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.”
