AUSTIN – Mario Loyola, Director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Tenth Amendment Studies, has authored The Case of Range Resources, discussing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s arbitrary attack on the Texas natural gas company Range Resources.
In December 2009, Steven Lipsky noticed a problem with his water well at his new home just west of Dallas, Texas. He began to suspect that the source was a nearby natural gas well that Range Resources had built earlier that year. Lipsky contacted the EPA, which cited Range Resources with an endangerment finding and remediation order. “We know they’ve polluted the well,” claimed EPA regional administrator Al Armendariz in a television interview.
Loyola’s paper carefully examines the merits of the EPA’s case, and finds it less clear than the Agency originally believed. He further traces the shift in the EPA’s legal position throughout the controversy. Its original order was based on the factual assertion that Range Resources had caused the contamination. Then it retreated to the position that Range Resources “may have” caused it. Now the EPA claims that the law doesn’t require the agency to prove or even allege any connection between the company and the contamination. It is suing Range Resources for millions of dollars for failure to comply fully with its original order.
Loyola’s ultimate conclusion is that state regulators, familiar with the area and its geology, should have been allowed to deal with the problem from the start. The Case of Range Resources is a must-read for anyone interested in the ways the EPA thwarts American entrepreneurialism – and it offers clear prescriptions on a better way forward for industry and the environment both.
A short version of the article was posted by The Weekly Standard on August 17.
Mario Loyola is Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin.
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