WASHINGTON—Convincing the natural gas industry that a chemical disclosure protocol should be mandatory has proven to be much more formidable than blasting apart shale rock where the coveted hydrocarbons lurk underground.

And conservationists fear that the disclosure debate is slowing progress on resolving environmental impacts associated with natural gas drilling and its sister act of “fracking”—which is geological slang for hydraulic fracturing.

Those disparities became grist for a polite but enlivened exchange among three topic experts at the conservative Heritage Foundation. It was one of two fracking forums that unfolded in the nation’s capital Tuesday afternoon.

“The industry needs to deal with those issues rather than glibly keep saying they are America’s clean fuel source,” senior policy adviser Scott Anderson of the Environmental Defense Fund told those gathered for “The Promise and Perils of Hydraulic Fracturing: Best Answers to the Hardest Questions.”

“Nothing good is going to happen in the natural gas industry … until this disclosure issue is behind them,” Anderson continued. “It’s not as if it looks like the industry is hiding something. They are hiding something.”

Both of the other Heritage panelists—Mark Boling, executive vice president of Houston-based Southwestern Energy, and Lee Fuller, vice president of government relations with the Independent Petroleum Association of America—agreed that lack of disclosure is a shortcoming.

However, they also pointed fingers at what they labeled environmental alarmists for scaring the public by highlighting and exaggerating the potential links between hydraulic fracturing chemicals and tainted drinking water.

Boling accused activists of waging a fear-based campaign that lacked scientific proof and demonstrable facts.

“If you give them enough fear, people can be scared of chemicals,” Fuller said. “The fact that we’ve been diverted on this path about chemicals … is an orchestrated effort to try to terrify lots of people.”

Interior Setting Federal Precedent?

A few miles away from The Heritage Foundation, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar delivered his own message about disclosure. He told an audience that one of the new mandates the Obama administration is considering would force energy companies deploying hydraulic fracturing on public lands to reveal lists of the chemicals they use.

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management oversees 250 million acres of public lands. Regulations on the 48,000 drilling leases the bureau is responsible for haven’t been updated recently. Companies are using hydraulic fracturing techniques on about nine out of every 10 wells drilled on public lands, according to government figures.

“There is a lot more opportunity for natural gas, frankly, because fracking is being used,” Salazar said at a forum that included two panels of representatives from government, industry and environmental organizations. “The question really in my mind is how we move forward in a way that can reassure the American public that what we are doing is in fact safe and is protective of the environment.”

In the meantime, Congress has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to study hydraulic fracturing to see what kinds of federal rules and regulations might become necessary to ensure compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act.

It’s Not All About the Chemicals

The Environmental Defense Fund is eager to resolve the current fixation on the chemical disclosure issue rapidly because, like other green groups, the organization is concerned that controversy is drowning out concerns about other ecological hazards affiliated with hydraulic fracturing.

Those include landscape fragmentation caused by the large footprint and network of new roads and other infrastructure required for natural gas drilling, the accompanying noise from such operations, and the threat of health problems caused by spills and improper disposal of waste water.

“Until the disclosure issue is behind us, we can’t make any progress,” Anderson said, adding that there have been several thousand documented spills and other dangerous incidents at drilling sites. “We need information to have a rational discussion.”