Utah drillers struck gold with Pruitt's EPA
Fossil fuel lobbyists helped Republican state lawmakers gain access to the EPA, new documents shows.
E.A. CRUNDEN JUL 3, 2018, 12:26 PM
The appointment of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt brought oil and gas drillers in Utah relief after years of lobbying. Newly released emails show that industry insiders connected Pruitt to Republican Utah lawmakers, seemingly spurring a shift in policy that favored fossil fuel companies over environmental and health concerns in the state.
The president of the energy lobbying firm National Environmental Strategies, Marc Himmelstein, set up a phone call between Pruitt and several Utah lawmakers in July 2017, according to documents obtained by the Sierra Club under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). At the time, smog and pollution plaguing tribal land in Utah’s Uinta Basin was stirring alarm, with the EPA likely to restrict potential drilling for oil and gas in the area.
Utah Republicans pushed back hard on that possibility. Himmelstein, a former executive for the American Petroleum Institute, worked with House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and supplied him talking points to use during the phone call with Pruitt, Politico first reported Tuesday. The outlined key areas to address included asking the EPA “to develop a streamlined permitting solution for future development of the Basin,” thereby freeing companies from having to individually gain approval prior to drilling.
“We need your help,” Himmelstein wrote to Pruitt’s chief of staff Ryan Jackson and former White House energy special assistant Mike Catanzaro in June 2017. “The Uinta Basin in Northeast Utah (Rob Bishop’s district) is going to be listed as an ozone non-attainment area later this year. It is a prolific oil and gas producing area that encompasses state, tribal and federal lands.”
According to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, oil and gas development has sparked air and water quality issues, in addition to drilling waste management concerns. But in April 2018, months after the phone call between EPA staff and Utah lawmakers, oil and gas interests in the state got what they had wanted for years: the EPA signed proposed amendments to 2016 federal regulations for natural gas emissions on tribal land.
https://thinkprogress.org/pruitt-epa-utah-oil-gas-744aa492627e/
No asshole it is a reflection of collusion.................................so Fuck You and the fucking horse you ride on.............
November 2018 cannot get here fast enough.............................vote
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/election?p0=263&iso=20181106T12&msg=2018%20Midterm%20Elections
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