The Native American protesters and environmentalists who announced this week plans to block and fight the proposed $900 million Diamond pipeline are being accused of misleading the public and distorting the facts.
“Let’s be clear what they are,” said Chad Warmington, President of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association in a Tuesday morning interview on radio KOKC in Oklahoma City. “They’re really not anti-pipeline because if you look at everything they’re saying and if you look at the facts, they’re anti-oil and gas.”
He said many of the claims of the groups that held a Monday afternoon news conference at the state capitol were not accurate.
“You’re entitled to your opinion. That group has a right to come out and say what they’re gonna say but they’re not entitled to mislead people when the facts are pretty clear.”
Warmington went on to state that the “mischaracterizations are pretty unfortunate—–but they don’t have a right to be completely wrong in the facts.”
Warmington pointed out that even the Obama administration’s Transportation director approved the pipeline after carefully studying the potential environmental impact.
“He’s not exactly the cheerleader for the energy industry. But he’s basing it on fact. I think when you really look at the issue, pretty much everything they said yesterday was either block out of proportion or completely inaccurate.”
Warmington didn’t end there.
“I don’t know how many of them showed up horseback. But something tells me they got in their car and drove there. They got into a Prius you know which is made with batteries made out of natural gas—-kind of ridiculous the whole thing.”
Listen to part of the interview on Radio KOKC