Posted on 06/09/2012 6:16:47 AM PDT by EBH
WASHINGTON - In the three years since President Barack Obama took office, Republicans have made the Environmental Protection Agency a lightning rod for complaints that his administration has been too tough on oil and gas producers.
But an Associated Press analysis of enforcement data over the past decade finds that's not the case. In fact, the EPA went after producers more often in the years of Republican President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, than under Obama.
Also, the agency's enforcement actions have declined overall since 2002 and reached their lowest point last year, the review found.
Accusations of EPA overzealousness peaked in April. That's when a regional administrator resigned after a 2-year-old video surfaced in which he compared enforcement of oil and gas regulations with how the Romans used to conquer villages, by finding "the first five guys they saw and they'd crucify them."
GOP critics publicized the video of Al Armendariz, who headed the region that includes Texas and other major oil- and gas-producing states, as an example of what was wrong with an agency that Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney calls "completely out of control."
"We have a genuine concern that his comments reflect the agency's overall enforcement philosophy," six Republican congressmen from Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana said in a joint statement the day Armendariz stepped down.
Romney has expressed distaste for the EPA's tactics. The agency, he said late last year, "is a tool in the hands of the president to crush the private enterprise system, to crush our ability to - to have energy, whether it's oil, gas, coal, nuclear."
Actually, the U.S. produced more oil in 2010 than it has since 2003, and all forms of energy production have increased under Obama, but he can't take credit for all of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
The problem isn’t enforcement action. The problem is permitting action. Permits are not being granted for off shore drilling or for coal production.
If you do not look at the right information you do not get the right answer.
I don’t care what they are enforcing today. I am wary of the regs that are being written today, the fascist regs, the leftist regs that will hamstring development.
Credibility? AP = The Onion There may be a grain of truth or actual fact somewhere in the article, but the only part of their “journalism” that you can trust is that 99% of the article is bullS@#t propoganda for Obama. They’ve destroyed their credibility.
Yes... that, and the new regs that are being written. Like all government agencies, they are PAINFULLY slow.... but, when the results do get issued, they are VERY PAINFUL!
There’s a difference between a cop who pulls ten people over in a day and gives them speeding tickets, and a cop who stops ten people, tazes them, beats them, and leaves them lying in a pool of blood beside the highway.
You don’t need as much enforcement when you are bankrupting entire industries, like the coal industry. When production is down, enforcement is going to likely be down to.
AP are just a wing of the DNC. Just the Pravda of our radical communist Muslim Kenyan gay president.
I agree with your premise.
But...is there a way we can use this information to get the progressive environmentalist machine’s underpants in a wad?
Another broken 0bama promise?
No enforcement + No Permits = failed policy
Can you say “selective enforcement against those who need to be crucified?”
They adjust the data to suit their purpose.
Yes, that's part of it. Also significant is the fact that most of the big cleanup locations (the "Superfund" sites, such as Love Canal, Marine Shale Processors, Hudson Petroleum Refinery, etc.) - are no longer active. Some of that land is being "returned to commerce", as I understand it.
So, now that the industry that manages to survive the EPA's onslaught is "clean", what's the agency to do? Why, invent new "threats", of course. Gotta do that in order to justify its continued existence. Cue the "...save our phony-baloney jobs..." clip from Blazing saddles.
The EPA under temporary President Obama want old people to die of heat exaustion because they can’t afford to buy freon to repair their AC units.
The EPA has cut the production of R22 freon by 45% for 2012 over 2011. The price on it has jumped over 80% in the last two days, and many wholesalers are doubting they can even get it.
http://www.remichel.com/R22.pdf
Thanks EBH.
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