[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 23, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H7118-H7119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 HAYNESVILLE SHALE HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FLEMING. Madam Speaker, like most of America, I support an all-
of-the-above solution to this Nation's energy needs. I believe we can 
have it all

[[Page H7119]]

when it comes to energy. We can aggressively pursue renewable energy, 
nuclear energy and other innovative alternatives while continuing 
efforts to expand our domestic supply of fossil fuels. We live in a 
country rich in energy sources, and Congress should encourage 
production from all available resources and technologies.
  Tonight I'd like to focus on a reliable, clean-burning alternative 
fuel which is in extraordinary abundance right under our feet in this 
country, and that is natural gas.
  Located in my district in northwest Louisiana, recent estimates have 
projected the Haynesville Shale contains 234 trillion cubic feet of 
potential natural gas production. This would make it the largest 
natural gas play in the United States and one of the largest in the 
world, the equivalent of 18 years' worth of U.S. oil production.
  I want to point out to you, the crosshatch area is the so-called 
Haynesville Shale. As you can see, it overlies several parishes in 
Louisiana as well as several counties in Texas, a very wide area. Now 
of course for those listening, shale is nothing more and nothing less 
than a rock formation deep down in the Earth, somewhere around 2 miles 
in depth, that acts like a sponge that's full of either gas or oil, and 
sometimes both. Today we have great methods of extracting fossil fuels 
from the shale.
  But let me turn to some more statistics regarding the Haynesville 
Shale. It's provided massive injections of capital into the Fourth 
Congressional District of Louisiana, my district. It's pumped $4.5 
billion into the economy in FY 2008. It's created nearly $3.9 billion 
in household earnings in the same year. The greatest impact on indirect 
and household earnings was experienced by workers in the mining sector, 
with new household earnings of $191.3 million in 2008. It's created 
over $30 million in new earnings in seven separate sectors. Number one, 
mining, $191.3 million; health care, $56.7 million; management, $46.6 
million; professional, scientific and technical services, $38.5 
million; retail trade, $35.7 million; manufacturing, $33.5 million; and 
construction, $31.8 million.
  It directly and indirectly created over 32,000 jobs. The new jobs 
created by the extraction activities in the Haynesville Shale are 
widely dispersed across industries. Large impacts have been felt in 
utilities, 5,229 jobs; mining 3,808; health care, 3,496 jobs; and 
retail trade, 3,433.
  Those are a lot of numbers, but I think you understand that the 
magnitude is what counts here. Conservative estimates report that State 
and local tax revenues increased by at least $153.3 million in 2008 due 
to the extraction activities of the Haynesville Shale. Needless to say, 
Louisiana is not suffering from the effects of the recession, 
unemployment, or real estate that many other States are today, largely 
due to the Haynesville Shale. Some parishes are reporting a 300 percent 
increase in sales tax collections.
  I wanted to talk a moment about how we get the natural gas out of 
that shale that we're talking about that's 2 miles deep in the Earth. 
The method is called hydraulic fracturing, or ``hydrofracking'' is a 
more common term. This method has been used for over 60 years and is 
responsible for 30 percent of America's recoverable oil and gas. Of 
wells currently operating today, over 90 percent have been fractured at 
least once.
  Environmentalists and their allies in Congress are escalating their 
assault on affordable and reliable energy with the legislation that 
would place regulation of hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking 
Water Act, SDWA, a law that was never intended for this purpose. This 
legislation would have far-reaching negative impacts on energy, energy 
producers and consumers alike. For years this process has been safely 
and effectively regulated by individual States; and of the more than 1 
million wells fractured, not a single case of drinking water 
contamination has ever been recorded.
  In my State of Louisiana, three different agencies have oversight 
related to this process. So you see, it's not an unregulated process to 
begin with. First is the Office of Conservation of the Louisiana 
Department of Natural Resources, then the Louisiana Department of 
Environmental Quality and, finally, the Department of Health and 
Hospitals, which tests potable water. Additionally, these agencies 
already work closely in association with existing Federal regulations 
under the EPA. As illustrated in these graphics, current industry 
practices ensure multiple levels of protection between any sources of 
drinking water and the production zone of an oil and gas well.
  Fresh water aquifers are located relatively close to the surface. In 
the Haynesville shale, for instance, the Wilcox aquifer is found at 
depths between 200 and 600 feet.
  The practice of hydrofracking takes place at a depth of over 10,000 
feet or roughly 2 miles.
  To put this into perspective, the distance between the aquifer and 
the hydrofracking equals about 33 footballs fields or 8 Empire State 
Buildings stacked on top of each other.
  To ensure that neither the fluid pumped through the well, nor the oil 
or gas collected, enters the water supply, steel casings are inserted 
into the well to depths of between 1,000 and 4,000 feet.
  Oil and gas companies are required to set protective surface casing 
well beyond the water table. For example, in the Haynesville Shale, 
surface casing must be set at a minimum of 1,800 feet.
  The space between this first casing string and drilled hole is filled 
with cement.
  The casing, cement specifications and cementing process are governed 
by state and federal regulations as well as industry standards. In 
every case this process is supervised by state agency officials.
  Federal regulation of ``hydrofracking'' under the EPA would result in 
a sharp increase in costs to small and independent producers, as well 
as a dramatic decrease in output and job creation.
  Production in large shale plays such as the Haynesville Shale in 
Louisiana, the Barnett in Texas and the Marcellus Shale in the 
Northeast U.S. would essentially grind to a halt and billions of 
dollars in federal and state tax revenue would be lost.
  It is crucial that Congress recognize what resources, such as the 
Haynesville Shale, will play in this country's long-term economic and 
national security.

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