Texas Railroad Commission and Regulation of Hydraulic Fracking

This, however, is good news.

The Texas Legislature passed the country's first hydraulic fracking fluid disclosure bill last week, requiring oil and gas companies to publicly list the specific chemicals used in drilling.

"We're in favor of it, actually," Shepperd said, explaining the importance of providing the public with that information. 

"Haliburton discloses the ingredients used in its fracturing operations," Haliburton representative Teresa Wong said in an email. "In fact, Haliburton goes a step further than the law requires by disclosing the constituents and additives used in typical fracturing formulas in its website."

And trade secrets would not be disclosed under the new bill, Texas Oil and Gas Association representative Deb Hastings said.

The chemicals would be posted on Frac Focus, the same website hazardous or carcinogenic chemicals are now voluntarily disclosed, Hastings said.

I've seen the Halliburton ads and they are very intriguing.

This article makes too much sense for some folks. 

Energy company executives on Wednesday argued that states - not the federal government - should take the lead in regulating the hydraulic fracturing process being used to produce natural gas from shale formations in New York, the Midwest and Texas. Geologic differences among the regions mean what works in one state might not work in another, stressed Jack Williams, president of XTO Energy, the natural gas producer purchased by Exxon Mobil last year. For instance, in Arkansas and Texas, natural gas developers are finding ways to inject the water they use back into the ground - something that generally can't be done in a different shale formation in the Northeast.