A new Associated Press analysis might complicate Republican efforts to cast the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama as an overzealous department that’s hostile to oil and natural-gas producers.

The AP studied a decade worth of enforcement data and discovered that “the EPA went after producers more often in the years of Republican President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, than under Obama.”

AP also found that enforcement actions have declined since 2002 and reached their lowest level last year, even as oil and natural-gas drilling and production have been on the upswing nationally.

The news service looks at the data in light of the firestorm that erupted around Al Armendariz, the senior EPA regional official who resigned in late April over 2010 comments in Texas comparing his enforcement strategy to crucifixion.