Volume 159, No. 68 covering the 1st Session of the 113th Congress (2013 - 2014) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“POLITICAL BIAS AT EPA” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2610-H2611 on May 15, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
POLITICAL BIAS AT EPA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield) for 5 minutes.
Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express in the very strongest terms possible my disapproval of a pattern of conduct of the Obama administration that is of great concern to all of us, a pattern of conduct in which this administration rewards its friends and punishes its opponents.
Now, when our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution many years ago, there were some basic principles in that Constitution. One was equal protection under the law, and the other was protection from discriminatory practices. Well, we all know about the IRS being accused of going after groups that they disapprove of.
Today and late yesterday afternoon, two more incidents arose that show that this administration is about punishing their opponents and taking care of their friends. The first incident revolves around the Environmental Protection Agency. There is a system in the Federal Government called the Freedom of Information Act in which individuals, groups, and other entities can request of the Federal Government to obtain information about regulations, things that the Federal Government is doing; and if the group asks for a waiver of fees to obtain that information, they can obtain the information free.
Well, because of a lawsuit filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we now find out that EPA routinely grants fee waivers to its favored left-wing groups who demand a more intrusive and powerful EPA, but systematically deny waivers for free information from any group that EPA disagrees with. In fact, the headline says that EPA gives information for free to groups it agrees with 92 percent of the time, but it denies fee waivers for groups that it disagrees with 93 percent of the time. We cannot afford a government that systematically goes against groups that it opposes and yet rewards groups that it favors.
I want to give you another example that came about yesterday. More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons, and eagles. Now, nearly all the birds being killed are protected under the Federal environmental laws which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars of fines and settlements from businesses, including oil and gas companies and electricity generators over the past 5 years. As a matter of fact, BP oil company was fined $100 million for killing and harming migratory birds during the 2010 gulf oil spill. And PacifiCorp, which operates coal plants in Wyoming, paid more than $10.5 million in 2009 for electrocuting a number of eagles along power lines in its substations.
Yet this administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly. Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping to keep the scope of the deaths secret.
So there is clearly a double standard in this administration. If you kill an eagle and you happen to be a private business or you are a power generator or you're an oil company or a chemical company, you're going to be fined. But if you're a wind energy company, even though the bird you killed may be protected under the Endangered Species Act, you're going to be protected. America will not stand for a government that rewards its friends and punishes its opponents in this discriminatory fashion.
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