The fifth anniversary of the creation of FracFocus is being observed this month by the two groups that formed it April 11, 2011—the Ground Water Protection Council and Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission.
When FracFocus.org was created, there were 37 participating energy companies that revealed information on chemicals they used in hydraulic fracturing operations. Now there are more than 1,000 companies taking part in the public information website, giving up chemical data for nearly 110,000 hydraulic fracturing operations across the U.S. and identifying their drilling locations. Twenty-three states now require or allow companies to disclose the chemical data on FracFocus.
“We’re extremely proud of FracFocus and how it has revolutionized the standard for hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure,” said Mike Paque, executive director of the Ground Water Protection Council. “We’re excited about the future as we continue to grow and evolve, allowing us to improve the user and reporting company experiences and to further improve public transparency.”
A newly updated FracFocus 3.0 will be released later in the year, featuring stronger validation processes to improve data integrity, making the data more valuable for researchers and the public. There will also be a new format for reporting company data entry which will decrease the use of trade secrets in disclosures, thereby providing more public transparency.
Meanwhile, the council has also hired Capitol Hill Consulting Group’s Stratton Edwards to lobby on the energy and water appropriations bill. Edwards is a former legislative counsel for Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma. As Politico’s Morning Energy Report noted, Cole “hails from a state where earthquakes have underscored fracking concerns.”
