EPA Rule Loosened After Oil Chief’s Letter to Rove – Los Angeles Times By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers
A rule designed by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites and other construction zones was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive and after a well-connected Texas oil executive appealed to White House senior advisor Karl Rove. …
In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to “openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.”
Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and “get a response ASAP.”
Rove later wrote to Angelo, assuring him that there was a “keen awareness” within the administration of addressing not only environmental issues but also the “economic, energy and small business impacts” of the rule. …
Angelo had been mayor of Midland, Texas, when Bush ran an oil firm there. He is also a longtime hunting partner of Rove’s. The two men first worked together when Angelo managed Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign in Texas.
In an interview Monday, Angelo welcomed the new groundwater rule and said his letter might have made a difference in how it was written. But he waved off environmentalists’ questions about Rove’s involvement.
“I’m sure that his forwarding my letter to people that were in charge of it might have had some impression on them,” Angelo said. “It seems to me that it was a totally proper thing to do. I can’t see why anybody’s upset about it, except of course that it was effective.”
Asked why he wrote to Rove and not the Environmental Protection Agency or to some other official more directly associated with the matter, Angelo replied: “Karl and I have been close friends for 25 years. So, why wouldn’t I write to him? He’s the guy I know best in the administration.” …
The EPA rule issued Monday adds fine print to that broad exception in ways that critics, including six members of the Senate, say exceeds what Congress intended. …
White House and administration officials disagreed.
At the EPA, Assistant Administrator Benjamin H. Grumbles said the rule responded directly to congressional action. He cited a letter from Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, endorsing it. [mjh: Inhofe is the deep thinker who believes Global Warming is a hoax.] …
Sharon Buccino, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s land program, called the rule “yet another example of the Bush administration rewarding their friends in the oil and gas industry at the expense of the environment and the public’s health.”
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See mjh’s blog — It Helps to Have a Powerful Friend
A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School (HBS). read more …