Here's an example of this punk's handiwork, going after a business in EPA Region 6 which is his charge...
Mr. Obama appointed Mr. Armendariz to run the EPA’s efforts in the south-central region of the country, which includes the oil-rich states of Texas and Oklahoma. Sooner State Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe took to the Senate floor Wednesday to announce an oversight investigation into how Mr. Armendariz was implementing this strategy to block hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is the most promising technique for extracting domestic oil and gas resources.
Mr. Inhofe thinks Range Resources Corp. is the most outrageous example of an innocent rounded up by the EPA to send a message. The firm uses fracking to provide affordable and clean energy, which undercuts the Obama administration’s push for windmills and solar panels. On Dec. 7, 2010, EPA faxed a letter to Range Resources asserting the agency had “determined that an imminent and substantial endangerment to a public drinking water aquifer has occurred” arising from the company’s operations in Parker County, Texas. This letter was sent at 4 p.m., after a press conference and media blitz by agency staff meant to blame fracking for dangerous conditions at a wealthy landowner’s private well.
EPA threatened $50,000 per day in fines and demanded immediate compliance. The company pointed out that the presence of natural gas in water wells in the area is because of geology, not drilling. High levels of methane were found naturally in water long before the company had any operations in the area. A federal district judge and a state agency agreed there was no imminent danger because the well had been shut down.
When the case landed before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, judges during oral arguments kept asking Justice Department and EPA representatives, “Where was the due process?” for the company. The agency realized it couldn’t win, and the case was dismissed on April 2.
EDITORIAL: Obama crucifies business - Washington Times
"Where's the due process". That says it all in a nutshell.
Oh come on, the Washington Slimes has less credibility than Inhofe, and Inhofe has none!
Range Resources - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sanctions
Range Resources has paid $219,875 in fines to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as of May 2010. The bulk was $141,175 levied for a fracking fluid spill that killed aquatic life in Washington County's Brush Creek — protected by the state as a "high-quality waterway") — according to the Pittsburgh Business Times. However, Ray Walker, vice president, said that Range Resources has "made a lot of adjustments since then". The fluid spill was due to a "faulty elbow pipe"; according to Walker, Range has since "gone to a completely different pipe manufacturer and a completely different pipe design". Firings and changed procedures also followed the incident. [13]
[edit]Public relations
Range Resources has sponsored public relations campaigns supporting permitted use zoning regulations rather than conditional use regulations, which could permit citizen review of Range's activities near their land or neighbourhoods. According to NPR, the campaigns sometimes are thinly-veiled coercion. "Mount Pleasant and its three citizen supervisors were ridiculously outmanned...in [an ensuing] full-scale PR war" with Range Resources when the supervisors decided to follow conditional use zoning policy used in other states such as Texas, Colorado and Wyoming. Through letters to citizens, Range threatened to cut off funding to the township if the township refused to support permitted use zoning for Range. Other opposing townships have also been sued by Range Resources over zoning policies.[5] On November 8 2011, CNBC reported on a conference which Range Resources attended, in which those in the energy industry were advised to "download the US Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, because we are dealing with an insurgency". In the conference, Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella also said that Range had "several former psy ops folks...[who are] very comfortable in dealing with localized issues and local governments. Really all they do is spend most of their time helping folks develop local ordinances and things like that. But very much having that understanding of psy ops in the Army and in the Middle East has applied very helpfully here for us in Pennsylvania." [14] Pitzarella later clarified that he meant to refer to "one employee of the firm", whose psy ops background made him adept at handling emotionally-charged township meetings. However, Sharon Wilson, the recorder of the remarks, said "the comments reveal what the fracking industry thinks about people in the communities that are impacted by the industry." [14]
