A copy of industry’s demanded and granted amendments are copied below the “confidential” stamp.
US oil firms pumping secret chemicals into ground and not fully reporting it, Study shows firms in Colorado, including Chevron, have pumped 30m lbs of chemicals in 18 months without meeting all disclosure rules by Joe Fassler, 20 May 2025, The Guardian
Colorado oil and gas companies have pumped at least 30m lbs of secret chemicals into the ground over the past 18 months without making legally required disclosures, according to a new analysis.
That’s in spite of first-in-the-nation rules requiring operators and their suppliers to list all chemicals used in drilling and extraction, while also banning any use of Pfas “forever chemicals” at oil and gas sites. Since the transparency law took effect in July 2023, operators have fracked 1,114 sites across the state, but as of 1 May chemical disclosures have not been filed for 675 of them – more than 60% of the total, the analysis says.
Chevron, the world’s third-biggest fossil-fuel company by market cap, is by far the most serious offender, operating about 375, or more than half, of the non-compliant wells.
“We thought that the Colorado law was going to break through the culture of secrecy that surrounds the use of potentially toxic chemicals in oil and gas production,” I pointed out – in writing – to Mr. Horwitt and others involved in 2022 – that Colorado amended the new law allowing escape hatches after companies demanded them. I sent copies of the amendments that allowed frac’ers to continue trade secrets and legally “unintentionally” inject PFAS chemicals! Horwitt and other NGOs ignored my warnings.said Dusty Horwitt, an attorney and researcher who was lead author on the analysis, which is based on public disclosures. “But the lack of compliance has left the secrecy in place, putting people’s health at risk.”
The report, released Tuesday by the environmental groups Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado, FracTracker Alliance, and the Colorado Sierra Club, was shared exclusively with the Guardian.
In a statement to the Guardian, Chevron spokesperson Paula Beasley said that Chevron is already disclosing all of its fracking fluid ingredients that are not trade secrets, and argued that the responsibility to disclose trade secret chemicals ultimately lies with ingredient suppliers, not with the companies who use them.
… Numerous studies show that these fluids can contain toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, as well as carcinogens such as PFAS – a broad class of chemicals that persist in the environment indefinitely – and benzene. This pollution can then end up in aquifers, public waterways, and residents’ drinking water, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
John Spear, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, compared fracking to emptying a syringe filled with mayonnaise into your thigh: it puts a whole bunch of material into a space that’s not equipped to handle it.
“We’re putting things down there that are probably not meant to be digested by the subsurface,” said Spear, who testified about the need for fracking chemical transparency during the 2022 legislative session.Why testify with escape word “probably?” “That becomes a potential problem, because if it doesn’t know how to handle it, it’s just going to move it around.”
The problem is especially acute for people who live near an oil or gas well, a scenario with well-established links to leukemia, birth abnormalities and other serious health outcomes. Secretive chemicals can make it difficult to provide adequate care for those individuals, said Elizabeth Gillespie, a hospitalist at Denver Health Medical Center and professor of medicine at University of Colorado Anschutz, who was recently elected to chair PSR Colorado’s board.
“Not seeing that full list of chemicals and understanding the full extent of that exposure really makes us unable to take a complete medical history,” she said.
Sinister: The amendments allowing companies to only disclose chemicals injected long afterwards, prevents anyone from appropriate real baseline water well testing which subsequent frac harmed families must have to successfully sue. Slick and Evil Amendments; Slick enabling by NGOs! Because companies keep their toxic brews secret before frac’ing/drilling/completions etc., it’s impossible for people living nearby to adequately and completely get baseline testing before the frac’s. After water wells are contaminated, companies say the baseline and post frac’ing tests show no change but neglect to tell the public or the harmed, that injected chemicals — were not tested for before contamination. The only way chemical disclosure protects anyone, is disclosure before drilling, frac’ing, cementing, servicing, perforating, acidizing, before water is poisoned and health harmed. Companies and regulators damn well know their slick trickery protects them, while harming the frac harmed. NGOs know this too but lie about it. Why? Donations? Ego? I can’t understand it.
Most major oil and gas producing states require operators to post information about their fracking chemicals to FracFocus, a nationwide disclosure database maintained by state-level environmental officials. But for years, fossil fuel companies have used trade secret claims to shield the full picture of their chemical use from scrutiny. In 2021, for instance, 88% of FracFocus disclosures used confidentiality to shield at least one proprietary ingredient from scrutiny – the so-called “Halliburton loophole”. Between 2014 and 2021, over 7bn lbs of these secret chemicals were pumped nationwide, according to a study in Environmental Pollution.
Under the law passed in 2022, Colorado operators and their suppliers must now disclose all downhole chemical ingredients to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC), the state oil and gas regulator, within 150 days.Way too late to do appropriate baseline testing. The amendments to the law allow trade secrets and PFAS chemicals to be “unintentionally” added ECMC must then post the chemicals used on its website, though the exact proportion of ingredients in a given formulation can still remain secret. That year, in a separate bill, lawmakers banned any use of PFAS at oil and gas sites.Untrue! Amendments to the 2022 law allow unintentional addition of PFASs. Big Fat Loophole which I warned the NGOs about in writing in 2022.
A 2022 report from Physicians for Social Responsibility found that PFAS had been used for fracking in close to 300 wells in Colorado, though trade secret designations made a more complete analysis impossible.
The new analysis shows that operators and their suppliers have broadlytaken advantage of the loopholes they demanded to operate legally failed to comply with the new disclosure rules since they went into effect in July 2023. Between then and 1 May, 31 operators have fracked in Colorado, but ECMC has only posted information about trade secret chemicals for eleven of them. The other 20 operators and their suppliers have not complied at all, now nearly two years later.
In comments to the Guardian, Chevron’s Beasley said: “Manufacturers and suppliers of [trade secret] chemicals are ultimately responsible for whether their formulations are disclosed – not operators.”Loopholes everywhere. There are always loopholes, plenty of them, and the regulators and NGOs know it.
Implementation does depend upon manufacturers sharing the ingredients in their formulations with their oil and gas customers, or with ECMC. However the agency’s industry guidance makes clear it sees both operators and chemical manufacturers as disclosers, while asserting that “the statute now requires disclosure of all chemical products used in downhole operations, regardless of if a discloser believes that a chemical constituent is a trade secret or proprietary information”.
The Colorado code of regulations also requires chemical information to be provided to the commission “at least 30 days before the discloser begins selling, distributing, or using the chemical product”.
Meanwhile, the disclosures that do exist appear to be incomplete, said report co-author Gary Allison, a FracTracker consulting data scientist who helped launch Open-FF, a website that provides additional insight into FracFocus data. When Horwitt and Allison compared the chemicals marked “trade secret” in FracFocus with the list of chemicals on ECMC’s website, they found numerous discrepancies. Among the eleven companies whose wells nominally complied with the rules, all of them had claimed secret chemicals to FracFocus that were not subsequently disclosed by the regulator.As allowed by amendments.
All this makes it impossible to say exactly what is being pumped underground. Of course, that’s the reason for the endless loopholes! Frac’ers know they contaminate drinking water and surface waters, thus the many loopholes to prevent people from being able to prove it. Regulators do not work to protect the frac harmed, they work to protect those doing the harming. NGOs well know that!Environmentalists are concerned they don’t know if PFAS is still being used despite its ban on sites.It is not a ban! PFAS chemicals are allowed if they are unintentionally added. Frac’ers will make great use of that loophole, FFS.
In comments to the Guardian, ECMC said it was still working with industry to ensure compliance, citing operational changes at the agency and the difficulty of rolling out new rule changes.
“We’ve implemented 17 mission-changing rule-makings in the past five years, which is an unprecedented degree of change in our agency’s 74-year history,” said ECMC spokesperson Kristin Kemp, in an emailed statement. “Nonetheless there’s more work to be done regarding the implementation and continuous assessment of the implementation. The paradigm shift in the state’s energy regulations can’t happen overnight.”
But Carol Hawkins, a resident turned activist in Weld county, the epicenter of Colorado’s fracking industry, says the commission isn’t moving fast enough to protect public health.
“We rush by these well pads on our way to work or to go up to the mountains or whatever it is we’re doing. And we don’t even realize the toxins pouring off those sites, because it’s invisible to the naked eye,” said Hawkins, who says her home in Ault is surrounded on three sides by nearby fracking sites. “It’s oil and gas in cahoots with our state government. We feel powerless.”
Blown well
An April incident underscores the importance of public transparency. On 6 April, a well at Chevron subsidiary Noble’s Bishop pad experienced a blowout during the course of normal operations. Over the next four days, it emitted a massive amount of oil, condensate, and wellbore fluid into the environment.
According to information posted on Chevron’s website, 380 people coordinated on the response, including a contractor who was hospitalized as a result. The spill, which was roughly a mile from downtown Galeton, Colorado, caused an elementary school to be shut down for much of the month. Ultimately, Chevron recovered nearly 90,000 barrels of E & P waste – waste generated from drilling, fracking or production – that had sprayed out from the site, according to ECMC’s webpage devoted to the incident.
At that well, according to the Guardian’s analysis of FracFocus data, Chevron had pumped roughly 15,000 gallons of a trade secret chemical into the ground.
While the eruption was ongoing, graduate students from Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science drove out to the area near Galeton to collect air pollution samples. On 8 April, two of them, Lena Low and Jared Stickney, roved out in the department’s research vehicle, a Chevy Tahoe outfitted with field sampling equipment.
“You could see, even from a couple miles away, this giant plume of white gas spilling out up into the air,” Stickney said. When Low and Stickney were about a mile away from the geyser, they said the Tahoe’s real-time methane reading shot up – a sign they were in the chemical plume downwind from the exploding well. The smell grew so strong as they were trying to take an air sample that it became hard to breathe, they said.
“The smell just quickly got worse,” said Low. “Just … your body telling you: ‘OK, stop breathing. This isn’t good for you.’”
“When I breathed it in, my eyes started watering, I started coughing,” Stickney said.
Even at the edge of the plume, a mile from the blowout site, subsequent analysis of the sample showed the carcinogen benzene at about 35 parts per billion, said Emily Fischer, a professor of atmospheric science at CSU.
Anyone breathing that amount of benzene for an hour – say the plume settled over their house – would be exposed between four and 10 times beyond what common safety thresholds allow, Fischer said.
The results also came back with elevated levels of hexane, toluene, and xylene. But because trade secret chemicals weren’t disclosed for the Bishop well pad, the students – and other nearby residents – can’t know exactly what else was in the toxic plume.
“This just kind of proves that you need to be transparent about what you’re putting in those wells,” Stickley said. “Because when incidents like this happen, people don’t know what they’re breathing, they don’t know what’s going into the air. That’s a problem for the workers. That’s a problem for the local residents. It’s a problem for everybody.”And that is why I am vehemently opposed to NGOs lying about the amendments industry demanded and received. Not having to disclose any chemicals injected, whether secret or not, until months later, enables precisely this secretive poisonous mess. Alberta pulled the same bullshit years many years ago.
Chevron said its own air quality testing had a different result.
“Air monitoring continues in and around the area surrounding the site and the community, and all measurements that we have received from the laboratories have been below levels of concern,” said Beasley, Chevron’s spokesperson, in her statement. “Chevron cannot speculate on data that we have not received or reviewed.”In my experience, one must never trust or rely on industry and or regulator testing. They know all the ways to get false results.
The continued non-disclosure of secret chemicals in Colorado’s wells has become an even more urgent issue in the aftermath of the disaster blow out, said Barbara Donachy, an artist and environmental activist on the board of PSR Colorado.It doesn’t matter if secrets are allowed or not! The sleazy amendments that the NGOs lie about, and which I pointed out to them in 2022, allow all the chemicals injected to be kept secret, even those non secret, until months later. Refer below the confidential stamp to see the amendments
“A public health alert would have been different had they known all the chemicals that were in that well,” she said.Yes, indeed. And that is why I am furious at the NGOs for not advising the public about the sleazy amendments!
But Donachy said ECMC hadn’t even created a publicly available website devoted to the disclosures until December 2024, after she filed a public records request.
At the same time, Allison said it’s likely the topline figure in their analysis – at least 30m lbs of secret chemicals pumped since July 2023 – is just a partial picture of the total. Though the FracFocus database only features data on extraction fluid chemicals, Colorado law additionally mandates disclosure of chemicals used in drilling fluid – which routinely includes Pfas compounds as a lubricant. Which do none of us any good, if companies do not have to disclose their chemical injections until months too late.As of this writing, ECMC has not posted any chemical disclosures related to drilling. ECMC did not answer the Guardian’s question about whether it believes that drilling fluids are also covered under the disclosure rules.
Colorado operators have drilled at over 1,200 sites since December 2023, Allison said. The report calls this “woefully inadequate” compliance, and argues that ECMC must hold companies and their suppliers accountable. Under the 2022 law, ECMC can issue fines of between $200 and $15,000 a day for not complying with the chemical disclosure rules. At a conservative $200 per day, the non-compliant companies would have already racked up over $37m in fees, the analysis found – enough to pay the annual salaries of more than 500 Colorado teachers.I bet the loopholes ensure no fines or fees.
In its response to the Guardian, ECMC’s Kemp said “our staff first attempts to work cooperatively with operators”, though operators that remain non-compliant will face penalties.
Colorado state representative Meg Froelich, who co-sponsored the 2022 legislation, expressed frustration at the slow pace of enforcement.
“You put in the elbow grease, and you deploy community and advocates against a pretty powerful lobby,” she said. “It doesn’t feel good when they’re so easily able to just do whatever they want anyway.”Then, why did so many ignore the amendments!?
Hawkins, who lives just a few miles from where the Bishop pad geyser erupted in Galeton, said she hoped that the incident would finally force ECMC to be more proactive. “If Galeton doesn’t get this state to do something,” she said, “what will?”
Now We Know: Colorado’s Oil & Gas Chemical Reporting Crisis and the Cost to Public Health by Halt the Harm Network (environmental advocates, grassroots leaders and concerned citizens working together to protect communities from the harmful impacts of oil and gas development)
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. EDT
Welcome! To join the event, please register below.
About Event
Join us for an exclusive media briefing on a major new report examining the current results of one of the nation’s most closely watched environmental disclosure laws.
While full details remain under embargo until the event, this virtual briefing will bring together the report’s authors and leading national experts to discuss the chemical disclosure in oil and gas operations, the implications for public health and safety, and why this matters for every state where oil and gas companies drill.
Why This Matters
- A new report uncovers widespread noncompliance with Colorado’s 2022 chemical disclosure law
I bet there are and or will be no non compliances — that 2022 law was cleverly amended in 2022 by politicians (likely industry directing them) to allow trade secrets and injections of forever chemicals. In 2022, in writing, I warned the NGOs boasting about getting the industry to stop keeping trade secrets and not to inject PFASs, including to Dusty Horwitt. They ignored my warnings and kept lying to the public. I lost all trust in them then for oil and gas operations, raising urgent questions about public health protections. - Findings suggest that major industry players are failing to report the chemicals they inject underground—potentially including banned substances like PFAS.The 2022 amendments allow frac’ers to keep secrets and to inject PFASs! I warned Dusty and others involved, that amendments to the 2022 law neutered useless! It’s also been proven again and again by companies and their enabling regulators, that frac’ing is impossible to make safe and impossible to regulate because companies just ignore laws and regulations and regulators let them, with lots of lies, amendments, trickery, loophole after loophole. And worse, as in this case, NGOs synergize and falsely report on new laws, enabling the poisonings and giving communities false sense of security and false information that frac’ers must disclose all the toxic chemicals they inject and are no longer allowed to inject PFASs. I REPEAT: Colorado’s 2022 chemical disclosure law was amended by politicians, to render it useless. I carefully pointed these sneaky amendments out to the NGOs bragging about the new law. I donated my time to do that. I am not at all surprised companies have not been disclosing their toxic chemicals injected. And I will not be surprised if they never do!
- The report builds on years of research, highlighted in 2021 by The New York Times, about the presence of “forever chemicals” in fracking operations and offers a new layer of accountability.Really? Or, just more synergy, boasting and lies?
- Authors will release the report and its findings in an embargoed media briefing on May 20, including legal, scientific, and policy insights relevant to national energy and health reporting.
What you’ll get
First look at the report’s major findings.
- Insight from the legal and scientific experts behind the analysis.
- Background on how the report was built, and how other states can use this data to demand accountability.Wanna bet they do not include my 2022 written warnings to them? PS Demanding accountability does not provide accountability. Most, if not all, demands for accountability and health protections from frac’ing are ignored – by companies, politicians, regulators and are misused and or misrepresented by NGOs.
- Tools and talking points to support reporting and advocacy following the release.
Featured Speakers
- Dusty Horwitt, J.D.
Lead Investigator and Report Author - Ramesh Bhatt
Chair of the Colorado Sierra Club Conservation Committee - John Spear, Ph.D.
Professor of environmental engineering specializing in microbiology at the Colorado School of Mines
Moderator:
- Shannon Smith
Executive Director, FracTracker Alliance
This event is for journalists, environmental health advocates, legal analysts, and movement partners.
Please note: All content discussed in this briefing is under embargo until May 20th, 2025 10:00 AM MT.
Refer also to:
2022 April 7: Colorado: After thousands harmed, Bill introduced for an Act on Oversight of *All* (not just some frac) Chemicals Used in Oil & Gas Production (to also disallow trade secrets). Will the oil & gas industry and the rich (judges included) allow this to pass?Nope, obviously they didn’t.
This is a post I did in 2022 but didn’t publish. Synergizing deceptions by NGOs are brutal for me to watch play out and endure. NGOs caused more harm to me, smearing me and my case, than the defendants in my lawsuit did. In Alberta, NGOs synergize to serve Encana, AER, Alberta Environment and other frac’ers in exchange for donations (read their annual reports for the gritty funding details).
I published this old frac fuckery by Colorado today, Jan 30, 2024, because of PA Gov Josh Shapiro synergizing with CNX, copying it:
My 2022 post:
When I went to the Serra Club’s June 17, 2022 press release online, first thing that popped up was asking me for money.
This is untrue in Sierra Club’s press release:
And it requires those manufacturers to certify to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that no products used in Colorado extraction operations contain hazardous and toxic PFAS “forever chemicals.”
“Accidentally” adding PFAS’s is allowed. You can bet your sweet donations there will be plenty of accidental and intentional “accidents” making frac mixes. If this new law truly prevented trade secrets (which the industry and the rich will never allow because outlawing trade secrets would give litigants the details they need to win their lawsuits), there is no need to make it legal for companies to add PFASs accidentally.
A real law would say:
The discloser must add no perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, by accident or intentionally.
Instead of this loopholey fluff:
The discloser must also provide the commission with a declaration that the chemical product contains no intentionally added perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl chemicals.
This bit in Sierra’s press release is also untrue:
It prevents chemical manufacturers from claiming trade secret protections for the individual chemicals used to make fracking and drilling fluids.
And the quote below from the press release contains two falsehoods in one. How will the amended bill give industry better compliance? We all know companies break the law with impunity with regulators both sides of the border enabling it, even engaging in fraud to do so. As usual, relating to anything regulating frac’ers and the oil and gas industry, the law got watered down; I sent the watered down details to Sierra Club, PSR Colorado and other NGOS; media reported on it too:
Representative Meg Froelich:
“The industry will have better compliance with existing reporting requirements and will no longer be able to hide potentially dangerous chemicals from the public via a ‘trade secret’ exemption.”
Below quote not directly untrue, but not true either. I expect companies have already filed exemption requests to COGCC, to allow trade secrets:
Understanding what chemicals are on site will help to ensure that first responders have adequate protective gear and that medical personnel can diagnose and treat symptoms from chemical exposure rapidly,” said Representative and Doctor Yadira Caraveo.
Wow, openly admitting synergy in this quote:
“From here we will work with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to properly implement the law and protect our communities and the environment,” said Ramesh Bhatt, Sierra Club, Colorado Chapter Conservation Chair.
In my frac’d view, and after years of experiencing NGOs, companies, politicians and AER trying to con me into synergizing for them, to “work with them” to enable unlawful fracs in nearly identical ways, it seems Colorado’s last minute amendment allowing trade secrets and accidental PFAS chemicals is more about conning the public and keeping donations rolling in for NGOs.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 17, 2022 CONTACT: Ramesh Bhatt, Sierra Club of Colorado Conservation Chair, email hidden; JavaScript is required Gabby Brown, email hidden; JavaScript is required View as webpage Colorado Leads the Nation in Protecting Communities through Oil and Gas Operation Chemical Disclosure Bill Denver– On Wednesday, June 8th, Governor Polis signed House Bill 22-1348 <https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb22-1348>, the “Oversight of Chemicals Used in Oil and Gas Production”. This transformative policy was championed by Representatives Meg Froelich and Yadira Caraveo and Senator Faith Winter. HB22-1348 improves transparency by requiring public disclosure of all chemicals used in downhole operations of oil and gas production - a first-in-the-nation achievement. It prevents chemical manufacturers from claiming trade secret protections for the individual chemicals used to make fracking and drilling fluids. And it requires those manufacturers to certify to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that no products used in Colorado extraction operations contain hazardous and toxic PFAS “forever chemicals.” Research by Physicians for Social Responsibility <https://www.psr.org/blog/physicians-group-uncovers-evidence-that-forever-chemicals-pfas-have-been-used-in-colorados-oil-and-gas-wells-full-extent-of-use-obscured-by-thousands-of-trade-secret-claims/> found that Colorado, like most states, was failing to receive information about the names of chemicals used in the oil and gas industry, with more than 400 million pounds of mystery chemicals injected in the sub-surface of Colorado over a ten-year period. All three pieces of HB22-1348 dramatically improve transparency at the nexus of public health and oil and gas operations in Colorado. “Coloradans deserve to know what chemicals oil and gas operators are putting in the ground in our communities,” said *Representative Meg Froelich*. “The industry will have better compliance with existing reporting requirements and will no longer be able to hide potentially dangerous chemicals from the public via a ‘trade secret’ exemption.” “First responders and medical professionals will now have the opportunity to prepare and plan for accidents and or spills that occur at oil and gas operations. Understanding what chemicals are on site will help to ensure that first responders have adequate protective gear and that medical personnel can diagnose and treat symptoms from chemical exposure rapidly,” said *Representative and Doctor Yadira Caraveo*. “Colorado is a beautiful place to live and our water resources, which are increasingly threatened by climate change, are precious,” said *Senator Faith Winter*. “HB22-1348 helps to protect our water from forever chemicals like ‘PFAS’ and other cancer-causing toxins. It ensures that future Coloradans will have water that is drinkable, fishable and swimmable.” “I am grateful for the sponsors of HB22-1348 and to Governor Polis for their leadership and commitment to protecting Colorado communities from the chemicals used in fracking operations. And this victory wouldn’t have been possible without contributions from our many environmental, public health, and local government partners. From here we will work with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to properly implement the law and protect our communities and the environment,” said *Ramesh Bhatt, Sierra Club, Colorado Chapter Conservation Chair.* ###
***
PSR Colorado is not honest about the bill either; I also notified them about the amendments enabling trade secrets:
Jun 18Well after the June 8 amendments!
Written By PSR Colorado
Colorado Governor Jared Polis has signed House Bill 22-1348, the “Oversight of Chemicals Used in Oil and Gas Production” bill. This pivotal legislation was borne out of PSR’s year-long investigation that demonstrated how Oil and Gas companies routinely withhold the identities of chemicals used in drilling and fracking operations from regulators and the public by claiming that the names of those chemicals are a protected trade secret.
HB 22-1348 addresses previously-existing loopholes in chemical disclosure rules, and now prevents chemical manufacturers from claiming trade secret protections for individual chemical constituents in fracking and drilling fluids. It also requires chemical manufacturers to certify with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) that none of the products used in Colorado O&G operations contain long-lasting and toxic PFAS “forever chemicals.”
***
FROM THE JUNE 8, 2022 AMENDED BILL, PG 3:
…
If a manufacturer believes that any information that will be included on a chemical disclosure list is a trade secret, the manufacturer must file a trade secret claim with the commission. If the commission determines that the information covered by the trade secret claim constitutes a trade secret, the commission shall not include the information in any applicable chemical disclosure list.
…
Does anyone trust Colorado’s oil & gas commission (other than industry)? They’ve proven themselves untrustworthy again and again. I expect the COGCC will grant industry all the trade secret exemptions they ask for. The amendments below, including the parts of the new law that were struck out, were done so by Colorado, not me. I just bolded them in this post to make them easier to spot
HB22-1348: Oversight Of Chemicals Used In Oil & Gas by Colorado General Assembly, signed by Governor Polis, June 8, 2022
Concerning enhanced oversight of the chemicals used in oil and gas production, and, in connection therewith, making an appropriation.
Session:
2022 Regular Session
Subject:
Natural Resources & Environment Bill Summary
The bill establishes a regulatory scheme that requires disclosure of certain chemical information for products used in downhole oil and gas operations (chemical disclosure information). On or before July 31, 2023, the oil and gas conservation commission (commission) is required to utilize or develop a chemical disclosure website to collect and share certain chemical disclosure information to the public (chemical disclosure website).
On and after July 31, 2023, a manufacturer that sells or distributes a chemical product operators, service providers, and direct vendors that provide chemical products directly to an operator or service provider at a well site (discloser) for use in underground oil and gas operations (downhole operations) in the state must disclose to the commission:
- The trade name of the chemical product;
- A list of the names of each chemical used in the chemical product;
- The estimated amount of each chemical used in the chemical product; and
- A description of the intended purpose of the chemical used in the chemical product.
The manufacturer discloser must also provide the commission with a declaration that the chemical product contains no intentionally added perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl chemicals.
For manufacturers disclosers that were already selling or distributing a chemical product for use in downhole operations in the state before July 31, 2023, the disclosure and declaration must be made at least 30 days before July 31, 2023. For manufacturers disclosers that begin to sell or distribute a chemical product for use in downhole operations in the state on or after July 31, 2023, the disclosure and declaration must be made at least 30 days before the manufacturerdiscloser begins selling or distributing the chemical product.If a manufacturer does not provide the disclosure information for a chemical product that it sells or distributes for use in downhole operations in the state to the discloser upon the request of the discloser, the manufacturer must provide the commission with a trade secret form of entitlement for the chemical product. If, after making a request to the manufacturer, the discloser is unable to disclose the disclosure information, the discloser shall disclose to the commission:
- The name of the chemical product’s manufacturer;
- The chemical product’s trade name;
- The amount or weight of the chemical product; and
- A safety data sheet for the chemical product.
On and after July 31, 2023, an operator of downhole operations using a chemical product must disclose to the commission:
- The date of commencement of downhole operations;
- The county of the well site where downhole operations are being conducted;
- The
numerical identifier assigned by the American Petroleum InstituteUS well number assigned to the well where downhole operations are being conducted; and - The trade names and quantities of any chemical products the operator plans to use used in downhole operations.
The operator must also provide the commission with a declaration that the chemical product contains no intentionally added perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl chemicals.
For downhole operations that commenced before July 31, 2023, and that will be ongoing on July 31, 2023, the disclosure and declaration must be made at least 75 days before within 120 days after July 31, 2023. For downhole operations that commence on or after July 31, 2023, the disclosure and declaration must be made at least 75 days before within 120 days after the commencement of downhole operations.
The commission will use the chemical disclosure information to create a chemical disclosure list for each well site, which will include:
- An alphabetical list of names of chemicals that will be used in downhole operations at the well site; and
- The total estimated amount of each chemical
that will beused at the well site.
The commission will post each chemical disclosure list on the chemical disclosure website. The commission shall provide the chemical disclosure list to the applicable operator within 7 days after the operator’s disclosures.
Prior to the commencement of downhole operations, the operator is required to disclose the chemical disclosure list to communities near where downhole operations will be conducted, local public water administrators, and, if there is a high-priority habitat near where downhole operations are being conducted, the division of parks and wildlife. For downhole operations that commenced before July 31, 2023, and that will be ongoing on July 31, 2023, the disclosure of the chemical disclosure list by the operator to these entities must be made at least 60 days before July 31, 2023. For downhole operations that commence on or after July 31, 2023, the disclosure of the chemical disclosure list by the operator to these entities must be made at least 60 days before commencement of downhole operations The disclosure of the chemical disclosure list to these entities must be made within 30 days after the operator’s receipt of the chemical disclosure list from the commission.
If a manufacturer believes that any information that will be included on a chemical disclosure list is a trade secret, the manufacturer must file a trade secret claim with the commission. If the commission determines that the information covered by the trade secret claim constitutes a trade secret, the commission shall not include the information in any applicable chemical disclosure list.
On or before July 31, 2023, the commission must promulgate rules that set standards for the disclosure of the chemical disclosure information to:
- An officer or employee of the United States, the state, or a local government in connection with the officer’s or employee’s official duties;
- Contractors of the United States, the state, or a local government if the commission determines that the disclosure is necessary for performance of a contract or the protection of public health and safety;
- A health-care professional in connection with an emergency or with diagnosing or treating a patient; and
- In order to protect public safety, a person who is employed in public health or a scientist or researcher employed by an institution of higher education.
No later than February 1, 2025, and no later than February 1 each year thereafter, the commission shall submit and present an annual report to the general assembly based on the chemical disclosure information.
(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.) I added the bold and red emphasis.
Colorado fracking disclosure bill ***changed to allow trade secrets,*** The bill still increases transparency for the public, backers say by Greg Avery – Senior Reporter, Denver Business Journal, May 11, 2022
May 11, 2022
Oil and gas fracking companies will still be allowed to declare some chemical combinations trade secrets under an amended version of a bill increasing disclosures about hydraulic fracturing in Colorado.
A bill that would have stripped away trade secrets claims by fracking companies was changed Tuesday evening by amendments on the floor of the state Senate in the final hours of the Legislature’s annual session.
The amended bill will require oil and gas companies to disclose all chemicals alphabetically in a list that will be sent to residents and local governments near well fracking sites and will be disclosed online.
But, in an amendment backed by the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, the state’s oil well regulator, fracking companies would still be able to guard formulations as proprietary trade secrets, as allowed under current law.
The combination of alphabetical disclosure but the preservation of trade secrets claims is a compromise that appeared likely to speed the bill to passage Wednesday, the final day of the General Assembly’s regular session.
Sen. Faith Winter, a co-sponsor of the bill, urged other members to vote in support of Tuesday’s amendments and the bill as a whole.
“This bill increases transparency,” By allowing trade secrets and accidental PFAS chemicals? Pffffft. she said, during a floor vote Tuesday evening.
House Bill 1348, as originally proposed, would have removed “trade secret” exemptions from Colorado’s existing fracking disclosure mandate, requiring formulas of what’s used in hydraulic fracturing to be disclosed and, for the first time, start disclosing chemicals used at any point in the drilling process, not just during the process of “fracking” a well just after it has been drilled.
Fracking jobs are more than 99% water with fine sand. Less than 1% is chemical additives, most of which are substances found in common cleansers under most people’s kitchen sinks — and they are already disclosed under existing state rules, argued Dan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.
“But eliminating the trade secrets provision in the law would have set Colorado down a slippery slope as it relates to intellectual property,” Haley said in reaction to Tuesday’s amendments to the bill.
Being able to label as trade secrets the detailed combinations of chemicals used in fracking allows companies to “innovate to further identify safeguards and efficiencies to produce the cleanest molecules that power our lives,” research showed years ago that frac’d gas is not clean and is dirtier than coal Haley said. ”Like any industry or business, efforts to disclose trade secrets would have a chilling effect on advancements and only stifle entrepreneurship.”
Part of what motivated the bill is a report early this year by Physicians for Social Responsibility, a public health and environmental advocacy group, that examined Colorado fracking jobs reported under existing state chemical disclosure law and concluded that 282 wells have been fracked with chemicals that included the ingredient commonly known as Teflon, which is related to a group of so-called “forever chemicals,” or PFAS chemicals.
Those chemicals can linger in water for decades and can cause cancer in people. Witnesses testifying in various committees about HB-1348 said there’s no safe exposure limit for PFAS and the chemicals should be eliminated from being used in industrial processes like fracking.
The main trade groups for the state’s oil and gas producers said their members don’t use PFAS chemicals in fracking jobs, arguing the new chemical disclosure standards were unnecessary.
Chemicals used in fracking in Colorado have, since 2014, been disclosed to a website, frackfocus.org, maintained by the nonprofit Groundwater Protection Council. But some of what has been used in fracking jobs can be obscured by Colorado allowing trade secret claims.
Environmental activists say they have identified at least 12,000 wells in the state that have been fracked since 2011 and the companies involved claimed trade secret exemptions in their chemical disclosure, allowing them to keep proprietary combinations of chemicals secret.
Advocates supporting HB-1348 argued during recent committee testimony they suspect Colorado’s existing trade secrets exemption hid the use of a type of chemical, known as surfactants, that are related to PFAS chemicals. A co-author of the Physicians for Social Responsibility report said it appeared 3,200 fracking jobs might’ve included the worrisome surfactants, but that couldn’t be known because of the ability to claim trade secrets.
It’s not clear how whether or how much HB-1348, after Tuesday’s amendments, will change the understanding of whether or not the surfactants are being used.
Environmental groups argued the public has a right to know all the details about fracking chemicals, as is required in some other states.No jurisdiction anywhere, makes frac’ers disclose all chemicals injected during drilling, cementing, perforating, frac’ing, servicing, etc. Trade secrets rule the frac fuckery.
The steel lining of oil wells can corrode as they age, leaving open the possibility that long-lasting chemicals used during fracking could migrate to aquifers over time, said John Spear, a Colorado School of Mines professor who studies subsurface geology and biome. Full disclosure would help people know what to watch for, he said.
“It would be better if we all knew what they are injecting into the subsurface,” Spear concluded.
The industry maintains Colorado’s current disclosure is adequate and the ability to claim trade secrets vital to maintaining business competitiveness.
The amendments added Tuesday during the Senate floor vote on HB-1348 were not debated in detail.
Final votes on the amended version of the bill are expected Wednesday.
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2013: I publicly presented on the slime that is “full disclosure” of toxic chemicals and radioactive tracers by frac’ers and the oil and gas industry in general for years.
Encana/Ovintiv illegally frac’d directly into my community’s drinking water aquifers, and even with sacrificing nearly half a million dollars in legal fees and other costs (trade secrets are not allowed under Alberta’s rules of court!), I still do not know what chemicals (other than “air) the company illegally, perf’d, frac’d and later cemented (trying to repair some of the horrific damages down to our aquifers) into our drinking water.
And, for decades, I’ve been calling NGOs out for their frac harm enabling and synergy. They caused me more harm, trying to silence me and discredit me, than the defendants and my own betraying lawyers did in my case!
