Lawmakers warned the head of the EPA’s Dallas office that he will soon be invited before a congressional committee — and warned they’ll implement all means available to ensure his appearance — to answer for a 2010 video in which he talks about “crucifying” oil and gas companies.
In the video, Al Armendariz said his approach to dealing with noncompliant oil and gas companies, shared with his staff, is “like when the Romans conquered the villages in the Mediterranean, they’d go into little villages in Turkish towns and they’d find the first five guys they saw and crucify them.”
Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) led a letter of GOP committee members Friday asking for numerous documents relating to EPA’s enforcement priorities, strategies and procedures for Region 6.
“While you have apologized for these comments, there is genuine concern that your comments reflect the agency’s overall enforcement philosophy,” the letter states.
“Further, the Committee anticipates that it will request your presence at a hearing in the near future to examine enforcement priorities and practices of the agency,” it adds. “We note that you declined to attend the field hearing our Committee conducted in March 2011 in Texas. However, you stated at that time that you would be willing to make yourself available in the future to discuss your office’s work. Committee staff will be in contact with you with regard to the scheduling of the hearing.
“As this will be our second request to have you appear before our Committee, and in light of the seriousness of the concerns that need to be addressed, the Committee is prepared to use all authorities at its disposal to ensure your attendance.”
Armendariz called his remarks “an offensive and inaccurate way to portray our efforts to address potential violations of our nation’s environmental laws.”
Ranking Member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who posted the video online Wednesday, said on the Senate floor that he is launching an investigation into the EPA’s actions toward domestic energy production.
The White House has tried to brushed off Armendariz’s remark as a one-off.
“Currently, oil production is at an eight-year high. And natural gas production is at an all-time high,” Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday. “And I think that those specific statistics speak much more about this administration’s policies related to oil and gas production than anything that was said a couple of years ago by an EPA administrator.”
Maybe congress will crucify him? Maybe that and four more EPA bureaucrats on crosses might get the rest of their attention?
Well, the man apologized, so I think this should be the appropriate reception for this esteemed gentleman…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf9Oi1wwbq0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
…pour encourager les autres….
I’m a little confused by Armendariz’ seeming lack of historical acumen. Maybe I’m missing something, but when the Romans were conquering the Mediterranean, they were doing that before the time when Germanic tribes destabilized the Western Empire. At that time Turkish tribes were nowhere near the Mediterranean – What is now Turkey was inhabited by a diverse mix of ethnicities, including most prominently Greeks and Armenians.
The Byzantines called themselves “Romans,” and Muslims (Arabs & Turks) called the Byzantines “Romans,” but in modern times we call them “Byzantines.” They, after all, had their capital in Constantinople, not in Rome. They were as Roman as the Holy Roman Empire was Roman. And modern historians don’t call the inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire “Romans” either, because they weren’t; they were Germans and the post vulgar-Latin, pre-something resembling modern French ancestors of the modern French.
It is hard to tell, but I don’t know of any time when, as a matter of policy, Republican Rome (which conquered the area in question) slaughtered innocents at first meeting unless they were, in fact, pirates. It was Pompey the Great who instituted this practice, as the formerly mild practice of simply burning their ships had not been working. They simply built new ships.
In fact, the next step was killing all the men, destroying the town completely, burning their ships, and enslaving all the women and children. Only then did the piracy stop.
Of course, I am not an academic, and have not been taught so much that is not so. Given this guy’s exalted position in academia, he’s probably just a stupid, ignorant idiot, like all the rest of the Obamites.
“…slaughtered innocents at first meeting…”
True. They were much more interested in enslaving them.
…and that was a long time before there was an Eastern Roman Empire.
Why, after all, would the Western Empire attack and burn Eastern Empire towns? And, as you point out, Turkey wasn’t even a gleam in Muhammed’s great, great, great, great Grandpa’s eye.
Ok, so the guy’s not a hot shot historian. And he’s not the most likely to succeed among chemical engineers. But he’s got hopenchange cred. That’s worth more than knowing fertilizer from shoe shine polish.
I was dismayed to find that the fellow was a chemical engineer, a blot upon my profession. But then I consoled myself. After all: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, regulate.
Well, it might be interesting watching this Eco-Nazi from the Environmental Stalinism Agency answer for his, and their, anti-humanism.
If I wanted America to fail, I would install Armendariz within the depths of the EPA’s radical management to assure our great nations incredibly abundant energy resources are locked down forever.
If I wanted America to fail, traitors and ruling class elites like Armendariz would be all I would require to assure the cost of energy would, in obama’s own words and I quote, “necessarily skyrocket”.
I I wanted America to fail, one of the prime directives required to bring America to its knee’s economically, would be an agenda of energy costs manipulated through extreme, abusive, regulatory social and economic engineering.
If I wanted America to fail, I would ally with a mainstream media to foist lies, misleading propaganda, and statist agitprop upon a trusting vulnerable American public, portraying energy and its use as immoral and criminal.
If I wanted America to fail, I would install an illegal usurper in the white house to carry out my agenda of carpet bombing American’s into economic serfdom, then when America is on its knee’s, to busy struggling to keep food on their tables, keep their homes, pay their bills, and put fuel in their tanks, right when America is at its most vulnerable, I would pounce like the devils own advocate and impose dictatorship upon a economically crippled Constitutional Republic.
….If I Wanted America To Fail…
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/04/22/if-i-wanted-america-to-fail/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-4gnNz0vc&feature=player_embedded
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150708641923435
Will the EPA adopt the Roman fasces as their symbol too? They should.
“Currently, oil production is at an eight-year high. And natural gas production is at an all-time high,” Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday. “And I think that those specific statistics speak much more about this administration’s policies related to oil and gas production than anything that was said a couple of years ago by an EPA administrator”
Wow, the gall of the current administration is incredible. Domestic oil and gas production is currently at high levels IN SPITE OF THE ADMINISTRATION’S POLICIES, NOT BECAUSE OF THEM. Technologies developed by the private sector (like hydraulic fracturing) have made it economical to extract vast amounts of oil and gas deposits that were previously too costly. The Obama administration’s policies had nothing to do with it. In fact, the EPA is now actively trying to halt fracking, which is the only reason domestic oil and gas production has grown at all in the past few years.
The WH is also glossing over the fact that regardless of domestic production, the industry as a whole is still undersupplied and we have additional domestic and friendly supply that could help us. Nor is it mentioned that we haven’t built a new refinery since 1976 and one of our existing refineries is facing shutdown because of the EPA’s overzealous antics.
What’s saddening is the EPA has become a mockery of a noble purpose. The agency has dedicated itself to gaining marginal improvements on pollution (and things they merely call pollution that are suspect) at the cost of shutting down our energy economy, because it has been taken over by mud-hut cultists who see human beings as a problem instead of part of the balance. And this obsession with energy is so great that they’ve pushed hard on the adoption of CFL bulbs for widespread home use, where inadequate disposal and subsequent mercury contamination are guaranteed, yet while dismissing the mercury issue on one hand their other hand seeks to squeeze coal-burning plants for releasing mere trace amounts of the stuff. It’s no longer an organization dedicated to protecting our environment, but one dedicated to reducing energy consumption at all costs.
The “crucify” statement was merely a moment of candor. The EPA has proven by its actions, repeatedly, that this attitude is endemic among them. The country needs to have a grown-up conversation about the way these clowns have hurt basic conservationism, why it’s time to get rid of them, and what we should replace them with.
Good. And schedule it back to back with Eric Holder’s contempt of Congress impeachment hearings.
– “Sebastiane”?
I’ve read at least twenty books on Roman history and about half of it primary source material. I’ve never seen anything like what this dude describes.
He probably learned it from watching the Syfy Channel or MTV…
Have him state for the record what “Turkish” town existed back when the Romans crucified people, and how a research professor’s historical allusion could be off by around 1000 years.
Does this mean that if we crucify the first 5 EPA dudes that come into town, they’ll leave us alone?
I wonder if this is the @#$%@%$#% responsible for shutting down my favorite classic car junkyards. Apparently the EPA (and now the Gov. of Texas) are leaning really heavily on the classic junkyards…Midway (that is, Trident) has already been forced to liquidate somewhere around 200 precious old vehicles that could have been excellent sources for parts.
Why shouldn’t the us go green? We could be just like Spain…….