Legal Insurrection readers should remember my report on the Permian Basin earlier this summer. The area, straddling Texas and New Mexico, is the world’s most extensive oil field and accounts for over 40% of the nation’s petroleum production.
It is also in the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory crosshairs. Now the agency is flying helicopters over the area, supposedly looking for “methane super-emitters.”
The helicopter flyovers surveying thousands of oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin region of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico began Monday and will continue through Aug. 15. The flyovers will allow the agency to identify emitters of large amounts of methane and excess emissions of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, according to a news release.The Permian Basin — which includes the cities Odessa and Midland — accounts for 40% of the nation’s oil supply.The region has produced large quantities of methane and VOCs over the years, which contribute to climate change and poor air quality, Region 6 Administrator Earthea Nance said.
The move appears to be a fishing expedition…for money, citations, and dramatic media pronouncements.
The flyovers will continue until Aug. 15, the agency announced yesterday. Any violations uncovered will be met with “significant penalties,” along with steps to prevent future infractions and follow-up monitoring to make sure that any emission fixes are working, according to a news release.The basin, which spans some 75,000 square miles in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico “accounts for 40% of our nation’s oil supply and has produced large quantities of dangerous [volatile organic compounds] and methane over the years, contributing to climate change and poor air quality,” Earthea Nance, head of EPA’s Dallas-based regional office, said in the release. “The flyovers are vital to identifying which facilities are responsible for the bulk of these emissions and therefore where reductions are most urgently needed.
Regular Americans who aren’t financially or emotionally invested in the anti-CO2 dogma recognize the EPA’s move for what it is: Climate intimidation.
“It’s just a way to intimidate the oil and gas industry,” Steve Milloy, member of former President Donald Trump’s EPA transition team, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The EPA’s conduct is outrageous.”A technician on board the helicopter will record the time, GPS location and other details regarding the source of emissions after detecting hydrocarbon emissions. The federal agency will use this data to locate the source of the emissions and then question facility managers about the violations….“Biden’s EPA is doing everything to make gas prices higher,” Milloy said.
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