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Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated a federal law, which prohibits lobbying by federal agencies and engaged in covert propaganda in order to promote its Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation:
“Today’s report by GAO confirms that the EPA, with the help of Administrator Gina McCarthy, has pulled off a hat trick of lawlessness in order to force WOTUS down the throats of the American people. This includes illegally publishing propaganda violating federal law in order to mandate an unconstitutional federal water grab which in turn, Administrator McCarthy committed perjury before Congress and lied about WOTUS to the American public.
“Despite this rare feat of deceit, this behavior has become the status quo for an Obama Administration that has blatantly disregarded the rule of law to enact its partisan agenda. The EPA has solidified itself as a rogue wing of Obama’s far-left army of environmental extremists. This dangerous precedent of executive overreach must be stopped by Congress. I call on my colleagues to support my efforts to block all funding for the new WOTUS regulation in the Omnibus spending bill and send a message to the Obama Administration that no one, not even the president, is above the rule of law.”
Background
The full text of today’s GAO report can be found HERE.
Courtesy of The Hill:
“The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said a pair of social media campaigns by the EPA in support of its ‘waters of the United States’ rule broke laws that prohibit federal agencies from promoting or lobbying for their own actions. GAO faulted the EPA for using Thunderclap, a social media amplification tool, to recruit hundreds of Twitter users to tweet in support of the rule. It also said the EPA broke the law with a blog post that linked to two environmental groups’ pages urging readers to contact members of Congress to oppose legislation.”
From Rep. Gosar’s office:
WOTUS is a job-killing, overreaching new regulation that would be a dream killer for future generations and result in significant job losses as well as considerable harm to our economy. This terribly flawed Washington mandate contradicts prior Supreme Court decisions and seeks to expand agency control over 60% of our country’s streams as well as millions of acres of wetlands that were previously non-jurisdictional.
On March 25, 2014, the EPA and the Corps released a proposed rule that would assert Clean Water Act jurisdiction over nearly all areas with even the slightest of connections to water resources, including man-made conveyances.
On May 1, 2014, Congressman Gosar and 230 of his colleagues sent a letter to Gina McCarthy, Administrator of the EPA, and John M. McHugh, Secretary of the Army, urging them to withdraw the proposed rule. The full text of that letter can be found HERE.
On January 28, 2015, Congressman Gosar introduced H.R. 594, the Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act. This legislation has the support of 185 bipartisan cosponsors. Click HERE to read more about the Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act.
On May 12, 2015, the House passed H.R. 1732, the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act, by a vote of 261-155. This critical legislation requires the EPA and Corps of Engineers to formally withdraw the agencies’ proposed rule that would redefine WOTUS and any subsequent final rule.
Congressman Gosar joined the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Bill Shuster in introducing this bill. Click HERE to read more.
Congressman Gosar has also inserted funding riders into appropriations bills, blocked a democrat amendment that tried to strip one of his WOTUS riders and voted at least five different times for legislation that has passed the House to block WOTUS. In July 2015, he berated EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and submitted revelatory evidence into the Congressional Record from senior Army Corps of Engineer employees which expressed serious legal and scientific deficiencies with the final draft of the WOTUS rule.
More than 200 organizations and local municipalities have publicly declared their opposition to the proposed WOTUS rule.
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