Politics Trumps Science Again

Trey Smith

The Associated Press has a breaking investigative story out today revealing that the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) censored a smoking gun scientific report in March 2012 that it had contracted out to a scientist who conducted field data on 32 water samples in Weatherford, TX.

That report, according to the AP, would have explicitly linked methane migration to hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in Weatherford, a city with 25,000+ citizens located in the heart of the Barnett Shale geologic formation 30 minutes from Dallas.

It was authored by Geoffrey Thyne, a geologist formerly on the faculty of the Colorado School of Mines and University of Wyoming before departing from the latter for a job in the private sector working for Interralogic Inc. in Ft Collins, CO.

This isn’t the first time Thyne’s scientific research has been shoved aside, either. Thyne wrote two landmark studies on groundwater contamination in Garfield County, CO, the first showing that it existed, the second confirming that the contamination was directly linked to fracking in the area.

It’s the second study that got him in trouble.

~ from Obama’s EPA Shuts Down Damning Fracking Study by Steve Horn ~

Remember how liberals were all up in arms when it was learned that the Bush administration was doctoring scientific reports to better serve conservative political interests? On the campaign trail in 2008, candidate Barack Obama stated that his administration would NEVER do such a dastardly thing. Science should not be melded to fit anyone's political agenda.

I guess we simply can chalk up this report to yet another failed Obama promise! No real news there, but what I am interested in is what will liberals say. Will they be as up in arms as before...or will they flip-flop because it is THEIR man who is quashing science for political gain? Which do you think?!