A video surfaced on Wednesday showing a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency comparing his agency’s philosophy with respect to regulation of oil and gas companies to brutal tactics employed by the ancient Roman army to intimidate its foes into submission.
EPA’s “philosophy of enforcement,” said EPA’s Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz, is “kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean: they’d go into little Turkish towns somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they’d run into, and they’d crucify them.”
“That town was really easy to manage for the next few years,” Armendariz added.
His comments are indicative of the “EPA’s war on fossil fuels,” claimed Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in a news release on Wednesday.
Inhofe reiterated the remarks in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon. Armendariz’s comments, Inhofe said, “give us a rare glimpse of the Obama administration’s true agenda.” The region over which Armendariz has authority includes Inhofe’s home state of Oklahoma.
“It’s one thing to create regulatory certainty and fine or punish a company for breaking the law,” noted Heritage’s Nick Loris in reaction to the video, “but it’s another to target a specific industry and create a regulatory stranglehold on America’s access to affordable and reliable energy.”