A dispute over documentary film maker Josh Fox's right to videotape the proceedings of a House of Representatives' subcommittee reviewing the science behind the US Environmental Protection Agency's draft study on the impact of hydraulic fracturing on ground water in Pavillion, Wyoming, brought the subcommittee's proceedings to temporary halt on Wednesday.
After Fox, who produced the controversial 2010 documentary "Gasland" that was critical of fracking, was led away in handcuffs by Capitol police, subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris, Republican-Maryland, read from the Science, Space, and Technology Committee's ground rules that require videographers to be accredited by the House TV and Radio Gallery. Fox, who is making a special for the Home Box Office network, is not a regular member of the Capitol Hill press corps.
But the ranking member of the Energy and Environment subcommittee, North Carolina Democratic Representative Brad Miller, called for a vote to suspend the rules and the subcommittee was forced to recess to gather enough congressmen to create a quorum to vote on Miller's motion.
After a 30-minute delay and the loss of two procedural votes to delay the hearing until Fox is credentialed, Harris opened the hearing.
The EPA's draft study on drinking water in Pavillion, a tiny farming community in the Wind River Basin, has been controversial science its December release because it is the first federal study to link hydraulic fracturing with contaminated drinking water.
Calgary-based Encana, which operates the gas field beneath Pavillion, challenged the study's conclusions, saying the agency's report is riddled with errors, from how samples were gathered, processed and analyzed, to the "line of reasoning" EPA took to connect fracking to water contamination.
Based on prepared testimony available before the meeting, the subcommittee was set to question officials from the EPA, the state of Wyoming, the producer trade group the Western Energy Alliance, and others.
In his opening statement, Harris said President Barack Obama's statements of support for natural gas, particularly shale gas, in the State of the Union speech last week showed "a remarkable display of arrogance and disregard for the plaint facts."
"I'm afraid the EPA's action in Pavillion demonstrates a disturbing loss of perspective," Harris' opening statement said. "In its single-minded pursuit of the hydraulic fracturing smoking gun, EPA appears to have lost focus on identifying the real causes of, and real solutions to, drinking water problems in Pavillion."
"The question is not whether we are pro-drilling or anti-drilling," Miller said in his opening statement. "The question is whether we will drill with our eyes open. The public wants to know if fracking is safe, and they're entitled to know. But the industry and their political allies just say, in effect, 'move along, there's nothing to see here.' "
