EPA Official: EPAs "philosophy" is to "crucify" and "make examples" of US energy producers

In a Senate speech, Senator Inhofe will draw attention to a little known video from 2010, which shows a top EPA official, Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz, using the vivid metaphor of crucifixion to explain EPA's enforcement tactics for oil and gas producers. In this video Administrator Armendariz says:

"But as I said, oil and gas is an enforcement priority, it's one of seven, so we are going to spend a fair amount of time looking at oil and gas production. And I gave, I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there. And, companies that are smart see that, they don't want to play that game, and they decide at that point that it's time to clean up. And, that won't happen unless you have somebody out there making examples of people. So you go out, you look at an industry, you find people violating the law, you go aggressively after them. And we do have some pretty effective enforcement tools. Compliance can get very high, very, very quickly. That's what these companies respond to is both their public image but also financial pressure. So you put some financial pressure on a company, you get other people in that industry to clean up very quickly. So, that's our general philosophy."

Watch the Full Video at the YouTube Channel Citizen Media for We The People http://www.youtube.com/user/davidmcfa...

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  News & Politics

[mollykyb1]

The "Carolina Journal" is an online publication of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative "think tank" with a pretty clear agenda. "The John Locke Foundation employs research, journalism, and outreach programs to transform government through competition, innovation, personal freedom, and personal responsibility. JLF seeks a better balance between the public sector and private institutions of family, faith, community, and enterprise."

[Marikaization]

If you really listen to what he says, he is actually saying that he wants to make examples of people who are breaking the law. He was forced to resign because of the bad publicity that came from this video. Think about that; a member of law enforcement was forced to resign because he said he wanted to enforce the law on people who were breaking it.

[kudjo24]

couple this video with Al actually following through with his word (google EPA vs. Range Resources) and you'll see why this guy was a nasty bully...pathetic.

[Justin Richardson]

i support his position. i just think he should have chose his words a lot better. He put a huge target on his back for the republican bus.

[Marikaization]

He was talking about safety regulations that are being cut back on by these oil companies to save money. These aren't just laws that were made up for the heck of it, breaking these safety regulations is what caused the BP oil spill.

[Marikaization]

Why, because I think that people breaking safety regulations should be used as examples of what not to do or because I think that abstract concepts like companies are given too much precedence over human life and environmental safety?

[soakupthesunman]

well, marik, if that's your attitude, we can call you an asshole.

[soakupthesunman]

I'm disgusted with how many people are willing to defend a man who is basically saying "we can make up any laws we want and go after "offenders" with military precision". If you start accepting wrongs like this you will be wronged yourself, quite possibly through the orders of assholes like this guy.

[Marikaization]

No he was not talking about murder. He was using the Roman Crucifixion as an example. He was talking about enforcing the law on companies that were breaking the law and if he wanted to LITERALLY crucify anything it was the companies themselves. Since companies are NOT people you can't call that murder.

[john hakami]

A "cherry-picked" example that made it all the way to SCOTUS,...Alito held that the law would best be clarified. vague, over-arching laws are used by enforcers, whether they be EPA, DEA, FBI, or whomever, to use a larger net to capture anybody on technicalities, and offering no incentives to go after REAL CRIMINALS, becoming a tool to grab more power, and not pursue to the common good.

so a vid of a man talking about persecution techniques when gov is used BY criminals to screw citizens = :(

[john hakami]

the idea that all the people the EPA goes after is guilty of "harming the environment" is laugheable. take Sackett v. EPA for example. the EPA is literally persecuting people for making none environmentally damaging improvements to their property, charging 100's of thousands of dollars in fines, and has earned the anger of SCOTUS.

so if you want to address my initial comment with adult logic instead of childish name calling, try again. 

[john hakami]

perhaps its in light of instances such as that which involved the Sacketts. the EPA's actions, and in many instances, the government's actions, involve pure violence or threat of violence against individuals that are performing no harm to others nor the environment.

when government agencies stop utilizing violence against innocent people, then it will cease to be viewed in a negative light.

millions of blacks are in prisons because of "law enforcement" over a plant...where does it stop???