5/31/2012 9:05 PM
Oil stats belie complaints about EPA
By Ramit Plushnick-Masti
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In the three years since PresiÂdent Barack Obama took office, Republicans have made the Environmental Protection Agency a lightÂning rod for complaints that his administration has been too tough on oil and gas producers.
But an Associated Press analysis of enforceÂment data over the past decade finds that's not the case. In fact, the EPA went after producers more ofÂten in the years of RepubÂlican President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilÂman, than under Obama.
The agency's enforceÂment actions have deÂclined since 2002 and reached their lowest point last year, the review found.
Accusations of EPA overzealousness peaked in April. That's when a reÂgional administrator reÂsigned after a two-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 crucÂify them." GOP critics publicized the video of Al Armendariz, who headed the region that includes Texas and other major oilÂand gas-producing states, as an example of an agenÂcy that Republican presiÂdential contender Mitt Romney calls "completely out of control."
"We have a genuine concern that his comÂments reflect the agency's overall enforcement phiÂlosophy," 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 tacÂtics. The agency, he said, "is a tool in the hands of the president to crush the priÂvate enterprise system, to crush our ability to — to have energy, whether it's oil, gas, coal, nuclear."
The U.S. produced more oil in 2010 than it has since 2003, and all forms of energy production have increased under Obama.
Armendariz's territory, which also includes ArÂkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma, has more oil and gas wells than any of EPA's nine other reÂgions. The number of enÂforcement cases against companies working those wells has been lower every year under Obama than any year under Bush.
That trend extends to the rest of the country, where the number of enÂforcement actions against oil and gas producers dropped by 61 percent over the past decade. The decline came despite an inÂcrease in the number of producing wells and deÂspite the EPA's listing of energy extraction as an enforcement priority unÂder Obama. This year, the administration has filed 51 formal enforcement cases against energy producers. While there has been an uptick in the average fine against companies proÂducing oil and gas since 2007, when the penalty reached a low in the decÂade evaluated by the AP, the average is still lower than during some years under Bush, who was viewed as sympathetic to the oil and gas industry.
EPA officials said the lower enforcement numÂbers reflect a strategy that focuses on the violations that pose the most signifiÂcant risks to human health and the environment.
Sorry for a cut and paste but according to this AP article, all the cries about President Obama, and EPA being job killers and such, here this article seems to show that in my opinion President Obama isn't quite the evil person against the oil industry it is claimed to be. It seems to show what the republicans wanted espiecially on oil production is occuring, maybe President Obama's problem will come from the left, he seems to be right in the middle on a lot of issues. Wonder what your take on it is?
Mel
Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO