Acting EPA Head Wheeler Makes 1st Official Visit To Tongue-Bathe PA Fracking Co W. 100+ Violations
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On Monday, Andrew Wheeler made his first visit out of Washington as acting EPA administrator. He traveled to the Pittsburgh suburbs to visit the regional headquarters of Range Resources, the largest natural gas producer in Pennsylvania but one with a poor environmental record.
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Wheeler, however, did not use his visit to western Pennsylvania to make any grand announcements about policy changes at the EPA. On the trip, though, he did meet with a company that has a history of confrontational relations with landowners and environmental groups.
Range Resources moved into Pennsylvania in the mid-2000s. Since then, the company has seen remarkable growth in its drilling activity. But at the same time, the company has violated the state’s environmental laws — at its drilling sites and other operations — more than a hundred times.
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And in response to Wheeler’s visit to Range Resource’s Pennsylvania offices, Dennis Degner, senior vice president of operations for the company, said he was “proud” to show the administrator and his team around. In the statement Degner added that his company, along with many of its peers, “is implementing best-in-class emissions management technologies and practices on our natural gas well sites.” Since entering Pennsylvania in the mid-2000s, however, Range Resources has spent considerable time dealing with environmental violations. In February 2016, for example, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection listed 44 of the company’s well sites in Washington and Allegheny in southwestern Pennsylvania as out of compliance with a law that requires operators clean up sites within nine months of drilling a well.
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https://thinkprogress.org/former-coal-lobbyist-visits-major-fracking-company-in-pennsylvania-on-first-trip-as-epa-chief-3f5829274964/