H.R. 4811: Safe Hydration is an American Right in Energy Development Act of 2023

This bill requires hydraulic fracturing operations to test for and report on underground sources of drinking water that are contaminated by such operations. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process to extract underground resources such as oil or gas from a geologic formation by injecting water, a propping agent (e.g., sand), and chemical additives into a well under enough pressure to fracture the geological formation.

Specifically, this bill revises requirements governing state underground injection control programs. In order to obtain primary enforcement responsibility for such programs, states must prohibit the underground injection of fluids or propping agents pursuant to hydraulic fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal production activities unless the hydraulic fracturing operations agree to test for and report on contamination of drinking water.

Hydraulic fracturing operations are exempted from those testing and reporting requirements if there is no accessible underground source of drinking water within a radius of one mile of the site where the operations occur.

Written by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.