Filming of oil, gas sites blasted

Okla. senator rips EPA over monitoring tactics northeast of Denver

Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, July 27, 2006

A U.S. senator from Oklahoma suggests that Denver's regional EPA office was out of bounds in using an infrared camera to detect smog-forming pollution leaking from oil and gas sites northeast of Denver.

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, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, outlined his complaints in a recent letter to Robbie Roberts, administrator for the EPA's Region VIII office in Denver. In the letter, Inhofe seeks answers to 14 questions about the EPA's activities, including whether it had permission to film oil and gas activities on private property.

Inhofe's July 18 letter follows the News' report that a number of top EPA officials, including the head of enforcement from Washington, D.C., took a mid-June tour of oil and gas sites in Weld and Adams counties. The group was armed with a special infrared camera that can detect leaks of smog-forming pollutants - typically invisible to the naked eye - from storage tanks, pipelines, valves and other areas of industry facilities.

The News obtained video of the emissions and posted it on its Web site. One leak in particular drew light-hearted comparisons from one member of the tour to volcanic gases erupting from Mount Vesuvius.

Inhofe is considered a powerful ally of the oil and gas industry and has made a habit of irritating environmental groups. He is perhaps best known for suggesting in 2003 that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

Environmentalists viewed Inhofe's letter to the EPA as political interference in the agency's effort to corral pollution sources and another example of the influence the oil and gas industry wields in Congress and the Bush administration.

"It is unfortunate that a senator from Oklahoma is using intimidation tactics to derail efforts in our community to protect the children of Colorado from harmful air pollution," said Vickie Patton, a senior attorney with Environmental Defense.

Patton noted that Inhofe's criticism of the EPA comes at the same time smog levels in the Denver region have hit summertime highs, with pollution monitors registering levels exceeding public health standards more than two dozen times since late May.

Margie Perkins, chief of Colorado's Air Pollution Control Division, called the Inhofe letter "discouraging," in light of myriad efforts locally to reduce ground-level ozone, a key component of smog.

"To the extent that this particular senator has decided to insert himself in this manner - we'll just have to cope with that and do what we need to do here in Colorado to protect ourselves from ozone," Perkins said.

Roberts, head of the regional EPA office, said only that the Denver EPA office was preparing a response to the Inhofe letter and 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 Senate committee, Marc Morano, declined to discuss the motivation for Inhofe's letter in a phone interview and asked for questions to be submitted by e-mail. Instead of answering them, he provided a statement.

"As chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Inhofe takes the committee's oversight responsibilities very seriously," Morano wrote. "This letter sent to the EPA's Region 8 office is part of the committee's normal oversight process. 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."

hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5048