(The Center Square) – In an Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Subcommittee hearing Wednesday, eastern Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, delivered a less than stellar outlook of the Biden Administration’s agenda for the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Since President Biden took office, the EPA has been injected with more than $100 billion taxpayer dollars – on top of its annual appropriations funding. This is a jaw-dropping 1,000% increase in its spending while the American people are already paying for record-high inflation,” said McMorris Rodgers during her opening remarks critiquing the EPA’s 2024 fiscal budget.
“The EPA does not need this surge in spending,” she went on to add.
This increase in funding, McMorris Rodgers noted, is in addition to the $60.9 billion coming to the EPA from the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act and the $41.5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act.
All of this spending comes after a June 2022 decision by the Supreme Court in the case of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, in which the court ruled that the EPA was overstepping its bounds in an attempt to regulate carbon emissions.
A report released Wednesday by the National Association of Manufacturers critiqued those same attempts to regulate carbon emissions, saying air quality regulations proposed by the EPA could “jeopardize more than 850,000 manufacturing jobs and $162.4 billion in economic activity.”
“This analysis makes clear these new regulations will weaken our ability to invest in the technology and processes that would continue to reduce emissions – while jeopardizing high-paying manufacturing jobs,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons in a statement accompanying the report. “We need to let manufacturers do what they do best: innovate and deploy modern technologies to protect the environment, while creating jobs and strengthening the economy.”
McMorris Rodgers went on to address her home state of Washington.
“Let me be clear — I want clean and safe water in Washington,” said the congresswoman. “I also want regulations to be based on sound science and have predictability for the businesses in my community, such as recycling plants, manufacturing companies, and local farmers.”
After the hearing, the congresswoman took to Twitter, saying the EPA regulatory agenda is “encroaching on Americans’ way of life and their opportunities to build a better life.”
An overview of the EPA’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget can be found on its website.
