Other views: Federal fracking rules strike good balance

Environmentalists say they're too loose. The energy industry and its supporters say they're too tight.

This suggests that the U.S. government's proposed rules for fracking on federal land have landed smack in the middle.

And all things considered, that's a pretty good place to be.

By and large, states regulate fracking on private land; and basically, that's the way it should work on federal land, too, North Dakota's senators and congressman say in varying degrees.

Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer -- a former North Dakota energy regulator -- is the most adamant, saying, "It is simply not possible for the federal government to create its own standard on hydraulic fracturing without interfering with state and local laws."

But even Democratic U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is skeptical of the U.S. Department of the Interior's proposals, saying, "I am still not convinced the federal government should be looking to craft one-size-fits-all regulations which duplicate regulations already in place at the state and tribal level."

The trouble is, these objections don't fully respond to the Interior Department's reason for proposing new rules in the first place. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said it plain:

"State regulations currently are in patchwork form. They are not consistent across states."

For example, North Dakota requires fracking companies to disclose which chemicals go into their fracking fluids. But as of last year, "more than half of the states with hydraulic fracturing activity have no disclosure requirements at all," the Natural Resources Defense Council reported.

No wonder the federal government's proposal includes disclosure rules.

Then again, the NRDC and other environmental groups go too far when the "rules" they call for seem more like thinly disguised measures to shut fracking down. Secretary Jewell -- herself a former drilling engineer -- is admirably dismissive of that goal: "Fracking as a technique has been around for decades," she said.

"I have performed the procedure myself very safely."

To its additional credit, the Interior Department's proposal also includes a plan "to defer to states that were already in line with federal proposal," as Reuters news service reported.

In short, the department seems to be saluting North Dakota's regulatory environment while insisting that frack-wells on federal lands in other states meet at least minimal standards. That's a perfectly reasonable plan.

This is the opinion of the Grand Forks Herald's Editorial Board.