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Page added on July 6, 2013
EPA Pressured to Weaken Oil, Gas Science and Environmental Protection
On the eve of Independence Day, when I’d like to celebrate everything I love about America, I got a powerful reminder of something I don’t like: efforts by a polluting industry–and its friends in government–to squash scientific investigation intending to determine whether people are being harmed by toxic contamination of their drinking water.
ProPublica published an important article today about the EPA’s abandonment of drinking water contamination investigations around the country.
As I blogged last week, there is now a pattern of EPA stepping down from important cases of drinking water contamination that are linked to oil and gas operations. Communities across America where oil and gas development is taking place want to know why EPA has abandoned these cases, whether EPA can be trusted in any other scientific investigations–such as the larger fracking study now underway, and who they can rely on to protect their drinking water.
ProPublica interviewed “high-ranking agency officials” and reports that these officials “acknowledge that fierce pressure from the drilling industry and its powerful allies on Capitol Hill – as well as financial constraints and a delicate policy balance sought by the White House — is squelching their ability to scrutinize not only the effects of oil and gas drilling, but other environmental protections as well.”
This pressure is not only anti-science, but it wastes agency resources–and taxpayer money. For example, ProPublica reports that Senator James Inhofe demanded repeated briefings from EPA officials and “barraged the agency with questions on its expenditures in Pavillion, down to how many dollars it paid a lab to check water samples for a particular contaminant.”
EPA has a Scientific Integrity Policy. Sadly, the agency may be ignoring it.
4 Comments on "EPA Pressured to Weaken Oil, Gas Science and Environmental Protection"
rollin on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 2:42 pm
When you worship money, money gets it’s way.
oilystuff on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 3:58 pm
As someone in oil and gas operations I can assure you this article is bunk and the EPA and other regulatory bodies has done nothing but step UP its regulation of my industry. The idea that oil and gas can influence THIS administration to ease environmental standards is ludicrous. With money? Gimme a break.
BTW, the photograph has nothing to do with oil and gas, its storm runoff running thru a temporary dike.
DC on Sun, 7th Jul 2013 4:44 am
Sorry Oily, despite your reassurances that the rule of law prevails in the US of Oil, all the evidence is against it. The Oil-auto-sprawl complex is firmly in charge in your D.C. Your EPA is in full regulatory capture mode, and was long before Drone-bama came along. The empty suit in the W.H. matters little to the oil cartel. Its always B.A.U. in the US of Exxon-Mobil no matter what ‘administration’ currently sits in that Oval office thingy. The US is still the best place in the world to be in oil business, no royalties, little to no regulation to speak of, and a murdering thug military to do its bidding all over the globe.
BillT on Sun, 7th Jul 2013 5:55 am
This is old news…