Inhofe to Investigate EPA's "Crucify Them" Strategy

Inhofe to Investigate EPA's "Crucify Them" Strategy

In a speech on the Senate floor, Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, announces that he has launched an investigation into the Obama-EPA's apparent "crucify them" strategy targeted at American energy producers. This investigation will look into EPA's actions towards domestic energy production specifically in light of the agency's recent efforts relating to hydraulic fracturing.
Inhofe's announcement today follows several questionable statements from top EPA officials, including comments released in a little-watched video from 2010, which reveals EPA Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz admitting that EPA's "general philosophy" is to "crucify" and "make examples" of oil and gas companies.

EPA Official: EPAs "philosophy" is to "crucify" and "make examples" of US energy producers

Published on Apr 25, 2012 by JimInhofePressOffice

In a Senate speech, Senator Inhofe will draw attention to a little known video from 2010, which shows a top EPA official, Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz, using the vivid metaphor of crucifixion to explain EPA's enforcement tactics for oil and gas producers. In this video Administrator Armendariz says:

"But as I said, oil and gas is an enforcement priority, it's one of seven, so we are going to spend a fair amount of time looking at oil and gas production. And I gave, I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there. And, companies that are smart see that, they don't want to play that game, and they decide at that point that it's time to clean up. And, that won't happen unless you have somebody out there making examples of people. So you go out, you look at an industry, you find people violating the law, you go aggressively after them. And we do have some pretty effective enforcement tools. Compliance can get very high, very, very quickly. That's what these companies respond to is both their public image but also financial pressure. So you put some financial pressure on a company, you get other people in that industry to clean up very quickly. So, that's our general philosophy."

Inhofe to Investigate EPA's "Crucify Them" Strategy In a speech on the Senate floor, Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, announces that he has launched an investigation into the Obama-EPA's apparent "crucify them" strategy target ...