by Jack McAvoy
The Daily Caller
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Interior Department (DOI) agents searched the Louisiana office of QuarterNorth Energy, an oil company, for documents relating to an oil leak that spilled two and a half barrels of oil, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
EPA and DOI agents searched the company’s office in Lafayette for documents detailing a January 2022 offshore oil leak that spilled 2.5 barrels or 107 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, according to Bloomberg, who cited sources familiar with the situation. The incident occurred when equipment got stuck in a well on QuarterNorth’s production platform, which exacerbated a preexisting leak, according to a report produced by the DOI’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which monitors offshore oil and gas producers.
“It’s harassment … they are sending a message to oil and gas producers,” Steve Milloy, a member of former President Donald Trump’s EPA transition team, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Spills are accidental and this one sounds really trivial… yet they want to treat it as a crime for political reasons.”
The well was leaking since Jan. 11, 2021, and was previously managed by QuarterNorth’s now-defunct predecessor, Fieldwood Energy, until late October, according to the bureau’s report.
“I can see them fining companies for them or making them clean them up, but raiding them is over the top,” Milloy stated.
