At her first public speech, newly confirmed EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) head Gina McCarthy set the tone for her reign at the EPA with the question, “Can we stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs please?” Congressman Steve Pearce, Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, has an answer for her: “If you stop killing jobs for just one day, we will stop talking about the jobs lost for one day.”
Pearce said that the EPA under President Obama is responsible for purposefully over-regulating everything from coal plants to dust in rural communities. Of course the EPA wants to stop talking about jobs. They’ve made it their mission to regulate Americans out of jobs every day for the last 5 years.
On Thursday in a vote of 232-181, the House passed the Energy Consumers Relief Act, which would require congressional oversight for any new EPA regulation with an economic impact greater than $1 billion. The bill would give the secretary of Energy the ability to block any EPA regulation deemed harmful to the economy. An amendment in the bill prevents the EPA from using the “social cost of carbon” to justify its regulations.
Geologist David F. Briggs pointed out recently in his article entitled, Lets allow our nation’s environmental laws to do the job as they were originally intended, that “when our nation’s environmental laws were first enacted during the late 1960s and 1970s, the legislation was never intended to be used as an impediment to projects, but designed to “encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment.” Its purpose, according to Briggs, was intended to “foster and promote the general welfare, to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony and fulfill social, economic and other requirements of the present and future generations of Americans.”
Also on Thursday, the House voted of 239-176, to adopt H.R. 2879, the Stop Government Abuse Act. H.R. 2879 incorporates three separate bills approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week.
The bill includes:
• Guarantees Consent to Record from Federal Regulators: The legislation guarantees that Americans have the right to record meetings and phone calls with federal regulators engaged in enforcement activities. The legislation does not preempt state law.
• Establishes Unpaid Leave Option for Federal Officials Under Investigation: The legislation allows agencies to place senior employees on unpaid leave when they are under investigation for certain serious offenses. Similar legislation unanimously passed the House of Representatives last year but died in the Senate.
• Limits Federal Employee Bonuses During Sequestration: