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Today Congressman Kevin Cramer questioned Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy on hydraulic fracturing and coal regulations, and reiterated his request for a listening session in North Dakota on the agency’s planned carbon emission standards. Cramer, a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, asked McCarthy why the EPA continues to create uncertainty in the energy industry by searching for what is possible without attention to what is probable or likely.

“Is the mere possibility of an event occurring sufficient to justify regulatory action?” Cramer asked McCarthy.

On May 16, the Obama administration released its proposal through the Bureau of Land Management to create the first-ever regulation of hydraulic fracturing at the federal level despite no proven negative impacts on drinking water and robust state regulations.

EPA listening sessions

Congressman Cramer has repeatedly requested McCarthy hold an EPA listening session in North Dakota on its proposed regulations for existing coal-fired power plants. The agency held 11 listening sessions in cities including Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston, while bypassing all ten states most experienced with coal generated electricity including North Dakota. Cramer submitted a written request for a listening session in Bismarck which Administrator McCarthy did not respond to, and is an original cosponsor of a resolution calling on the EPA to hold sessions in all top ten coal states. At the hearing today, Cramer continued to pressure McCarthy for a North Dakota session.

“In a place like North Dakota where there are 17,000 jobs at stake, 3.5 billion dollars toward our economy at stake, and where there are a whole bunch of really wonderful, smart experts and scientists who work in this every single day and could provide lots of good information to the EPA, a better method might be to hold a listening session there in public view for everybody to participate,” said Cramer.

Cramer noted the difference in participation between Republicans and Democrats at the hearing was noticeable. Members of the majority party are seated at right in the photo below.

Prior to his election to the United States House of Representatives, Cramer served on the North Dakota Public Service Commission. During his tenure, beginning in 2003, Cramer dealt with all aspects of the Commission’s portfolio including regulation of North Dakota’s three investor owned utilities and management of North Dakota’s Surface Mine Coal Reclamation Act State primacy program.