Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Feds are Flipping the Bird at Oil Companies in Kansas

Oil companies say a weeks-old Obama administration ruling that protects a Southwestern prairie bird has already halted oil-drilling operations in Kansas and is costing the U.S. economy tens of millions of dollars, as a GOP congressmen suggests the move is another job-killing attack on fossil fuel.
The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that was announced in late March and took effect May 1 includes a provision that should allow federal officials and landowners in the five impacted states -- Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas -- to manage conservation efforts. 
But oil producers say the interim weeks was too little time for them to digest the regulations and figure out how to avoid the potential criminal and civil penalties.
“Not complying brings very stiff penalties, so we’ve basically just pulled out of western Kansas,” Mike Vess, owner of Wichita-based Vess Oil Corp., said earlier this week. “The reaction was ‘OK, we’re just not going to drill.’” 
Vess told FoxNews.com that his company is established enough to survive, but smaller ones might not and hourly workers and subcontracters such as geologists and water haulers will be hit hard.
Yummy!
He is asking federal officials to suspend the enforcement of the new regulations for six months so both sides can talk about best practices and “find a way for companies to co-exist with the lesser prairie chicken.”
Read the rest of the story HERE.

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