An Agency in the Congress's Scope

• Author: Margaret Kriz Hobson
• Position: Staff writer covering environmental affairs at Congressional Quarterly
• Pages: 8-8

Page 8 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2011, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, July/August 2011

An Agency in the

Congress’s Scope

The bumpy history of the Envi-

ronmental Protection Agency hit

another rock in the road in May when

North Carolina Republican Senator

Richard Burr introduced a bill to abol-

ish the 41-year-old agency and merge

its duties into the Energy Depart-

ment.

Burr’s proposal comes at a time

when conservatives are accusing EPA

of over-regulating American industry

and hurting the economy. Burr’s bill

is cosponsored by 15 Senate Republi-

cans, including Arizona Senator John

McCain. Although Burr’s legislation is

unlikely to get to the president’s desk,

his attack on the nation’s top environ-

mental agency was proof that EPA’s

reputation has become seriously tar-

nished.

EPA was created by President Nix-

on in 1970 in response to public out-

cry for stronger federal environmental

regulation. William Ruckelshaus, who

served two terms as EPA administra-

tor, says the agency became an inde-

pendent agency almost by accident.

“Wally Hickel was then secretary of

the interior,” Ruckelshaus says. “He

wanted EPA to be located in the In-

terior Department. But the president

was mad at Hickle” and instead cre-

ated the stand-alone agency.

During the Nixon administration,

Congress passed most of the bedrock

national environmental laws and gave

the f‌ledgling agency vast authority

over American industrial and munici-

pal polluters. Over the years, environ-

mental activists urged Congress to

elevate EPA to a cabinet-level depart-

ment. President Clinton gave then-

EPA administrator Carol M. Browner

a seat at cabinet meetings. But legisla-

tion to formalize the agency’s status fell

short when opponents — in a sign of

things to come — argued that regula-

tors should be required to consider the

economic costs and benef‌its of all new

environmental mandates.

In 1995, the Republicans took con-

trol of the House and embraced the

conservative Contract with America,

which sought to limit EPA’s authority.

Punctuating the GOP’s disdain for en-

vironmental controls, majority whip

Tom D. DeLay of Texas described

EPA as “the Gestapo.’’ However, the

Republicans backed down when pub-

lic opinion polls showed that Ameri-

cans supported the agency.

During this Congress, EPA’s ef-

forts to f‌inalize long-delayed air pol-

lution controls and to

regulate greenhouse

gas emissions have

become hot button

issues with the new-

ly elected Tea Party

Republicans. Many

freshmen ran for of‌f‌ice

vowing to reign in EPA, which they

argue is contributing to the nation’s

economic woes. Burr is also playing

into the hands of f‌iscal conservatives,

who say that Washington must scale

back the size of government to cut the

budget def‌icit. Burr claims that his bill

could save as much as $3 billion by

combining duplicative administrative

functions.

Jef‌f Holmstead, who headed EPA’s

air pollution of‌f‌ice during George

W. Bush’s presidency, suggested that

merging the two government depart-

ments could help harmonize federal

policies. “I think some real benef‌its

would accrue to policy development

to having the energy perspective and

the environmental perspective fac-

tored in at an early stage of the poli-

cymaking,” he said, though he was

skeptical such a change would occur.

Environmentalists see Burr’s pro-

posal as just another ef‌fort by the GOP

to roll back essential federal environ-

mental protections. “It seems clear

that there has been an agenda among

the conservative ranks in Congress to

strangle EPA’s mission, to starve its

budget, and to eliminate statutory au-

thorities to protect public health,” says

John Walke, a senior attorney with the

Natural Resources Defense Council.

e Obama administration has

been dismissive of Burr’s bill. White

House spokesman Clark Stevens said

that “combining the two agencies

would undermine their missions of

protecting public health while also

creating jobs and building our nation’s

21st century energy economy.” He

added that such a merger “would be

unlikely to realize signif‌icant savings.”

But the Republicans’ attacks on

EPA aren’t going away anytime soon.

GOP leaders are using this year’s bud-

get debate to slash the agency’s funding

levels. Former House

Speaker and presiden-

tial contender Newt

Gingrich has pro-

posed a plan to abol-

ish EPA and replace it

with an environmen-

tal “solutions” agency.

In fact, all of the Republican presiden-

tial candidates oppose EPA’s plans to

control the nation’s global warming

pollution, which could become a sig-

nif‌icant issue in the presidential race.

But even if voters elect a conser va-

tive Republican president, the new

chief executive isn’t likely to shut

down the environmental agency. Any

serious ef‌fort to abolish EPA would

face determined opposition from the

environmental community, congres-

sional committees that now have au-

thority over the agency, and businesses

that have learned to work with federal

regulators.

By Margaret Kriz Hobson

Margaret Kriz Hobson is a s taff writer

covering environmental affairs at Congr es-

siona l Qua rterly. She can be reached at

krizhobson@gmail.com.

T F B

e Republicans’ attacks

on the Environmental

Protection Agency aren’t

going away anytime soon