By Ben Geman and Katherine Ling

The release of a major new study today that boosts estimates of U.S. natural gas resources is shaking debates over the use and regulation of a fuel that could help slow global warming but could create other environmental concerns.

The report by the Potential Gas Committee, a nonprofit group that provides closely watched analyses of U.S. resources, shows a 35 percent jump in domestic gas estimates. The United States has a total resource base of 1,836 trillion cubic feet (tcf) worth of likely and potential resources, the report says, a sharp jump from the last estimate two years ago of 1,321 tcf, and the highest in the group’s 44-year history.

The increase is largely due to the viability of tapping gas from shale formations, such as the Barnett in Texas, the Marcellus in Appalachia, the Haynesville in Louisiana and the Rocky Mountains.”New and advanced exploration, well drilling and completion technologies are allowing us increasingly better access to domestic gas resources — especially ‘unconventional’ gas — which, not all that long ago, were considered impractical or uneconomical to pursue,” said John Curtis, professor of geology and geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, which supports the committee’s work.

But the increasing use of a technique called hydraulic fracturing to access these shale plays has sparked a Capitol Hill battle over regulating the extraction method. Several Democrats have introduced legislation that would bring the technique under Safe Drinking Water Act regulation — reversing an exemption in a 2005 energy law — and require disclosure of chemicals used in the process.

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