Washington D.C. – Eastern Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) today introduced the Accounting for the Uses, Disbursements, and Income on our Taxes at EPA Act (H.R. 8395) to audit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Since President Biden took office, the EPA has been given $109 billion in additional funding and grown its workforce to over 15,000 employees. Yet, under current law, the EPA is not required to conduct an audit to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent the way they should be. The AUDIT EPA Act would change that by requiring the EPA to evaluate their Clean Air Act programs, conduct an independent and objective audit of them, and report the findings to Congress for accountability and oversight.

Additionally, as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rodgers today brought EPA Administrator Michael Regan before the Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials for a hearing titled “The Fiscal Year 2025 Environmental Protection Agency Budget.”

She delivered the following remarks at today’s hearing to highlight the need for more oversight over EPA’s growing budget.

“Today we will discuss the president’s budget and priorities for the Environmental Protection Agency. This committee plays a critical role in ensuring U.S. energy and economic security and leadership.   

“For decades, America has led the world in innovation and entrepreneurship, while continuing to maintain some of the highest environmental standards in the world.  

“We should be proud of this legacy and work together to advance smart policies that continue to build that legacy for generations to come.” 

ENABLING A RADICAL AGENDA    

“But sadly, the Biden administration and congressional Democrats are working to dismantle that legacy.   

“Their spending and regulatory policies continue to put America on a dangerous path that threatens our economic and energy security, while enriching our adversaries, like China, and making us beholden to them for critical materials.   

“The Biden administration and its allies have done this in ways that lack transparency and prevent accountability for their actions that threaten American manufacturing and energy resources.  

“This is not acceptable in a free and democratic society.  

“Since President Biden took office, the EPA has been given $109 billion in additional funding and grown its workforce to over 15,000 employees. President Biden’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2025, contains almost $11 billion in new funding requests for EPA—an increase of more than 8 percent from the current year.   

“This is 16.3 percent more than when the Biden administration came into office.  

“His proposed budget also calls for more than 2,000 new employees—a 12 percent increase over this fiscal year and almost 20 percent—or a one fifth increase in EPA bureaucrats since taking office, all to accelerate his radical rush-to-green agenda.” 

HARMFUL TO AMERICANS  

“Americans are already feeling the impacts of this agenda. Since the Biden administration took office, electricity prices have risen 30 percent. That’s 50 percent more than the overall pace of inflation.   

“Unilateral actions like those taken by the administration continue to drive out affordable, reliable baseload generation needed to keep energy prices low and the lights on.  

“Grid operators and others have been sounding the alarm for years, warning that the U.S. is on a dangerous and unsustainable path. Continuing this trend will mean higher prices and what the grid experts have warned the committee about: catastrophic blackouts.  

“In addition, the auto waivers for California and other allied states, as well as the federal mandates on car makers, are taking away affordable and practical transportation from Americans.  

“Ask any car dealer. Their lots are full of EVs that won’t sell, and they have limited access to the vehicle models people actually want.” 

EPA IS COMPLICIT IN ECONOMIC HARM   

“The Biden administration’s regulatory machine has finalized 125 rules resulting in over one TRILLION dollars of new regulatory costs on American businesses. These are costs that eventually will fall on the American people.  

“EPA rules are a critical part of the Biden agenda, and the agency’s policies, like the new PM2.5 standards, will make permitting for new manufacturing and development nearly impossible across the country.   

“We want to understand why EPA thinks the U.S. will be able to maintain economic leadership with these anti-manufacturing, anti-American policies, all of which enrich and make us more reliant upon China.   

“If we are serious about growing our economy and not China’s, we need a predictable and realistic regulatory environment, we need EPA to actually meet statutory deadlines for new chemical reviews, and we need data driven decisions that appropriately balance a healthy environment with a healthy economy.  

“EPA must return to its core mission, which does not include undermining the economic prosperity of the United States or driving costs up across the board for Americans.”

CLICK HERE to watch her opening remarks.

CLICK HERE to read the bill.

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