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email to Sen. Cornyn (Texas):
Dear Sen. Cornyn,
Thank you for your form letter on natural gas and the fracking process by which it is now being produced.
You are for the fracking process, for which I congratulate you. You also have environmental concerns regarding the toxicity of fracking chemicals, so that any accidental release of those materials to drinking water supplies would not be catastrophic.
You are opposed to involving the EPA in any control of fracking, for which I again congratulate you, because the less government control we have, the more productive will be the operation.
However the EPA does have a responsibility to control the environment, within reasonable limits, and someone needs to be checking the various drilling operations to see that toxic chemicals are not being used. It seems to me that this is an EPA function. There are various state environmental agencies, which also should be working with the EPA on this matter.
With respect to total government control, everybody else should be "hands-off". We do not need further involvement of Congress, and various other agencies involvement should be eliminated. This would include the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Commerce. Any involvement by Congress should be to eliminate the involvement of those agencies. We can make a partial exception to the Department of Interior, to the extent that they must be encouraged to allow permits for drilling/fracking on federal lands.
