Frack this

A Pennsylvania court ruling could be a break in the fracking industry's practice of settling pollution lawsuits with settlements that include confidentiality agreements, depriving the public of information on fracking.

“Nothing in [Pennsylvania] jurisprudence indicates that that right [of privacy] is available to business entities,” ruled Judge O'Dell Seneca.

It is unclear how much precedental value the ruling will have in other states, since Seneca's ruling relied on the language of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Fracking refers to pumping mixtures of water and sand into the ground to free trapped oil and gas in rock and shale.

The Nevada Legislature is currently considering legislation to give the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection regulatory power over oil companies using fracking in Nevada. The DEP itself says it doesn't need the additional authority to regulate fracking, but Sen. Richard Segerblom said taking things out of the ground is different from injecting things into the ground and so Nevada law should be changed to reflect that. Last month, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management auctioned off 29 oil and gas leases in Elko County for $1.27 million, near a site where Noble Energy is planning fracking.