Fellow Democrat Calls Out AOC's Wildly Misleading Claims About Drilling Rig Video
Even a Democrat couldn’t put up with it.
When fossil fuel-hating Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video to Twitter on Saturday claiming to expose invisible “toxic emissions” from a site where she said hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — was taking place in Colorado, one big problem jumped out to Mary Throne, a public service commissioner in the neighboring state of Wyoming.
The location wasn’t a fracking site at all.
“Interesting video, but @AOC there is no fracking occurring at the site as shown and no way to determine compliance or lack thereof with CO air standards,” wrote Throne, herself a Democrat.
“As Dems, we do ourselves no favors when we ignore science and facts. Happy to discuss energy and West any time.”
Interesting video, but @AOC there is no fracking occurring at the site as shown and no way to determine compliance or lack thereof with CO air standards. As Dems, we do ourselves no favors when we ignore science and facts. Happy to discuss energy and the West any time. https://t.co/zI2WBXeGM2
— Mary A. Throne (@wymatters) September 22, 2019
Check out AOC’s tweet here:
I’m in Colorado w/ @JoeNeguse visiting communities whose air is being poisoned by fracking.
What we’re seeing is appalling. Companies are building fracking sites on public lands, across the street from schools + homes.
Their toxic emissions are invisible. This camera sees them. pic.twitter.com/Kem0MT1lMj
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 21, 2019
And the problem Throne pointed out wasn’t all that was wrong with Ocasio-Cortez’s video, shot while visiting a site in Broomfield, Colorado, with Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse.
According to The Daily Caller, oil and gas experts said the device shown in Ocasio-Cortez’s video wasn’t registering “toxic emissions” of any kind.
In a statement to The Daily Caller, a spokesman for the company responsible for the site Ocasio-Cortez visited blasted the congresswoman’s Twitter post as “categorically false.”
The images AOC was seeing, the statement from Extraction Oil & Gas spokesman Brian Cain said, were actually from heat signatures — not toxic gasses.
“Statements regarding an infrared (FLIR) video tweeted by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez yesterday evening are categorically false,” Cain said.
“In the short video, the congresswoman claimed to see ‘toxic emissions’ through a camera and stated that the air was being ‘poisoned’ by oil and gas development. In reality, the operations she was viewing have been lauded as among the best anywhere in the United States for their management practices and facility designs that protect air quality, public health and the environment.”
“Using an infrared camera, the Congresswoman claimed to see ‘invisible emissions,’ when she was actually witnessing a heat signature caused by high-temperature (200-plus degrees) synthetic drilling mud being circulated to the surface against cooler fall temperatures in Broomfield,” he said.
“In fact, the camera angle used in the video viewed an area of our site that does not even include a possible source for the types of emissions being claimed.”
The Colorado Oil and Gas Association also weighed in to say there was no actual fracking going on at the site.
It also noted that the images Ocasio-Cortez was being shown are not easy to understand.
“A Forward-Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR) camera like the one being used in the video can identify emissions, but it also picks up thermal differentials, such as heat, so it’s very important that whoever is using the camera is trained to understand and identify the various elements within the image itself,” an association spokesman told The Daily Caller.
“The image may be black and white, but understanding the shades of gray is pretty important.”
OK. So it might take specialized training to know what the image is on the screen.
But, if there’s no actual fracking going on in the area, then it’s a rock-solid bet that whatever it is that’s on the screen is not “toxic emissions” from fracking.
Which means AOC’s post was wildly misleading — to put it charitably.
The Daily Caller reported that Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
But clearly, the congresswoman from Queens, the Boston University graduate with an economics degree, needs to do a little more homework before putting out nonsense like this on social media.
Considering AOC’s posted had been retweeted more than 13,000 times by Tuesday afternoon, with almost 40,000 “likes,” it’s entirely possible that the vast majority of her audience base is as ignorant as she is.
However, as Throne’s response showed, there are some Democrats out there who are knowledgeable about where energy comes from other than a wall socket, and they don’t like being embarrassed when the country’s most famous democratic socialist puts her own ignorance on display yet again.
There are some things, apparently, that even a Democrat can’t put up with when it comes to AOC.
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