 2,500 feet of a home, school, or
other inhabited structure shall be immediately revoked; and
(2) the well shall immediately cease all production
operations.
(d) Just Transition Committee.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 60 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Labor shall establish a
multistakeholder, multiagency committee, to be known as the
``Just Transition Committee'', which shall include the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education,
the Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce.
(2) Report.--
(A) In general.--Not later than January 1, 2021,
the Committee shall submit to Congress a report that
details the recommendations of the Committee for
ensuring the health and safety of individuals residing
in, and the prosperity of, natural gas- and oil-
producing regions during the phaseout of the production
of natural gas and oil in those regions.
(B) Consultation required.--In preparing the report
under subparagraph (A), the Committee shall consult
with relevant stakeholders, including representatives
of organized labor, frontline and vulnerable
communities, and State and local governmental
representatives of the natural gas- and oil-producing
regions referred to in subparagraph (A).
(e) Prohibition.--Beginning on January 1, 2025, the practice of
hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas is prohibited on all
onshore and offshore land in the United States.
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