Fact Check: Industry ‘Poster Child’ Not So Squeaky Clean

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Oil & gas industry group held QEP Resources up as a model actor for air quality, but the company was fined $4 million for polluting air and tried to extend controversial 'flaring' activities

Studies and scientific data increasingly show that oil and gas operations are linked to significant ozone pollution in the West. A recent study from the Colorado School of Public Health found that people who live near gas wells are being exposed to elevated levels of air pollutants, including the known cancer causing benzene. Last year, the Denver Post reported that oil and gas operations have also been linked to ozone pollution.

Science hasn't stopped the oil and gas industry trade group Western Energy Alliance (WEA) from trying to mislead Westerners about the effects oil and gas production, and neither have basic facts.

WEA's recent "Common Ground Air" web ad features QEP Resources, an oil and gas company based in Colorado. In the video, a company spokesperson states that "…that the industry has put a lot of time, effort and money – resources- into trying to improve air quality."

Unfortunately, QEP Resources rhetoric doesn't match reality. Last year, QEP was fined $4 million for violating the Clean Air Act. QEP also tried to extend a highly polluting and controversial practice known as flaring, where gas is burned off directly into the atmosphere, in eastern Utah. What’s more, this resource is literally going up in flames, with no benefit to American taxpayers. In fact, mineral owners in North Dakota recently filed a lawsuit alleging they have lost out on millions in royalties because of the practice. 

A recent study estimated that in 2012, North Dakota oil producers generated greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to putting another 1 million cars on the road from flaring.  And for what? Certainly no benefit to taxpayers.

If a company that’s been fined $4 million for clean air violations in the past year alone is the best poster child Western Energy Alliance could come up with, that doesn't say much for the oil and gas industry’s honesty as a whole. Perhaps it's time for Western Energy Alliance and other industry groups to spend less time green washing and more time working with all stakeholders to reduce air pollution. Our quality of life and economy depend on it.   

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Coffman Buckles–Now Backs “Clean” Continuing Resolution

UPDATE: FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, reversed course Tuesday and vowed to support a clean continuing resolution to fund the government, breaking ranks with an obstinate House GOP bloc that has insisted on changes to Obamacare in exchange for passing a CR to end the ongoing shutdown…

Last week, Coffman told FOX31 Denver he was adhering to the House GOP position and that he was comfortable with the position even if it eventually hurt his reelection chances.

But Tuesday morning, in an Op-Ed piece published in several community newspapers, Coffman reversed course, revealing yet another crack in the House GOP unity around the unrealistic strategy of holding the government hostage until Democrats agreed to the de-funding of the Affordable Care Act.

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Rep. Mike Coffman (R).

As the Denver Post's Allison Sherry reports:

Rep. Mike Coffman said Tuesday he will urge his GOP colleagues to support a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the federal government and end the current standoff in Washington.

Coffman, R-Aurora, is a critical voice in the debate because there is now a critical mass of Republican votes to pass a funding measure that does not dismantle or defund the Affordable Care Act — a proposal rejected by the U.S. Senate that led to the current shutdown…

“I have done my best to delay, defund and dismantle all or parts of Obamacare because I believe that much of it will be harmful to this country in the long run,” Coffman wrote. “However, the debate over attaching Obamacare to a spending bill must end and I will argue before my colleagues in the House that we need to pass a 'clean' spending bill to immediately reopen the government.”

Obviously this marks a major shift from Rep. Mike Coffman's position just a few days ago, when he held firm with the strategy to shut down the government to forestall implementation of the Affordable Care Act, saying "this is a negotiation" and demanding further concessions such as the repeal of the "Obamacare" medical device tax. Since that time, Democrats have singled out Coffman for paid-media pressure, and Coffman's hometown Aurora Sentinel weighed in with a blistering editorial condemning Coffman's "abandonment of good judgment." The latest polling shows Republicans taking heavy damage, to the extent that even safe-seat Rep. Doug Lamborn sees "the writing on the wall." Coffman is broadly considered one of the nation's most vulnerable incumbent Republicans going into 2014, so all sides were watching to see how long he would hold the hard line before cracking.

Answer: eight days.

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