Is IOGCC, Created by Congress in 1935, Now a Secret Oil and Gas Lobby?

"In 1978, the DOJ told Congress IOGCC should be disbanded. It wasn't. In 2005, the group claimed credit for Halliburton Loophole after ‘years of hard work.'"

"When Congress severely limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate hydraulic fracturing in 2005, it was a victory for a quasi-governmental organization that has been quietly working for decades to restrict federal oversight of oil and gas.

The group, the 80-year-old Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, began fighting for a fracking exemption as early as 1999. Congressionally sanctioned as an interstate compact, the IOGCC characterizes itself as a government entity, which allows it to call its lobbying of lawmakers "education." But in reality, it is led by regulators from industry-friendly oil and gas producing states, and a full third of its members come from the industry itself. The group has worked behind the scenes for decades to prevent federal regulation so stridently that in 1978, the Justice Department argued it should be disbanded because it had evolved into an advocacy organization.

That seemed particularly true when the group pushed to exempt fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The IOGCC passed a resolution in 1999 advocating a bill introduced by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and six years later, claimed credit when a similar measure finally became law at the start of George W. Bush's second term."

Lisa Song reports for InsideClimate News April 11, 2016.