Incompetence and overreach at the EPA.
E. Scott Pruitt is attorney general of Oklahoma and chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
As a Republican attorney general from a southern state, my views on energy policy might be discounted as a simple ploy to bolster the energy industry at the expense of environmental stewardship and responsibility. That perspective would be misguided. I do strongly support energy producers and their role in the nation’s economic sustainability, but this issue isn’t about oil. Nor is it about natural gas or hydraulic fracturing. This is about a wayward federal agency arbitrarily using unsubstantiated, inaccurate, and flawed data to achieve a specific policy objective.
Oklahoma has been forced to battle the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its leaders’ quest to fashion facts to fit their agenda on numerous fronts. This is another attack we can’t ignore.
Recently, I hosted a roundtable discussion on critical energy issues facing Oklahoma and our nation. I found one statement to be unbelievable: The EPA unexpectedly shifted its method for calculating methane “escape” from natural gas wells, using flawed data that helps the agency achieve its end. A new methodology isn’t a problem if the change is instituted simply to update methods based on new technology or available science. But that’s not what happened here.