A senior Environmental Protection Agency official used an expletive — a term for male genitalia used to describe a foolish or contemptible person — when he called those in the White House who resist efforts to regulate fracking "********," according to a report in The Washington Free Beacon.
In a text message obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute through the Freedom of Information Act, then EPA policy chief Michael Goo wrote to Sierra Club lobbyist John Coequyt about difficulties with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), saying, "If you want any hope of regulation of fracking then give us more time to try and remove the gun from our head and talk sense into OMB "********"
Goo, who worked with Coequvt in an effort to draw up EPA policies, sent the message in 2012 as the agency was trying to establish new rules to restrict the oil and gas industry, including the first major fracking regulations.
Eventually rules were made that submitted fracking to additional emissions regulations.
The Obama administration has generally been supportive of fracking as a way to boost domestic energy production, Politico reports, with former White House adviser John Podesta summing up the policy by saying, "If you oppose all fossil fuels and you want to turn that switch off tomorrow, that is a completely impractical way of moving toward a clean-energy future."
However, since Podesta left his position early last year to chair Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, the Obama administration has become more willing to back efforts to tighten regulations, the Beacon reports.
The president included in a State of the Union address efforts to restrict methane emissions from fracking wells, and such a regulation was eventually issued by the EPA last year.
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