A member of former President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team reacted to the agency’s actions in Texas.
Earlier this month, the agency announced in a press release that it was conducting flyovers of the Permian Basin region in New Mexico and Texas to identify large emitters of methane gas.
“The Permian Basin accounts for 40 percent of our nation’s oil supply and has produced large quantities of dangerous VOCs and methane over the years, contributing to climate change and poor air quality,” Region 6 Administrator Dr. Earthea Nance said.
She added, “The flyovers are vital to identifying which facilities are responsible for the bulk of these emissions and therefore where reductions are most urgently needed.”
Steve Milloy, a member of Trump’s team, told The Daily Caller that the move is “just a way to intimidate the oil and gas industry.”
He continued, “The EPA’s conduct is outrageous.”
According to Milloy, President Joe Biden’s EPA is “doing everything to make gas prices higher.”
He explained there is “no place in the United States where air quality threatens anybody’s health, even the worst air quality may technically violate EPA standards, but none of that is a health risk.”
The press release reported that the agency would use the information gathered to identify the facility that released the emissions and “initiate enforcement follow up actions with the facility operator.”
The flyovers will reportedly continue to take place through August 15.
“It’s just a way to intimidate the oil and gas industry,” Steve Milloy, member of former President Donald Trump’s EPA transition team, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The EPA’s conduct is outrageous.”https://t.co/ObWKkqBKth via @dailycaller
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) August 9, 2022
Last month, The New York Times reported that the agency has plans with the Transportation Department to introduce a rule compelling automobile companies to increase the sales of electric vehicles.
Additionally, the agency plans to introduce a new regulation compelling electric utilities to decrease greenhouse emissions slightly, as the outlet noted.
The Times also explained the EPA is “planning stricter limits on other pollution generated by power plants, such as mercury, smog and soot, that do not add to global warming.”
Over the weekend, the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that will provide hundreds of billions of dollars to get the United States to stop depending so heavily on fossil fuels.