It's not over yet, although it seemed like National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis was off the hook for attempting to sabotage energy production and hydraulic fracturing on federal land — until Tuesday.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, was performing normal oversight monitoring of a proposed energy production and hydraulic fracturing rule on federal and Indian lands when he spotted a problem. In early September, he had noticed that the Park Service had submitted alarming comments about the proposed rule to the Bureau of Land Management.
The Park Service's comments wove a false narrative that hydraulic fracturing is not regulated and is unsafe. In fact, hydraulic fracturing and well stimulation have an impeccable decades-long safety and efficiency record on private, state, and federal lands. We’ve seen that state-by-state regulations, tailored to the exact geology of well sites, are the best regulation to protect the environment. Why were the Park Service's comments so false?
They relied on a New York Times opinion piece by Cornell Professor Anthony lngraffea asserting that methane "leakage" rates from oil and gas production were as high as 17 percent. A major federal agency was basing a potentially devastating rule on a New York Times op-ed by an outspoken anti-fracking activist in academia.
Ingraffea says he’s an advocate, not an activist, but he appeared in the ranting anti-fossil fuels film “Gasland Part II,” and gives pep talks to aggressive anti-fracking groups. Independent scientists and federal agencies have challenged, studied and dismissed lngraffea’s methane leakage claim.
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