COLUMBUS: Ohio’s top law enforcer says tougher environmental sanctions on polluters in the oil and gas industry and required disclosure of the chemicals used in the drilling technique called fracking are needed to protect residents as shale exploration burgeons in the state.In an interview Wednesday with the Associated Press, Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine called for hiking civil penalties to $10,000 a day from the current maximum of $20,000 per incident. That would bring Ohio’s fines in line with such states as Pennsylvania, Colorado and Texas.Requiring up-front information from drillers about the contents of any fluids blasted into the earth during fracking, formally known as hydraulic fracturing, also is in line with such states as Colorado and Michigan, according to a review by DeWine’s office. He said he would like to see disclosure both of the chemicals used and the concentrations, not only out of environmental concern but also to help any emergency workers sent to drilling sites.“Ohio’s laws simply are not adequate today,” DeWine said.DeWine, a former U.S. senator, said changes need to come now, though he said he would leave to state lawmakers and the governor the form any legal changes would take.“If something happens six months from now, three months from now, and we look up and say, ‘Gee, our penalties aren’t adequate,’ it’s going to be too late,” he said. “There’s nothing that Mike DeWine as attorney general, or any other attorney general, will be able to do.”A spokesman for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, a trade group that says it has more than 1,900 members involved in “the exploration, production and development of crude oil and natural gas resources” in the state, said he was unable to make an immediate comment.DeWine also is recommending that his office or another state agency be empowered to help landowners with complaints about leases for drilling. Right now, he said, the state has no jurisdiction in such cases.He said Ohio government needs a mechanism to address concern among average residents as oil and gas leases are hawked statewide.“Most people who are selling their mineral rights, this is a once-in-a-lifetime transaction,” DeWine said. “The people who are buying, the landmen who are coming in, do it every day. So there’s a little inequity there about knowledge.”The focus of gas-drilling companies has shifted in recent years to the Marcellus and Utica shales, massive rock formations underlying New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The fracking procedure the drillers use involves blasting chemical-laced water deep into the ground. Environmentalists and other critics say fracking could poison water supplies, but the natural gas industry says it’s been used safely for decades.DeWine said he supports Republican Gov. John Kasich’s efforts to build the industry in the state.“I’m for the fracking. I think it’s an opportunity for Ohio to really get a lot of jobs,” he said. “But we have to do it right. We have to really take a deep breath, do it right, make sure the public is protected, make sure our land is protected.”