Democrats revive package of bills to clamp down on fracking

The legislation would close the "Halliburton Loophole" and strengthen other regulations on oil and gas production.

November 18, 2025

A group of Democrats are reviving a package of bills that would tighten federal regulations for oil and gas drilling, in a rebuttal to expected votes in the House to shore up the energy industry this week.

The five-bill package, dubbed the “Frack Pack,” aims to hold oil and gas companies accountable to national standards for air and water quality. It would also eliminate the so-called Halliburton Loophole, which has exempted fracking fluids from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2005.

“What all of us are hoping is that this will make the oil and gas industry comply with the same environmental regulations as anybody else,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat and the sponsor of the “Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act.”

“If we’re going to be drilling, and if we’re going to be leaning in on drilling, we need to make sure we’re not contaminating our aquifers with harmful chemicals,” DeGette said.

Bills in the Frack Pack, shared first with POLITICO’s E&E News, are sponsored by DeGette and Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).

The package will serve as a form of Democratic counterprogramming to House Republicans’ efforts this week to support oil and gas production. Lawmakers are set to vote on a spate of Republican-sponsored bills and resolutions focused on refineries, gas exports and drilling restrictions.

But the Democrats' bills are unlikely to get floor votes this Congress. A variation of the Frack Pack was first introduced in 2009, and the bills have been reintroduced regularly since then without gaining much traction, thanks in part to strong opposition from oil and gas industry groups.

DeGette said the Republican majority’s expected opposition to the legislation is irrelevant to the stated goals of the legislative push.

“This Congress is the least productive Congress ever, I think, and the Republicans don’t seem to be prioritizing the environment,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to push for environmental compliance, especially when we’re talking about safe drinking water.”

DeGette’s home state of Colorado was among the first states to implement hydraulic fracturing, the controversial innovation that drove a boom in American oil and gas production. A new oil and gas project proposed near her Denver district has generated local pushback over concerns about potential health risks.

She pointed to language in the "FRAC Act" that would close the Halliburton Loophole, requiring companies to publicly disclose which chemicals they are putting in the ground to help extract gas while authorizing EPA to regulate that process.

“The problem is, if you don’t have a disclosure requirement, you have no idea what is in this fracking fluid; you just have to go on the assurances that the industry is making,” DeGette said. “That’s not the way our regulatory system works.”

Another part of the package, the “Closing Loopholes and Ending Arbitrary and Needless Evasion of Regulations (CLEANER) Act” would eliminate certain exemptions under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and require oil and gas companies to clean up and dispose of more of their waste. The bill is sponsored by Castor, the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy.

The “Focused Reduction of Effluence and Stormwater Runoff Through Hydrofracking Environmental Regulation (FRESHER) Act” is sponsored by Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.

It would require a study on the effects of stormwater runoff from oil and gas extraction sites. It would also require drilling companies to make plans to prevent that runoff from polluting streams and acquire certain permits.

Schakowsky’s “Safe Hydration Is an American Right in Energy Development (SHARED) Act” would require fracking companies to test for water contamination near their drilling sites and to produce reports on the impact their activity has on water quality.

The “Closing Loopholes for Oil and Other Sources of Emissions (CLOSE) Act,” from Clarke, would make oil and gas companies subject to the Clean Air Act’s aggregation requirement, according to a bill summary. It would also add hydrogen sulfide to the list of air pollutants considered hazardous under the Clean Air Act.


By:  Andres Picon
Source: E&E Daily