The Environmental Protection Agency has been accused of everything from running this country to waging an economy-destroying war on coal. But it turns out the GOP’s prime target isn’t that big after all.
The agency’s budget represents an almost invisible slice of the federal pie—less than a quarter of a percent of Obama’s proposed $4 trillion budget for the 2016 fiscal year. If approved, the EPA’s budget next year would be 16.5 percent smaller than it was in 2010.
In a budget hearing Wednesday grilling Gina McCarthy, EPA’s administrator, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said the Obama EPA “has embarked on an expansive and expensive global warming regulatory agenda” that is bad for the country.
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who holds the powerful post of Senate majority leader, has vowed to defund, block and undermine the agency.
“This Administration continues its war against Kentucky coal jobs, our miners and their families and I have vowed to do all I can do stop them. By joining the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, I will help oversee the budget for the EPA,” McConnell announced in response to Obama’s budget last month. “You can guarantee that I will fight.”
About This Story
Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.
That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.
Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.
Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?
Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.
Thank you,
