What is the problem with this? [Article about EPA]

[Simple_Linctus]

EPA official resigns after ‘crucify’ comment outcry

Al Armendariz, the Environmental Protection Agency official at the center of a budding scandal surrounding a 2010 video in which he said the EPA should “crucify” polluters, has resigned.

Armendariz, head of the EPA’s South Central region in Dallas, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson late Sunday informing her of his decision to step down.

“As I have expressed publicly, and to you directly, I regret comments I made several years ago that do not in any way reflect my work as regional administrator,” he wrote. “As importantly, they do not represent the work you have overseen as E.P.A. administrator.”

Samuel Coleman, who served as the EPA’s senior federal official in New Orleans during the agency’s response to Hurricane Katrina, will replace Armendariz as acting administrator.

Republicans, already critical of what they call the Obama administration’s war on energy, seized upon the video when it surfaced last week, calling for Armendariz to resign.

According to the Associated Press, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe led the charge, pointing to Armendariz’s May 2010 speech as proof of the “EPA’s assault on energy, particularly the technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.” Inhofe’s office uploaded the clip, shown above, to YouTube.

Armendariz was appointed regional chief by President Barack Obama in 2009.

But “before SMU prof Al Armendariz had even warmed the seat at his post as EPA regional chief,” Brantley Hargrove wrote in the Dallas Observer, “he was pilloried as an activist whose research into the air pollution caused by fracking operations made him unfit to run a five-state office overseeing some of the industry’s most important drilling grounds.”
Why does it matter? Is it because Jesus was allegedly cruicified annoying Christians? Is it because people don’t want the EPA to go after polluters?

Seriously this makes no sense to me at all.

[Blakeyrat]

From my reading,

1. The objection to his holding office has nothing/little to do with the crucify remark. The author of the article probably just chose that because it draws eyes. (The real objection mentioned are that he is accused of being unfairly biased against fracking.)

2. Anybody in a public office is under super-close scrutiny. Pundits taking a couple sentences out-of-context, acting outraged and demanding a resignation is hardly new.

3. If you want to get super-technical, saying, “I should crucify X” is a death threat. You’d be really stretching, though… like those aforementioned pundits do all the time.

[dracoi]

When I saw the original statement on TV, it’s not so much that he used the word crucify, it’s that he used it in an illustration of the Romans establishing authority by picking a few random people and crucifying them as an example - whether they were really guilty of anything at all. Then everyone else would be so scared, that they would comply to avoid having such harsh penalties put on them.

Here’s a transcript of the statement pulled from a quick Google search: Lybio - Menulis Narasi Kemenangan dari Setiap Taruhan

I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, that I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting but I’ll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was kind of like how the Romans used to (you know) conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. And so, you make examples out of people who are in this case, not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent there.

[Simple_Linctus]

That is called a “deterrent”.

I still don’t understand. This is what the EPA is supposed to do.

[Colibri]

Moved to IMHO, and title edited to indicate subject.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[Simple_Linctus]

bump

[purplehorseshoe]

• shrug *

Simple-minded folks hear a short sound bite taken out of context and then go along with what the talking head on the TV wants them to think. As Blakeyrat said, it’s nothing new.

[tomndebb]

@Confused dart cum

That is called a “deterrent”.

I still don’t understand. This is what the EPA is supposed to do.

The EPA is supposed to enforce the laws.
The EPA is not supposed to find the first five random corporations it encounters in a location and subject them to a protracted killing with excruciating pain.

Had he said that the EPA should find the five worst polluters and sue them for to the fullest extent of the law, the pro-fracking industry would grumble that he was out to get them, (and they would be right, but so what?), but by invoking the analogy of picking random people/companies and torturing them to death in an extra-legal fashion, he gave opponents of the EPA the opportunity to say that the agency was engaged in nothing more than harrassment.

[Sailboat]

@Confused dart cum

Brantley Hargrove wrote in the Dallas Observer, "he was pilloried as an activist whose research into the air pollution caused by fracking operations

Fracking causes air pollution? In excess of other operations? I know fracking is rightly under the microscope for its effects on groundwater, but this is the first I’ve heard any complaint about air pollution from fracking. Does the writer know what he’s talking about, or was this just sloppy writing?