Last month, California filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration regarding the repeal of a rule regulating hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, on publicly owned lands under Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra stated,
The risks of fracking to our health and our environment are real. President Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke didn’t let the law or facts get in their way in their zeal to repeal.
A coalition of environmental and tribal groups separately sued to block the rollback of the fracking rule as well. Under the Obama Administration, companies that drilled on public or Native American lands were subject to stricter standards for oil and gas wells, and for ponds and tanks where toxic waste water that resulted from the fracking process is stored. Since the Trump Administration took over, Becerra has sued the Trump administration 26 times, including the fracking suit. In the fracking suit, California argues that the Bureau of Land Management lacks legal justification for repealing the 2015 Obama Administration rule. The suit also argues that the Trump administration is violating the National Environmental Policy Act, the nation’s bedrock environmental statute, by failing to consider the environmental impacts of fracking. We will have to wait and see what the result of the lawsuit will be.
