Tag: Environmental Protection Agency

Ohio Think Tank Asks Court to Kill EPA’s Electric Vehicle Mandate

Bradley Vasoli

Joining an effort to kill a new Biden-administration regulation to advance the manufacture of electric vehicles, the Columbus-based Buckeye Institute filed a brief against the rule in federal court last week. 

In so doing, the pro-free-market think tank joined the state of Texas and other petitioners in asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to throw out tightened greenhouse-gas emission standards. The Environmental Protection Agency designed the new standards last year to further President Joe Biden’s objective to make all newly manufactured vehicles in the U.S. electric-powered by 2030. 

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Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan Demands Biden Admin Show Compliance with Landmark Energy Decision

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Republican Ranking House Judiciary Committee Member Jim Jordan told Biden administration authorities Tuesday to show how their agencies are obeying the Supreme Court’s June West Virginia v. EPA decision limiting the EPA’s power to unilaterally regulate emissions.

The court ruled in West Virginia v. EPA that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not set carbon dioxide emissions caps for power plants to force a national transition away from coal power without explicit congressional authorization. Jordan sent letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property Kathi Vidal, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan asking whether their agencies are complying with the decision.

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Biden’s New Spending Bill Supersizes the EPA’s Budget

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The Democrats’ massive climate spending package, which President Joe Biden signed into law on Tuesday, will give over $40 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), just as the bill allocates almost $80 billion to expand the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The bill, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, includes $369 billion in total climate spending, and will give the EPA more than $40 billion in the current fiscal year to combat climate change, enforce environmental standards and secure “environmental justice,” according to a Congressional Research Service report. The EPA’s enacted budget for 2022’s fiscal year was about $9.5 billion, according to the agency figures, meaning the bill will more than quadruple the EPA’s current annual spending.

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Biden’s EPA Will Use New Regulations to Bury Coal Industry

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President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is placing new emissions regulations on coal plants to shut down the nation’s remaining coal-fired power stations, according to a Reuters interview with EPA Administrator Michael Regan published on Friday.

The EPA will implement regulations on coal ash and ozone to further target coal plants’ carbon emissions and environmental pollution, according to Reuters. Regan’s strategy is part of the Biden administration’s ambitious climate plan to decarbonize the power sector in the face of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit the regulatory powers of the EPA.

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Biden’s EPA Could Kneecap America’s Largest Natural Gas Exporter

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The Biden administration is expanding restrictions on carbon emissions that could impact half the liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity in the U.S.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expanding a rule under the U.S. Clean Air Act called the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Pollutants (NESHAP), which places restrictions on the emission of formaldehyde and benzene from stationary combustion turbines. Starting in August, the rule will now apply to two types of gas-fired turbines that were previously left out of the regulation, the EPA announced in February.

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Mark Brnovich Praises the SCOTUS Decision Against Environmental Protection Agency Overreach

Neil Jones

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) applauded the recent Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) opinion, which curbed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) overreach in the nation’s power sector.

“Today’s decision is a victory for the separation of powers and the ability of the free market to bring prices down,” Brnovich said in a press release. “The federal bureaucrats at the EPA do not get to pick and choose how America produces its energy.”

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Commentary: A Win over Green Tyranny

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The left-wing assault on American energy was just dealt a swift defeat by the United States Supreme Court. And President Donald Trump’s confirmations to the bench paved the way for it to happen. 

Never in my life would I think that gas prices would rise so steeply in such a short period of time that stations would run out of space on the pump screen to display the price. But the Biden Administration’s assault on American energy is simply unprecedented. They will try to pass the blame, but the American people know what’s happening. Green New Deal advocates are pushing for a great energy reset in America, and they don’t care how much it hurts you. 

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Biden’s Climate Office Is So Dysfunctional Even Leftists Want to Abolish It: Report

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Democrats and far-left climate activists have privately complained in recent weeks that the White House climate office is increasingly blocking key priorities, Politico reported.

The White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy has prioritized politics ahead of actual progress on its own climate agenda, nine anonymous Democrats both inside and outside the White House told Politico. Some activists have even suggested that the office, headed by President Joe Biden’s climate czar Gina McCarthy, should be abolished altogether.

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Biden Admin Blocks Yet Another Massive Mining Project, Hobbling Its Own Climate Agenda

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The Biden administration proposed stringent clean water restrictions on a watershed in southwest Alaska Wednesday, a potential fatal blow to a planned critical mineral development project.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would review a proposal to prohibit the use of the Bristol Bay watershed as a discharge site for the Pebble Project, a mining project that would produce about 1.5 billion tons of critical minerals, including copper and molybdenum, over 20 years. The rule, which the agency will publish Thursday, would protect Bristol Bay rivers, streams and wetlands that support the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, according to the announcement.

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21 U.S. Federal Agencies Are Analyzing the ‘Environmental Damage’ of Ukraine War

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The federal government has assembled a 21-agency working group to study and assess the environmental impacts of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The “Interagency Working Group on Environmental Damage in Ukraine” — which was assembled by the Department of State and includes officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Defense — has met weekly for about a month, Axios first reported Friday.

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Biden’s Department of Justice Announces New ‘Office of Environmental Justice’

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On Thursday, two of Joe Biden’s Cabinet members announced plans to create a new division within the Department of Justice that will focus on fighting for “environmental justice.”

As reported by Fox News, the joint announcement was made by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan. The new Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) will serve as a “central hub” for a “comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy,” and will soon lay out a “series of actions” that will be taken in order to ostensibly “secure environmental justice for all Americans.”

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Report: Biden Admin Mulls Environmental Regulations That Farmers Say Could Crush Agriculture Industry

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The Biden administration is reportedly considering clamping down on a widely-used herbicide that farmers and industry groups have argued is key for maintaining low prices.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering tighter restrictions on the use of atrazine, a key herbicide often applied to corn, soybeans and sorghum, according to a March letter from the Triazine Network obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Triazine Network is a coalition of more than 20 industry groups including members of the National Corn Growers Association, the National Grain Sorghum Producers Association and the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.

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Environmental Protection Agency Approves Pilot Project to Release Genetically Modified Mosquitoes into Florida Keys Despite Widespread Opposition

The Center Square

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved an experimental use permit submitted by a British biotech company to release millions of genetically engineered mosquitos into the Florida Keys in an effort to combat Dengue fever, Yellow fever, and the Zika virus.

All three diseases are transmitted by the Aedes aegypti (yellow fever mosquito) and Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito) in certain parts of the world.

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EPA Inspector General Report Finds Contractor Manipulated Air Filter Data

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White smoke emitting from a couple of buildings

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General found that a laboratory contractor with the Office of Research and Development inappropriately manipulated air filter data and failed to follow the appropriate guidance for data of 95 air filter samples, rendering them unusable.

The EPA said the data “drives regulatory decisions, and therefore, it is crucial to accurately assess the quality of data being collected.”

According to the Feb. 16 OIG report, in November 2018, the contractor “misidentified” a subset of filters that they had weighed “during either the loading process in the automated weighing system or by the manner of recording the weight of the filters after they were weighed.”

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EPA Pledges $1 Billion for Great Lakes ‘Areas of Concern’

The Center Square

The Biden administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have announced a $1 billion cleanup fund for 22 of 25 Great Lakes “Areas of Concern,” or AOCs.

President Joe Biden announced the cleanup funding during a press event on Thursday in Lorain, Ohio. According to Press Secretary Jen Psaki, the president will “deliver remarks on how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law delivers for the American people by investing in clean-up and restoration efforts in the Great Lakes region and surrounding waterways.”

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Top Republican Pushes Probes Into Biden Administration Ties to Green Energy Interests

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The top House Republican on a key oversight subcommittee has pushed a series of conflict-of-interest probes into the Biden administration over its ties to the renewable energy industry.

Republican South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, the ranking member on the Oversight Subcommittee on Environment, has probed leadership in the White House, Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), demanding accountability for potential conflicts of interests since President Joe Biden took office more than a year ago. While committee Democrats haven’t cooperated with the investigations, Norman and Oversight Ranking Member James Comer have forged ahead.

“The people in the administrations have no regard for the office that they hold,” Norman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

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EPA Focused on Gender, Ethnic Diversity to Fill ‘Purged’ Advisory Posts

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After the Environmental Protection Agency dumped advisers from regulated industries, the federal agency appears to have prioritized gender and ethnic diversity to replace them, EPA documents show. 

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard arguments Wednesday in the case of Young vs. EPA. The lead plaintiff in the case, Stanley Young, was ousted in March from the EPA’s Science Advisory Board weeks after President Joe Biden took office. 

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‘Truly Historic’: Biden Environmental Protection Agency Introduces New Regulations to Force Electric Vehicle Transition

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The Biden administration rolled out a series of new emissions regulations for passenger vehicles and light trucks that it said would “unlock” $190 billion in benefits for American consumers.

The regulations will be enforced beginning with 2023 car models and will be revised with more stringent standards in 2027, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced. The EPA said the new emissions standards would ultimately quicken the transition from traditional engine vehicles to zero-emission cars.

“This day is truly historic,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said during an event on Monday.

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‘America Is Back’: Biden Unveils Sweeping Oil, Gas Regulations That Would Cut Methane Emissions by 41 Million Tons

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Drilling site at night

The Biden administration rolled out broad new regulations that it said will substantially reduce U.S. methane emissions within 15 years.

The sweeping regulations would cut methane emissions, which account for roughly 10% of the greenhouse gasses emitted by the U.S., by 41 million tons between 2023 and 2035, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday. Such a reduction is equivalent to 920 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or the amount emitted by all cars and commercial aircraft in 2019.

“As global leaders convene at this pivotal moment in Glasgow for COP26, it is now abundantly clear that America is back and leading by example in confronting the climate crisis with bold ambition,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

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Commentary: Conservatives File Suit to ‘Derail Biden Climate Railroad’

RealClearWire
Michael Regan

Michael Regan began his tenure as President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator by dismissing dozens of outside scientific advisers appointed during the previous administration — part of an effort to “ensure the agency receives the best possible scientific insight to support our work.”

At the time, Regan (pictured) called it a “reset.” Opponents grumbled that it looked more like “a purge.” Now, one of those advisers, Stanley Young, has filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the agency of violating U.S. law; the suit also seeks an injunction to halt the work of his former committee.

The legal dustup is the latest rearguard action from the right on environmental issues. Conservatives see the case as their best chance to thwart the Biden administration’s multi-agency approach to combating climate change, seen as hostile to the fossil fuel industry.

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Biden EPA Appointee Allowed to Retain Ties with University Controlled by Chinese Government

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A high-ranking Environmental Protection Agency political appointee received approval to maintain his professional relationship with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology while serving in the Biden administration, according to documents obtained by a watchdog group.

EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy Dr. Christopher Frey disclosed in his May 11 ethics recusal statement that he had taken a two-year unpaid leave of absence from Hong Kong University following advice by the agency’s Office of General Counsel, records obtained by the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) show. The ex officio chancellor of the university, Carrie Lam, is also Beijing’s hand-picked bureaucrat to serve as the chief executive of Hong Kong.

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Files Petition Against Biden’s Undoing of Trump-Era Water Safety Regulation

The Center Square

Attorney General Mark Brnovich is leading a coalition of attorneys general in filing a petition challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s “Delay Rule,” which postponed the Trump Administration’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR).

“While the Biden Administration talks a lot about preserving clean air and water for future generations, they have failed to ensure clean drinking water for our children now,” Brnovich said in a news release on Friday. 

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Northam Awards $9.4 Million from Volkswagen Lawsuit Funds to Electrify Diesel Fleets at IAD, Fairfax County, and Amherst County

Eric Burk

Governor Ralph Northam awarded $9.4 million to fund electrification of government-owned vehicle fleets for Dulles International Airport, Fairfax County, and Amherst County. The funds are part of the Clean Air Communities Program (CACP) and is funded by the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust (VEMT). Along with the $9.4 million awards, Northam announced a second round of funding, an additional $20 million, to electrify school buses.

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Commentary: President Trump’s Overhaul of Stifling Environmental Regulations Clears the Way for Infrastructure Projects Nationwide

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President Trump recently finalized an overhaul of one of the most important environmental laws in America. Credited by some as the “Magna Carta” of environmental legislation, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is one of America’s main legislative weapons in fighting climate change. It mandates an extensive review process, including the drafting of a lengthy Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and subsequent legal challenges, before the commencement of infrastructure projects. But Trump’s revision of the law through regulatory reinterpretation dramatically weakens the bill’s potency, greatly simplifying the procedure for getting federal approval on many infrastructure projects.

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Analysis: EPA’s Repeal of the Clean Power Plan Falls Short by Allowing the ‘Carbon Endangerment Finding’ to Remain

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by Robert Romano   The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Donald Trump has finally rescinded the Obama era Clean Power Plan that sought to end coal as a form of electricity and puts states in the driver’s seat in terms of regulating carbon emissions rates. But because Congress has left the 2009 carbon endangerment finding in place the probability is that carbon emissions will once again be regulated nationally as a harmful pollutant under the Clean Air Act as soon as Democrats are back in power. Per the EPA release on June 19, the Affordable Clean Energy rule “establishes emissions guidelines for states to use when developing plans to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) at their coal-fired power plants. Specifically, ACE identifies heat rate improvements as the best system of emission reduction (BSER) for CO2 from coal-fired power plants, and these improvements can be made at individual facilities. States will have 3 years to submit plans, which is in line with other planning timelines under the Clean Air Act.” The Clean Power Plan, initially proposed in 2014 and finalized in 2015, was designed to reduce carbon emissions by retrofitting existing coal power plants and making the costs of building new ones so onerous that it…

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Cutting Overreach, Regulations and Saving Taxpayers Billions: Andrew Wheeler’s EPA Picks Up Where Scott Pruitt Left Off

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by Mike Howell   The Senate will soon get a chance to put its stamp of approval on the great work of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump. Andrew Wheeler, the current acting administrator, will soon be up for a vote to be confirmed as the EPA’s 15th administrator. He’s been serving as deputy administrator since April 2018 and acting administrator since Scott Pruitt resigned last July. Wheeler’s likely advance comes at a time when the Senate chamber – and the entire country – is debating the left’s radical Green New Deal proposal. The “Green Raw Deal,” as some have taken to calling it, aims to usher in enormously costly socialist policies in the name of environmental protection. Some of the proposals include the elimination of air travel, guaranteed income for those unwilling to work, and replacing every single building in America. It’s a fantasy wish list that screams government overreach. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] The proposals have been embraced by leading politicians on the far left, but mostly mocked in the mainstream as more details and analysis have emerged.…

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Tennessee Vehicle Owners Reportedly May Have to Wait for Vehicle Emissions Tests to Go Away

Chris Butler

Vehicle owners in Tennessee may have to wait three additional years before they find out whether government officials will continue to force them to go through yearly vehicle emissions tests. This according to The Chattanooga Times Free Press, which reported last week that everything depends on approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In August 2017, the paper said, the EPA announced all of Tennessee’s 95 counties had complied with National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone and particulate matter. “That prompted legislation by Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, and Rep. Mike Carter, R-Ooltewah, to do away with the annual mandatory inspections. Passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Bill Haslam in May, the law requires Tennessee to abolish the inspections emissions but makes it conditional on EPA approval,” according to The Times Free Press. Vehicle owners in Hamilton, Davidson, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson and Wilson have used the annual emissions testing for years to comply with the federal Clean Air Act, the paper reported. “But armies of vehicle owners detest the program, citing costs, inconvenience and major expenditures to fix problems when their vehicles fail the test. Carter and Watson have pointed to the unfair impact it has on lower-income vehicle…

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Pressure Builds on Government Agencies to be More Transparent in Research

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by Robert Romano   In 1963, Karl Popper proposed that the central criterion of the scientific method should be its testability, or the ability to falsify a theory. Absent that, he wrote that such a theory could not be considered scientific. Popper wrote, “A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific,” adding, “Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.” Although controversial, in science, the whole premise of peer review is encapsulated by Popper’s central theme, which is that science as a practice should be transparent. The evidence backing up a scientific theory should be reproducible. Popper wrote, “Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.” But many scientific theories, although subjected to peer review, are often not subjected to public review, particularly when it comes to government agencies that rely on published science to enact regulations. While some agencies do require publication of underlying data to support regulations — the National Institutes for…

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IG Is Investigating Allegations of Collusion Between Volvo and EPA Officials to Sabotage President Trump’s Auto Regs Roll-Back

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big rig truck

by Tim Pearce   Federal investigators are probing into a 2017 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report that claimed refurbished trucks emitted significantly more pollution than new models. The EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced Tuesday that it would look into allegations that EPA officials improperly colluded with truck manufacturer Volvo to conduct a study that found that “glider trucks” – refurbished truck engines fixed in new bodies – emit as much as 40 times the pollution of new vehicles. The Trump administration is attempting to repeal Obama-era regulations that classified glider trucks as “new motor vehicles” and placed them under a much stricter class of emissions standards. Glider trucks are generally cheaper, though less efficient, than new models, earning the ire of environmentalists and large truck companies, including Volvo. After placing a stay on the rule that would put off enforcement until Dec. 2019, the EPA reversed course in June and lifted the stay. EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler lifted the stay following a D.C. Circuit Court ordered the EPA to enforce the Obama-era regulation. Anti-glider groups and companies have lobbied against the repeal of the regulations, often touting the 2017 EPA study on glider truck emissions. Congressional Republicans asked the OIG to look into…

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The Battle To Repeal An Obama-Era Regulation On Trucks Heats Up

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Tennessee Star

by Michael Bastasch   The battle over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan to repeal an Obama-era regulation has been reignited. The Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and Center for Biological Diversity sued EPA on Tuesday to prevent the agency from repealing regulations on refurbished truck engines, called glider kits. Their suit comes days after the House Committee on Science Space and Technology launched an investigation into potential collusion between lobbyists and EPA officials to keep regulations in place. The committee obtained emails suggesting Volvo and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association worked with top EPA officials at the National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to put together a report on emissions from glider kits. Emails and the involvement of auto lobbyists in procuring vehicles to test “raise serious questions as to the objectivity and legitimacy of the [EPA] study” that has been held up by glider opponents, including Volvo, as evidence of why refurbished engine sales should be limited. Glider kits are trucks with refurbished engines fitted into new chassis. The glider industry sprang up as truckers looked for an alternative to new trucks that had to comply with ever-stricter federal regulations. The Obama administration took action in 2016 to close…

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Amid Investigations, Embattled EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Blames ‘Unrelenting Attacks’ Against Him, His Family In Resignation Letter

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EPA Chief Scott Priutt

by Michael Bastach   Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt cited “unrelenting attacks” against himself and his family in his resignation letter that was delivered to President Donald Trump on Thursday. Pruitt thanked Trump for allowing him to serve at EPA, but says “the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and taken a sizeable toll on all of us,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. Here’s Pruitt’s full letter to Trump: Mr. President, it has been an honor to serve you in the Cabinet as Administrator of the EPA. Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your Administration. Your courage, steadfastness and resolute commitment to get results for the American people, both with regard to improved environmental outcomes as well as historical regulatory reform, is in fact occurring at an unprecedented pace and I thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the American people in helping achieve those ends. That is why it is hard for me to advise you I am stepping down as Administrator of the EPA effective…

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EPA Chief Moves to Improve the Agency’s Onerous Permitting Process Through Civil Service Reforms

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Scott Pruitt

By Natalia Castro   The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been plagued with inefficiency for years. The Partnership for Public Service has ranked the EPA 22 out of 23 ineffective leadership for a mid-sized agency for the last two years in a row. The Resource for the Future, an environmental, energy, and natural resource research institution, found that the average EPA permit process takes 420 days to complete. But now, under Administrator Scott Pruitt, the EPA is committed to fixing itself. Pruitt is taking the necessary steps to increase accountability and set clear guidelines for action. The EPA has already established over 400 metrics across all EPA programs and regional office that track monthly goals, created standardized methods of communicating monthly targets, integrated monthly business reviews for all senior leaders to review their office’s performance, and initiated new employee training. Pruitt is also looking to hold the career employees at the agency accountable. The newly created Office of Continuous Improvement (OCI) will ensure the policies that work in some areas of the department are implemented across the agency, and hopefully, act as a model for other agencies. In a May 14, 2018 press briefing, EPA Chief Operating Officer Henry Darwin explains, the purpose of the…

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EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Fends Off Democrat Critics, Makes Case for Deregulation in Testy Hearings

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EPA Chief Scott Priutt

by Kevin Mooney   EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt offered up a vigorous defense of his record amid negative media coverage of his travel, security, and living expenses Thursday in testifying before two House subcommittees. “Much of what has been targeted toward me and my team has been half-truths or at best stories so twisted they do not represent reality,” Pruitt said in opening remarks to the Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on the environment. The chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, who also testified before an Appropriations Committee panel, said attacks on him and his staff are part of a larger agenda to derail President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut burdensome regulations on individuals and businesses. “I simply will not let that happen,” he said. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] Although both hearings had been scheduled to address the EPA’s budget, committee members spent the bulk of their time questioning Pruitt about allegations concerning his public expenditures and management decisions. Beforehand, EPA officials distributed a 23-page document disputing what the agency describes as “false claims” circulated in the news media concerning Pruitt’s international travel, security…

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SOURCES: Most Of What EPA’s Leaker Told Dems About Scott Pruitt Is ‘False’

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EPA Chief Scott Priutt

by Michael Bastasch   A former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official likely behind negative media stories about Administrator Scott Pruitt doesn’t have all his facts straight, according sources familiar with EPA’s inner-workings. Former Trump campaign official Kevin Chmielewski, who’s also former EPA deputy chief of staff operations, gave congressional Democrats a list of accusations against Pruitt, detailing the administrator’s alleged “wasteful spending” and “disregard for ethical and legal requirements.” Chmielewski is the likely source for media reports surrounding Pruitt’s spending habits and alleged ethical lapses. Chmielewski was removed from his position at EPA for challenging Pruitt, but that hasn’t been confirmed, reports said. But many of Chmielewski’s claims have been called into question by two sources familiar with Pruitt’s security detail. One source told The Daily Caller News Foundation of Chmielewski’s that “more than 60 percent is false, the other 40 percent is information he distorted.” In one instance Chmielewski alleged “a $30,000 contract with private Italian security personnel entered into by Mr. [Pasquele] Nino Perrotta,” ahead of Pruitt’s attendance of a G7 summit in Italy. However, two sources familiar with Pruitt’s security said that never happened, adding Perrotta, the special agent in charge of Pruitt’s security detail, would have had no authority…

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Trump Backs Regulation-Slashing Scott Pruitt at EPA as Angry Liberals Circle

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President Donald Trump maintains his confidence in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has killed hundreds of excessive bureaucratic regulations, according to multiple reports Tuesday. Pruitt incurred ire in the liberal mainstream media most recently over reports of high travel and security expenses funded with taxpayer dollars, the $50-per-night he spent staying in a lobbyist’s wife’s condo for a few months in 2017 and the news that he procured raises for two of his staffers against White House protocol.

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GOP Group FOIAs Emails Of Anti-Trump EPA Employees and Now They’re Mad

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees who publicly criticized the Trump administration are crying foul after a Republican group filed a public information request against them, according to a Sunday report from The New York Times. A Republican campaign group made public information requests for the emails of three agency employees who communicated with congressional Democrats critical of the EPA. The targeted employees believe the EPA is orchestrating a type of fishing expedition against its critics.

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Watchdogs Turn Up More Evidence Obama’s EPA Broke Federal Law

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Tennessee Star

Former President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency used a social media platform to secretly promote the agency’s policies in violation of federal law, according to a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Judicial Watch obtained 900 pages of documents Monday showing the EPA used social media to lobby support for the Waters of the United States rule. The agency used Thunderclap, a platform that shares messages across Facebook and Twitter, to recruit outside groups to generate support for various environmental policies. …

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Why EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Is President Trump’s Best Cabinet Secretary

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EPA Chief Scott Priutt

by CHQ Staff   We’ve told CHQ readers about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s role in President Trump’s successful efforts to roll back the regulatory state, but his efforts so far pale in comparison to Pruitt’s announcement yesterday that he was ending the EPA’s practice of “sue and settle.” Sue and settle was the practice, carried out under Republican as well as Democratic administrations, of allowing special interest groups to sue the EPA to enforce their view of the law or regulation, and then settling without fighting the case or defending the plain words of the statute or regulation. The result would be a “consent decree” issued by an unelected judge that would make law based on the whims and financial self-interest of radical environmental groups. To implement this new policy, Pruitt issued an Agency-wide directive to end “sue and settle” practices within the Agency, providing an unprecedented level of public participation and transparency in EPA consent decrees and settlement agreements. “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where…

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House Republicans Lay Out Their Plan to Rein in the EPA

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

House Republicans released their proposal to balance the federal budget in 10 years, which included their plans to rein in the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans plan three broad reforms for the EPA: reduce its funding, cut global warming programs, and eliminate the agency’s policy office. “The Environmental Protection Agency has long overreached…

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