Posted on 02/29/2012 5:19:40 PM PST by Nachum
The powerful Republican head of the House Appropriations Committee got rough with President Obama’s environmental chief over the Environmental Protection Agency's coal mine permitting process on Wednesday.
The wood-paneled committee hearing room suddenly seemed like a small-town courtroom as Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) turned prosecutorial on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
At one point, after Jackson fumbled when trying to name any Appalachian mines she had permitted during her tenure, Rogers declared “I rest my case!”
At issue is an October Federal Court ruling in the case of National Mining Association vs. Jackson. Rogers said that the ruling makes clear that the EPA must quickly finish processing the coal permits before it, which the EPA reviews under the Clean Water Act.
“I’ve got people with pink slips all over the landscape because you will not process these permits on a timely basis as the court ordered you to do,” he said. “I find it contemptible that a public servant would utilize the practice, as you have, to by not deciding to make a decision.”
Rogers said that EPA has admitted that 130 permits are stuck in the process. Jackson said there are 37 under review.
“Do you know when the last one was approved?” Rogers asked.
Jackson said she did not know.
“Name me one permit you have approved since you have been director,” Rogers boomed.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I don’t think I have ever heard of him but if he is head of the House Appropriations Committee, he really is powerful.
I love his catching her in her ignorance.
Our once respected House of Representatives, where agents of a free people debated the laws of a onetime republic, has been reduced to the status of poor supplicant. What a sight! These miserable people, who long ago stopped being our representatives, plead with the monsters they created.
After all his huffing and puffing, he (Rogers) still doesn’t understand that the EPA chief has far more power than he does.
EPA must go. Root and branch.
“EPA must go. Root and branch.”
Agreed.
If not completely dismantled in one swift stroke, then “functionally decapitated” by removing each and EVERY officer of the agency who serves “at the pleasure of the president”, leaving only GSA workers behind.
And then, an EPA departmental head should be installed who instructs those who still remain in the agency to do....... nothing.
Even if we have to -pay them- to essentially “do nothing”. That’s much better than paying them to do what they’re doing now, which is dismantling and destroying the energy and economic infrastructure of this country.
Amen Brother you have that one down pat.
One little Representative from a coal mining state actually speaking up for his state while the rest sit on their high faluting ,perk eating asses and do nothing.
When it comes to the nitty gritty , this guy probably only spoke up in an effort to get re-elected next time.
Our Congress is a shameful outfit that any good man would be ashamed to be a member of.
Jackson [EPA Administrator] said she did not know.
Does anything else need to be said?
The EPA is a neo-Nazi organization whose sole pupose is to strip Americans of their property rights. Thank you tricky Dick, you worthless RINO piece of garbage.
The patriots in Libya showed the world how to punish dictators, mercenaries and traitors. That scared the hell out of the elitist scum around the world, especially in America. The elitist scum in Washington are demanding that the UN punish the Libyan patriots who blew Kaddhafi’s brains out. They’re praying for a pass when it gets time to execute the thieves and murderers.
Half of Kaddhfi’s army deserted and killed all the elite scum, from dragging the Libyan army chief of staff into the courtyard and blowing his brains out to hanging Kaddhafi’s bureaucrats and personal bodyguards from lampposts.
I’m sure that’s an example we can ponder.
Hello, Nachum.
He’s a big name in southeastern Kentucky. Got the Daniel Boone Parkway renamed the Hal Rogers Parkway.
I have heard that the Speaker of the House is the only man more powerful than the chairman of the appropriations committee.
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