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As hydraulic fracking starts to spread over more and more states from the US, the legislation starts to adapt too – some states are becoming more strict with the oil companies… and others – to the opponents of oil companies.

Without going into the geological details again (read some of our previous posts: 1; 2; 3; 4), much of the concern regarding hydraulic fracking is about the chemicals used in the process. Of course, each company uses a different cocktail but it’s pretty safe to assume that over 99.5% of it is identical. Revealing the contents is illegal, but some states take it more personal than others.

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“The felony provision is far stricter than most states’ provisions in terms of the penalty for violating trade secrets,” says Hannah Wiseman, a Florida State University assistant law professor who studies fracking regulations.

While oil companies argue that this is a company secret, it’s impossible to fully monitor any health and environmental impacts without knowing the contents of the fracking fluid – let’s say you pick up a certain substance in the local aquifer – how would you know it’s connected to the drilling?

Furthermore, putting someone in jail for releasing industrial secrets is not quite common, and it’s sending a pretty clear message: there’s no messing around with fracking.