Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is questioning whether his state's regulators have been tough enough on an oil and gas driller that rapidly developed a record for environmental troubles.

Casey, a Democrat, is the lead Senate sponsor of a bill that would force U.S. EPA to regulate a drilling practice called "hydraulic fracturing," or fracking, which is now overseen solely by states. Industry groups are fiercely opposed to the bill.

"We need to start being more determined about how we deliver accountability and look at whether state regulation is enough," Casey said in a brief interview yesterday.

Residents of Dimock, which is near Scranton in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, say drilling by Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has contaminated their water with toxic chemicals, caused sickness and reduced property values.

Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined Cabot $240,000 and ordered it to permanently shut down three gas wells. Regulators said the company did not follow a November 2009 order to repair well casings that discharged natural gas into groundwater, contaminating the drinking water of 14 homes (Greenwire, April 19).

State DEP Secretary John Hanger called it the "most aggressive" action taken against any company drilling in the Marcellus Shale. But Casey is not rushing to agree.

"I'm not sure they've come down hard enough," Casey said.

Casey's legislation would subject fracturing to federal Safe Drinking Water Act requirements and require disclosure of the chemicals that drillers inject underground.

Environmental groups and other backers say the scrutiny is needed to protect human health, but industry says it would jeopardize the nation's energy supplies. The bill has not moved out of committee, but EPA and the House Energy and Commerce Committee are studying the environmental effects of fracking.

Fracking involves injecting chemicals, sometimes toxic, and tanker-loads of water into wellbores at high pressure to pry loose gas from rock. In conventional drilling, it allows companies to produce more oil or gas from wells. But it is essential to getting any gas out of shale formations like the Marcellus in Pennsylvania, which have dramatically expanded the nation's reserves of gas.

Drillers have fractured wells for decades, but as shale gas production has moved from Texas to the Northeast, concern has grown among neighbors of the drilling sites that the chemicals in the injections could contaminate groundwater.

Industry officials say those concerns are misplaced and say fracturing has never been proved to have contaminated groundwater.

Several major oil companies have proposed adding language to the climate bill being drafted in the Senate that would take a stand against federal regulation of fracturing (E&E Daily, March 24). Casey, considered a swing vote on the bill, said he would dislike such a proposal.

"If they continue, they will make me mad," Casey said. "That's not helpful when they need a vote here and there."

State officials stress that in the Cabot case, the problems were not caused by fracturing.

Instead, they have accused Cabot of allowing gas to migrate because they failed to properly encase the wellbore in concrete.

State officials disagree with Casey's contention that they have been too lenient, and they say Pennsylvania has the tools it needs to protect the state's environment.

"This order is very comprehensive, multi-tiered and unprecedented," DEP spokesman Neil Weaver said. "The implications to the company could be drastic. If they do not comply, they could be ordered to plug up to 14 of these wells."

Weaver added, "Secretary Hanger would be more than willing to sit down and talk with Senator Casey about what we're doing and how we're moving forward."

Cabot could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for an industry group formed to fight federal regulation of fracturing said the Cabot situation demonstrates the effectiveness of state regulation.

"Specific to that individual operator, DEP has investigated the issues, diagnosed the problems, reported its findings, posted and collected separate fines, and temporarily suspended operations pending updates to the company's statewide development plan," said Chris Tucker, spokesman for the group Energy In Depth.

"If Senator Casey's trying to make the case that DEP's asleep at the switch, and that EPA bureaucrats sitting six hours away in D.C. would've handled this case better, he probably picked the wrong example here," Tucker said.