It was announced by a senior White House official that the toughening of hydraulic fracturing laws, or "Fracking, will come in on schedule. The new regulations are due to be announced by the end of the year.

This is welcome news to environmentalists that thought that the extension of the public comment period would certainly set back the regulations until well past the New Year. The extension added an additional two months to the commenting period until mid-September. It was a cause for concern for environmentalists for fate of the new regulations that would then rest on the fate of the elections this fall.

The extension will allow the states more time to weigh in on the proposed rules that were proposed in a draft in May. That draft, among other items requires the disclosure of chemicals used in the procedure by the industry. The hydraulic fracking fluids used by the drilling companies are propriatary and no exact fracking formula is publicly known, byt one of the ingredients of the fluid is diesel oil. It was reported that 14 fracking companies pumped over 32 million gallons of diesel into the ground from 2005 until 2009.Many other volatile fluids are also included.

The draft also called for integrity and management of the flowback water that fracking produces. Flowback, or backflow water is the fluids containing chemicals and diesel that flow back up to the surface after the fracking procedure is complete at a site. As much as 40% of the fluids pumped in will resurface at the drill area for 3 to 4 weeks while the rest stays in the formation. Typical amounts of flowback water are approximately 40,000 bbl.

White House Energy Aide Heather Zichal told those at the New Democrtat Network, a Washington D.C. left leaning think tank that the extension was a positive step.

“I think we saw and heard some issues both from the environmental community, from the industry side, and we need a little bit more time to look at those issues and allow them to engage in this process and I think the more people are allowed to engage in the process we will be able to end up with a better rule,” Zichal said. The administration says that they strongly back the increased gas production that fracking provides but say that they wanted the fracking procedure to be conducted with proper safeguards in place.

In Alaska, fracking is poised to gain a foothold in the state as well with news released early this year by the U.S. Geological Survey that the state is sitting on as much as 80 trillion cubic feet of frackable natural gas and close to 2 billion gallons of shale oil. That USGS Report can be read here.