English: The badlands of Hell’s Half-Acre in Natrona County, Wyoming. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Halliburton needs protection! OMG ! Wyoming, O Wyoming O Halliburton
source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/wyoming-fracking-chemical-lawsuit_n_2950013.html
Natrona County District Judge Catherine Wilking has ruled that Wyoming’s state oil and gas supervisor was correct to withhold the ingredient lists as protected trade secrets.
Attorneys for Wyoming and oilfield services company Halliburton argued that public disclosure could allow competing companies to reverse-engineer fracking fluids.
some background: http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/stories/Wyoming-judge-hears-fracking-disclosure-case,84610?category_id=82&sub_type=stories,maps
“In 2010, Wyoming became one of the first states to require companies to tell its Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulators the ingredients in the fracking chemical products they use. Environmentalists praised the new rules, but companies soon began to seek trade secret exemptions that prevent public disclosure of the constituent ingredients.”
“Commission staff often rubber-stamped the trade secret requests with little regard to whether they were justified on consistent grounds, Preso argued.
“Clearly there are some important proprietary interests. We’re not saying there are not,” he said. The commission staff needs to make certain, however, that companies have provided enough specific information to justify withholding the ingredients from the public, he said.
Wilking asked Easton how landowners should conduct baseline contamination tests when they don’t know which specific chemicals to test for in their groundwater. Easton said it was a “tough question” but a landowner could order a generic test of contaminants.
“You could run a priority pollutants screen,” agreed Steven Leifer, a Halliburton attorney who argued on the state’s side “If somebody wants to test for hazardous substances, they could certainly do it.”
And…
Casper judge rules fracking ingredients are trade secrets
Related articles
- Judge sides with Wyoming in fracking chemical suit (heraldonline.com)
- Court backs Wyoming on refusal to reveal fracking ingredients (bizjournals.com)
- Judge Sides with Wyoming in Fracking Chemical Suit (nation.time.com)
- Judge sides with Wyoming in fracking chemical suit (wfaa.com)
