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Walden, Barton: House Should Investigate EPA

House Energy and Commerce Committee Press Release, June 25, 2009 [here]

Barton, Walden Ask Committee Democrats to Investigate on EPA’s Suppression of CO2 Report

WASHINGTON – U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Greg Walden, R-Ore., ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, today asked Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Oversight Committee Chairman Bart Stupak, D-Mich., to begin an investigation on the process the Environmental Protection Agency used in developing its endangerment finding.

The endangerment finding, if formalized by a rule, would allow the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act, something U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., once called “a glorious mess.”

“It appears the administration and EPA administrator rushed to issue the proposed endangerment finding without considering fully substantive analysis and views of senior EPA career staff within the agency,” Barton and Walden wrote. “The attached EPA emails raise serious questions about the process for developing the proposed endangerment finding, whether analysis or information was suppressed because it did not support the administration and/or administrator’s proposed finding, and/or whether there is a fear within the agency that there will be negative consequences for offices that offer views critical of the prevailing views of the administrator and the administration.”

A copy of letters from Barton and Walden to Waxman and from Barton to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson can be found [here].

An additional Press Release from Barton entitled “Draft of Report Suppressed at EPA Shows Why Agency’s Career Staff Challenged CO2 Endangerment Ruling” is [here].