ALLENTOWN — Federal environmental regulators signaled Thursday they want to increase oversight of the natural gas extraction industry, announcing they will develop national standards for the disposal of polluted wastewater generated by a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Energy companies have dramatically expanded the use of fracking in recent years, injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemical additives to unlock gas in deep shale formations in Pennsylvania, Texas and other states. Its prevalence has raised concerns about the potential impact on water quality and quantity.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will draft standards for fracking wastewater — the briny, chemical-laced water that comes back out of the well — that drillers would have to meet before sending it to treatment plants. The industry in recent months has been recycling much of the wastewater or injecting it deep underground, but some of it is sent to plants that are ill-equipped to remove the contaminants.

The new standards would also apply to wastewater produced by coalbed methane drilling, the agency said.

The EPA has largely left it to the states to regulate fracking operations, and environmental groups cheered Thursday’s announcement as a long-overdue first step. The agency is also in the midst of a national study of whether fracking has polluted groundwater and drinking water and its potential future impacts.

Industry groups and Republican lawmakers said wastewater disposal is already regulated by the states, and criticized the EPA for overreach.

In Pennsylvania, the administration of Gov. Tom Corbett asked drillers this year to stop sending millions of barrels of wastewater to treatment plants that only partially remove the contaminants.