Inhofe: Obama wants to kill off natural gas industry
BY JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
4/19/11 at 3:13 PM
WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of trying to kill off the natural gas industry, citing the president's comment that natural gas extraction must not poison people.
"Those are the magic words,'' the Oklahoma Republican said.
Inhofe said other industry supporters who believed that Obama's previous comments about the potential role of natural gas were a sign he could be won over will realize now that the president has a strategy to do away with natural gas.
"The chickens have come home to roost,'' he said.
What triggered the senator's warning were the president's comments during a town hall meeting earlier in the day in northern Virginia.
Obama spoke of a number of energy options such as clean coal technology and natural gas.
"We have a lot of natural gas here in this country,'' he said, citing, however, concerns that extracting it from the ground might create pollution for groundwater.
"So we’ve got to make sure that if we’re going to do it, we do it in a way that doesn’t poison people,'' Obama said.
Inhofe also dismissed a recently released report by key House Democrats that they described as the first comprehensive national inventory of chemicals in the hydraulic fracturing process on natural gas.
According to the report, companies have used millions of gallons of products containing potentially hazardous chemicals, including known carcinogens.
Inhofe pointed to the record in Oklahoma, where he said the so-called "fracking'' process has been used for decades without one documented case of contamination.
Associated Images:
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (left) and President Barack Obama (right)
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