Hydraulic fracturing is a hot topic these days. If you Google “hydraulic fracturing,” you get just under 1 million results, most of which are positive, informational pieces explaining what the process is and how it works. If you Google “fracking,” however – the invented word that has become a shorthand description for gas shale development in general – you get more than 3 million results, many of which are negative in the sense that they are not factual.

Much of the fear about “fracking” is based on a misunderstanding of what hydraulic fracturing actually is. In the strictest sense of the word, hydraulic fracturing is one part of “completing” an oil or natural gas well. But the word “fracking” is often incorrectly used to describe the entire drilling process.

Some of the misunderstanding stems from the perceived mystery about the fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process. For years, some service companies specializing in hydraulic fracturing did not want to disclose their “secret sauce,” arguing it was their competitive advantage. This caused some to fear, however unjustly, that the fluids might pose some threat to the environment. But new legislation is helping to fight this misinformation.

Just before the end of the 2011 session of the Texas legislature, House Energy Resources Chairman Jim Keffer and others passed Texas House bill HB3328, which Governor Rick Perry is expected to sign into law. The bill, and its companion in the Senate, requires oil and natural gas companies to disclose the contents of their fracture fluid in a publicly accessible database. The database is sponsored by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) and the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC), and can be accessed on a well-by-well basis.

This increase in industry transparency is a big step towards helping the public to better understand natural gas and how it is harvested.