Today CNN aired Newt Gingrich claiming that “the Obama administration is trying to use the EPA to cripple the development” of natural gas. CNN offered no pushback to this claim and instead turned to a farmer who has leased his land to a natural gas company and supports Mitt Romney to assess the impact of EPA regulations. But the Obama administration has embraced natural gas, and the EPA's air pollution and chemical disclosure rules have drawn praise from the industry for their restraint.
From CNN Newsroom:
Contrary to Gingrich's claims, the Obama administration has boosted natural gas development, including a major gas project on federal lands. The Environmental Protection Agency has just begun to regulate a process that is quickly spreading across many areas that have never before dealt with extensive drilling. As National Journal reported, “Obama directed the Interior Department to allow hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, under new rules that are not very different from a law that conservative Republican Gov. John Kasich just signed in Ohio.”
The EPA issued a regulation to reduce emissions of smog-forming air pollution that even the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board praised for its “restraint.” And the EPA proposed a rule that would require the gas industry to disclose chemicals used during fracking on public lands, but gave what the New York Times described as a “significant concession” to the industry by only requiring that companies reveal the composition of fracking fluids after drilling. The EPA also required that the gas industry reduce cancer-causing chemicals released during fracking, a rule that will also reduce the emissions of methane -- a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Bloomberg reported that several companies supported the rule, which could prevent a “backlash” that would shut down production.
If CNN is seeking to inform its audience about the energy policies of the presidential candidates, it should probably be turning to experts. And if CNN is seeking the human face of natural gas drilling, it might also want to talk to landowners who have been stuck with the bill after natural gas companies polluted their land.