Okla. senator blasts Denver EPA office

Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 26, 2006 at midnight

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A U.S. senator from Oklahoma is questioning Denver’s regional EPA office in the wake of revelations that the agency employed an infrared camera to detect pollution leaking from oil and gas sites northeast of Denver.

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican and regular critic of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the agency’s actions reported in a June 20 Rocky Mountain News story "give rise to concern," and threaten the "trust" between regulators and industry.

Inhofe, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, outlined his complaint in a July 18 letter to Robbie Roberts, administrator for the EPA’s Region VIII office in Denver. The letter included 14 questions, including whether the EPA had permission to film activities on private property and under what authority was it conducting the activity.

Inhofe’s letter follows revelations that a number of top local and national EPA officials, including the head of enforcement from Washington, D.C., took a tour of oil and gas sites armed with a specialized infrared camera that can detect smog-forming leaks from storage tanks, pipelines, valves and other parts of industry facilities. In some cases, plumes of emissions — invisible to the naked eye — were seen spewing the facilities.

At the time, the EPA’s top local air regulator emphasized that the tour was not part of any formal inspection or enforcement action. Instead, he said, the trip was mainly educational, as the EPA tries to learn more about the role of the fast-growing industry in ozone formation across the West.

Roberts said the Denver EPA office was preparing a response to the Inhofe letter, but that he wasn’t prepared to discuss how the agency would answer.

"The senator is obviously concerned about what we have done," Roberts said. "And we look forward to explaining in more detail what we are doing."

The spokesman for Inhofe’s committee, Marc Morano, didn’t answer several questions about why Inhofe was questioning the EPA’s actions. Instead, he issued a general statement.

"This letter sent to the EPA’s Region 8 is part of the committee’s normal oversight process," Morano wrote. "Senator Inhofe believes effective environmental policy, particularly in areas experiencing growth, requires good faith between officials from all levels of government, private industry and the public at large.

"The Senator is awaiting the EPA’s response to his questions and looks forward to working with the EPA to ensure that private property rights are guarded while ensuring a clean environment."

Inhofe is well-known in environmental circles for, among other things, his statement calling global warming "the greatest hoax" ever perpetrated on the American people.

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