"You better take that back, I'm warnin' ya!"Al Armendariz, who oversaw federal environmental enforcement in five states, offered his resignation on Sunday in a letter to Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, saying he regretted his comments and did not want to jeopardize the agency’s mission. Senior agency officials had upbraided Dr. Armendariz, who holds a doctorate in environmental engineering, for what they called his “inappropriate and inaccurate” comments about the agency’s enforcement policy.
Ms. Jackson accepted his resignation on Monday morning. It had become clear in recent days that Republicans intended to continue to use Dr. Armendariz’s comments as ammunition in their continuing conflict with the Obama administration over environmental regulation.
“I respect the difficult decision he made and his wish to avoid distracting from the important work of the agency,” Ms. Jackson said. “We are all grateful for Dr. Armendariz’s service to E.P.A. and to our nation.”
Although administration officials said that Dr. Armendariz’s resignation was voluntary, he was left with little choice but to leave the agency to avoid further embarrassing President Obama, who is seeking re-election..........................."
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" EPA Official Not Only Touted 'Crucifying' Oil Companies, He Tried It Confirming what many in the industry long suspected, a video surfaced Wednesday in which Al Armendariz, an official at the Environmental Protection Agency, promotes the idea of crucifying oil companies. Armendariz heads up the EPA’s region 6 office, which is based in Dallas and responsible for oversight of Texas and surrounding states. The former professor at Southern Methodist University was appointed by President Obama in November 2009...........And not only has Armendariz talked about crucifying oil companies, he’s tried to do it. In 2010 his office targeted Range Resources, a Fort Worth-based driller that was among the first to discover the potential of the Marcellus Shale gas field of Pennsylvania — the biggest gas field in America and one of the biggest in the world. Armendariz’s office declared in an emergency order that Range’s drilling activity had contaminated groundwater in Parker County, Texas.
>>>>"The Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.
And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there. And, companies that are smart see that, they don’t want to play that game, and they decide at that point that it’s time to clean up.
And, that won’t happen unless you have somebody out there making examples of people. So you go out, you look at an industry, you find people violating the law, you go aggressively after them. And we do have some pretty effective enforcement tools. Compliance can get very high, very, very quickly.
That’s what these companies respond to is both their public image but also financial pressure. So you put some financial pressure on a company, you get other people in that industry to clean up very quickly."<<<<
.........Texas Monthly called him one of the 25 most powerful Texans, while the Houston Chronicle said he’s “the most feared environmentalist in the state.”
Nevermind that he couldn’t prove jack against Range. For a year and a half EPA bickered over the issue, both with Range and with the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas drilling and did its own scientific study of Range’s wells and found no evidence that they polluted anything. In recent months a federal judge slapped the EPA, decreeing that the agency was required to actually do some scientific investigation of wells before penalizing the companies that drilled them. Finally in March the EPA withdrew its emergency order and a federal court dismissed the EPA’s case..........."
"You better take that back, I'm warnin' ya!"The solution is quite simple. Begin a search and destroy mission.
If the plant in question is really threatened, the places where it grows are few and the actual concentration in those few locations great.
The effort should be to take some Roundup to those few locations and destroy the concentrations. If the species is eradicated,the species is not endangered.
Oh. I thought you meant industrial plants. But it was weeds. Silly me.
That sounds like “A Roundup ready” project for someone that is sick of the Greenie liberal pukes that block everything being built or drilled.
First they tried to stop drilling because of a friggin lizard. Now it’s a flower?
These people are certifiably insane.
It amazes me that Rick Perry never took this douchebag on, by denying resources or law enforcement support or authority to EPA agents, for example. Texas has an almost unique ability to thwart the Federal government by threatening to withhold tax receipts, since they send so much more than they get back. I would love to see how the EPA or Fish and Wildlife would react if Texas DPS officers blocked them from raiding a businesses, or entering a "wetland" site. Would Obama call out the National Guard? PLEASE try it, Gov. Perry.
What are they mining in those "wet glades"...mud?
Should have stomped it into an unrecognizable grease spot; no spider, no problem!
Snip...
Peer Review initiated: August 2012
Peer Review to be completed: October 2012
Rederal Register 9-11-12
We are proposing to designate critical habitat for both species in East Texas as follows:
• Approximately 1,353 acres (ac) (539 hectares (ha)) are designated as critical habitat for Texas golden gladecress.
• Approximately 178 ac (76 ha) are designated as critical habitat for Neches River rose-mallow.
Three counties, mostly on Caney Creek and mostly on private land (see TABLE 1—LOCATION AND STATUS OF TEXAS GOLDEN GLADECRESS POPULATIONS)
TABLE 4—POPULATION ESTIMATES FOR KNOWN ROSE-MALLOW OCCURRENCES
A principal threat to the habitat of Texas golden gladecress is the removal or destruction of habitat (outcrops and immediate surrounding land) by pipeline construction or from construction of buildings, well pads, or roads to access drilling sites directly over habitat. Natural gas pipeline installation requires trenching and clearing that can destroy all gladecress habitat and plants within the pipeline ROW. In addition to the destruction of habitat, excavation could conceivably alter the hydrology of gladecress sites if the lowered elevation of the excavation, or conversely, the increased ground elevation of a well pad or other structure, diminishes the amount of water that can move downslope over ground or through seeps.
So much BS in this it's not funny.
Previously...
Under section 4(b)(2) of the Act, we consider the economic impacts of specifying any particular area as critical habitat. In order to consider economic impacts, we are preparing an analysis of the economic impacts of the proposed critical habitat designation and related factors.
We will announce the availability of the draft economic analysis as soon as it is completed. At that time, copies of the draft economic analysis will be available for downloading from the Internet at http://www.regulations.gov, or by contacting the Corpus Christi Ecological Services Fish and Wildlife Office directly (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, above).
Go ahead, EPA, cut off the hand that feeds and see how well that goes.