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Inhofe: Obama wants to kill off natural gas industry
Senator Inhofe spoke to Steve Doocy on the Kilmeade and Friends radio show this week about his statements in the Tulsa World on why he believes President Obama's efforts to move regulations of hydraulic fracturing from the states to the federal government will kill off the natural gas industry. Senator Inhofe noted that President Obama's cap-and-trade agenda is an attack on affordable energy and designed to raise prices on traditional energy resources - leading to higher costs for consumers.
Click here to listen to the full interview.
Inhofe: Obama wants to kill off natural gas industry
By JIM MYERS
April 19, 2011
WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of trying to kill off the natural gas industry, citing the president's comment that natural gas extraction must not poison people.
"Those are the magic words,'' the Oklahoma Republican said.
Inhofe said other industry supporters who believed that Obama's previous comments about the potential role of natural gas were a sign he could be won over will realize now that the president has a strategy to do away with natural gas.
"The chickens have come home to roost,'' he said.
What triggered the senator's warning were the president's comments during a town hall meeting earlier in the day in northern Virginia.
Obama spoke of a number of energy options such as clean coal technology and natural gas.
"We have a lot of natural gas here in this country,'' he said, citing, however, concerns that extracting it from the ground might create pollution for groundwater.
"So we've got to make sure that if we're going to do it, we do it in a way that doesn't poison people,'' Obama said.
Inhofe also dismissed a recently released report by key House Democrats that they described as the first comprehensive national inventory of chemicals in the hydraulic fracturing process on natural gas.
According to the report, companies have used millions of gallons of products containing potentially hazardous chemicals, including known carcinogens.
Inhofe pointed to the record in Oklahoma, where he said the so-called "fracking'' process has been used for decades without one documented case of contamination. [Watch: Obama Administration Not Aware of 1 Documented Instance of Hydraulic Fracturing Contamination]
Inhofe: We should learn from Fukushima, not prevent nuclear development
Oklahoma Gazette
We should learn from Fukushima, not prevent nuclear development
By Sen. Jim Inhofe
April 20th, 2011
In March, Japan suffered from a devastating earthquake followed thereafter by a massive tsunami. In its aftermath, the world witnessed a nuclear accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
This accident left many Oklahomans wondering: What does this accident mean for them? What is the role of nuclear energy in the U.S.? What is our response to the accident?
First, our thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people. We will continue to stand with them throughout the response and provide assistance as they struggle to recover.
I agree with the Obama administration that our nuclear plants are indeed safe and that we should continue to develop new nuclear plants. Reactors built in the U.S. are robust and designed to withstand significant natural disasters, including earthquakes, tornados and hurricanes. Two operating nuclear plants in California can withstand the impacts of an earthquake greater than the one in Japan, and, closer to home, the Wolf Creek nuclear plant in southeastern Kansas can weather an EF5 tornado with over 360 mph winds. All of our reactors are constructed according to a "defense-in-depth" approach, with multiple, independent safety systems in place so that if one safety system breaks down there are several backups.
My confidence comes from what I have learned in the days and weeks following the Japanese accident.
The safety of our reactors has long been one of my top priorities. When I served as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, I learned that the committee had not held a hearing on the NRC in years, so we held several hearings each year to ensure that the agency was reaching the highest standards of safety and efficiency, and was capable of handling the workload of preparing for new nuclear plant development.
The NRC and the industry continually ask themselves, "What if...?" There is a systematic process in place to incorporate lessons learned from events worldwide to update and improve plant safety and security.
Shortly after learning of the accident, I spoke with NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko to discuss the necessary steps forward for nuclear power in the short term. A week after the accident, I had the chance to question Chairman Jaczko and the nuclear industry. I have been assured our plants are safe, and that the industry and the NRC are conducting systematic reviews of the protections currently in place. Both are working together to determine whether changes are needed.
There will certainly be lessons the industry can learn from Japan. Those lessons will no doubt help make nuclear energy safer for the American public. It is important, however, that any immediate scrutiny by the NRC should be focused on improvements that provide real safety benefits, not just red tape.
Nuclear power is a key element of our energy future: It is clean, reliable and affordable. We should learn from the accident at Fukushima, but it shouldn't prevent us from harnessing the benefits of nuclear energy to power this great machine called America.
Tulsa World: EPA pressed on paint rules
Tulsa World
EPA pressed on paint rules
By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
4/19/2011
Link to Inhofe EPW Webpage on Lead Based Paint Rule
Link to Letter on Clearance Testing
Link to Letter on Commercial and Public Buildings
WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, who battled a federal agency over lead paint removal rules last year, joined other senators Monday in raising new concerns over the matter.
As the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Oklahoma Republican also called for oversight hearings on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approach.
Inhofe and several other senators, including Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., also signed letters to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
One letter questions the EPA's proposed amendments to its rules to require "clearance testing" to prove the presence or absence of lead after a project's completion.
This would impose significant confusion and complication for renovators and remodelers who have already completed their lead-based paint training and will also result in additional costs for homeowners and renovators to pay for the clearance testing, the letter states.
A second letter takes on the EPA's ability to make a rule covering commercial and public buildings, saying the agency lacks sufficient data to move forward with such a rule.
"Once again, EPA is fumbling implementation of this rule, to (the) point that it will cost jobs and fall far short of fully realizing the rule's laudable public health goals,'' Inhofe said.
"When EPA mismanaged implementation of the first phase of this rule, more than 60 senators - Democrats and Republicans - voted to hold EPA accountable to fix its mistakes.''
Unfortunately, he said, the EPA appears to be heading down a similar path with its current effort.
"I hope in due course the agency will heed the Senate's concern and ensure the rule is carried out efficiently and effectively to protect public health,'' Inhofe said.
He said oversight hearings would allow senators to identify the EPA's errors, correct them immediately and realize the full public health benefits of the rule.
An EPA spokesman said the agency received the letters Friday and will respond to the senators.
He then pointed to the significant health risk posed by lead-based paint, especially for children living in homes built before 1978.
The EPA says about 1 million children have lead-paint poisoning.
Proper removal of flaking paint by trained personnel is important to ensure that lead-based paint dust does not contaminate living spaces, according to the agency.
Last year, Inhofe helped with efforts to provide relief to home renovators and others who were scrambling to meet the EPA's certification rules on lead-paint removal.
The EPA eventually delayed enforcement of its rule targeting homes built before 1978 after coming under criticism from senators for not ensuring that there would be enough classes for renovators and others who work on older homes to become certified.
IBD Editorial: EPA: Jobs Dont Matter
Investor's Business Daily
Editorial: EPA: Jobs Don't Matter
04/18/2011
Jobs: The EPA admits to Congress that it does not take into account the impact of its regulations on employment, the economy or international competitiveness. Neither, apparently, does the White House.
This stunning revelation was made by EPA Administrator Mathy Stanislaus in response to a question by Colorado GOP Rep. Cory Gardner. It came during Stanislaus' testimony before the House Environment and Energy Committee on Thursday and exposes the Obama administration's public posture on jobs and the environment as a fraud.
Gardner was asking about an EPA regulation that would govern industries that recycle coal and ash and other fossil fuel byproducts. Recycling is a good thing. Recycled coal ash makes concrete stronger, wallboard more durable and the shingles on your roof longer-lasting.
"We have not directly taken a look at jobs in this proposal," Stanislaus said. That's odd, since his testimony seems to contradict Executive Order 13563, issued by President Obama in January, which requires that all new rules issued by federal agencies take job creation into account. As we have learned, you have to watch what the administration does, not what it says.
As reported in the Daily Caller, the EPA issued a statement on April 30, 2010, in the appendix of its regulatory impact analysis of its coal ash regulation that said the assessment "does not include either qualitative or quantitative estimation of the potential effects of the proposed rule on economic productivity, economic productivity, economic growth employment, job creation or international economic competitiveness."
The EPA recently issued an endangerment finding that determined carbon dioxide, the product of human respiration and the basis of all plant and animal life on earth, is a dangerous pollutant. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the EPA that it had the authority under the Clean Air Act to do this, even though Congress repeatedly and explicitly refused to include so-called greenhouse gases in the act's regulatory scope.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and a co-author with House committee Chairman Fred Upton of a bill to strip the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases, has rightly noted that Congress deliberately did not regulate so-called greenhouse gases with the Clean Air Act, a bill designed to deal with air quality, not the climate.
Inhofe notes that while the Supreme Court said the EPA had the discretion to "decide whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare," it did not authorize draconian regulations based on flawed science, regulations that would impose an economy-crushing hidden tax on businesses, energy producers and the American consumer.
Recently, the EPA announced new environmental guidelines that will effectively curtail surface and "mountaintop" mining in a six-state region centered on Appalachia. According to the National Mining Association, the region covered by these restrictions produced more than 150 million tons of coal in 2008, more than 10% of the U.S. total, and employed nearly 20,000 people.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's economic forecasting model, a proposed 70% cut in carbon dioxide emissions will cause gasoline prices to rise 77% over baseline projections, kill more than 3 million jobs and reduce average household income by more than $4,000 every year.
"I'd like to see a list of all the rules that you have proposed that haven't taken into account jobs," Gardner told Stanislaus.
So would we, but our guess is that none of them do.
The administration did not worry about energy jobs when it stopped drilling in the Gulf and imposed a seven-year ban on drilling off America's main coasts and Alaska. Team Obama is too committed to saving the earth to save your job to even consider it in its regulations.