The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hasn’t complied with House Oversight Committee’s request for documentation and testimony on alleged waste, fraud, and abuse in the Biden administration’s billion-dollar environmental justice award program, a spokesperson for the committee told The Epoch Times.
“The Oversight Committee has been in conversations with the Environmental Protection Agency to fulfill requests from Chairman Comer and Subcommittee Chairman Fallon for documents, information, and a staff-level briefing related to applications and disbursements of environmental justice grants,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“To date, the Committee has not received any documents from the EPA in response to the letter or any of the letters the Committee has sent them during this Congress, nor has it received a date for a staff briefing on environmental justice grants,” the spokesperson added. “It is crucial that we conduct oversight of the EPA’s administration of grants to ensure the EPA is mitigating risks of waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer resources.”
Along with records and information they requested to be delivered to their committee by March 13, the lawmakers had asked that EPA Administrator Michael Regan schedule a briefing with the committee by March 6.
At the time, the EPA told The Epoch Times it had received the letter and “plans to fully engage with Reps. Comer and Fallon on their request for more information.”
The lawmakers’ requests included documents and information regarding the two programs’ case study grantees to the EPA, communications between EPA staff containing the term “environmental justice” or the initials “EJ.”
In addition, the committee asked for all documents and communications referring or relating to EJ grants between staffers and third parties, and communications with the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, among other things.
“The committee ... is conducting oversight of Environmental Protection Agency’s [EPA] administration of environmental justice [EJ] grants. On Jan. 10, 2023, the EPA published two Requests for Applications for approximately $100 million in grant funding to support EJ initiatives—the largest allocation of its kind,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.
“However, despite this ‘unprecedented level of funding,’ the EPA’s own case studies for EJ grant programs demonstrate weak standards for grantees to practically address environmental concerns.
“To better understand the applications and disbursements of EJ grants—particularly those included in the $60 billion allocated to EJ initiatives under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—we request the EPA provide documents, information, and a staff-level briefing.”
On March 13, the EPA stated, “We have nothing new to share at this time” in response to an Epoch Times request for comment.
