U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today welcomed a new study released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the safety of hydraulic fracturing and its potential impact on drinking water. In the study, the EPA states that hydraulic fracturing activities “have not led to widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources,” and identifies ways to further ensure the safety of drinking water moving forward.

“Today’s study confirms what we already know. Hydraulic fracturing, when done to industry standards, does not impact drinking water,” Murkowski said. “States have been effectively regulating hydraulic fracturing for more than 40 years and this study is evidence of that.”

Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is opposed to federal rules for hydraulic fracturing. She said today’s announcement by the EPA shows that a federal rule would only stand in the way of the successful work that states have been doing to regulate this process.

On April 30, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining held a hearing on the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) proposed rule on hydraulic fracturing. At the hearing Subcommittee Chairman Barrasso called BLM’s proposed rule a “solution in search of a problem.”