“It is time to end this mission creep and restore the EPA’s intended role as described by the Clean Water Act,”says Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio).
Greenwire reports,
Congressional Republicans are raising questions about what they call a recent pattern of U.S. EPA settlements being used by the agency to justify an overextension of regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the top Republicans on the committees and subcommittees with jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act — Sens. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Reps. John Mica of Florida and Bob Gibbs of Ohio — decried what they called the Obama administration’s “sue-and-settle” tactic as a backdoor way of rolling out new, overly expansive regulations and justifying them to Congress.
“Rather than defending the statutory and constitutional limits on its power, the EPA appears to be encouraging court settlements that expand its regulatory authority and usurp the proper role of states in managing their waters,” Gibbs said in a statement. “It is time to end this mission creep and restore the EPA’s intended role as described by the Clean Water Act”…
It’s about time the ‘sue-and-settle’ ploy got some air time. This has been going on for years, with some suggesting that the EPA actually goes to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) etc. with suggestions for lawsuits, EPA mounts a weak defense, the greenies prevail, the greenie lawyers get paid through the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) and everybody ‘wins’.