He starts by writing about fracking and ends up claiming that gas-and-oil companies should submit themselves to the requirements of the Toxics Release Inventory. It is implied that petroleum and natural-gas producers are not subject to the TRI, and that result is because the companies will not agree to the reporting requirements. This seemed specious to me, so I did some research.

The TRI is an EPA-managed system, which requires reporting of “releases” of certain quantities of any of some 650 different chemicals. The chemicals list includes things such as toluene and benzene, which are natural byproducts of petroleum production, and ethylene glycol and methanol, both of which are used in natural-gas production.

As for industries that are required to report under the TRI, No. 324 is: “petroleum and coal products,” and 325 is “chemicals,” which would include the vast number of petro-chemicals produced – like the plastics we use every day of our lives.

Gas-and-oil producers are subject to other reporting requirements imposed by entities such as the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. New rules concerning leak detection and record keeping are so extreme as to be onerous and will greatly increase the cost to produce natural gas in an already-depressed market.

So what’s the story with Randolph? Was this story simply an error on his part? Or was it another intentional misrepresentation from the extreme green left?

George Thompson

Durango