(Beijing) -- Adding an environmental standard to a law book takes at least three years in China, which helps explain why the State Council's decision to fast-track the nation's fledgling shale gas industry is making a lot of people nervous.

China has no rules to protect groundwater and other resources from the potentially harmful side-effects of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." A Ministry of Environmental Protection source said the agency would need three to five years to write one.