The Bush administration is giving the oil and gas industry an exemption from pollution permits that other industries don’t get. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The Bush administration is giving the oil and gas industry an exemption from pollution permits
that other industries don’t get. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The Environmental Protection Agency is requiring construction sites between one and five acres
large to get a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. Highway construction,
home construction, every type of construction project must get the permit, except for the oil and
gas industry.
Sharon Buccino is a senior attorney with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense
Council. She says the Bush administration is giving that industry an exemption.
“And, there really is no basis for giving them an exemption. In fact, construction at oil and gas
sites is likely to be even more problematic than just your, you know, kind of run of the mill
construction activities.”
Now, a measure before Congress would make the exemption law instead of just an administrative
rule, and would also exempt larger oil and gas construction sites from the pollution permit
process.”
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.