Environmental Protection Agency officials have been busy spending taxpayer dollars flying across the country to promote the White House’s global warming rules, according to an ongoing investigation by a House committee.
Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith sent another letter to the EPA Friday, demanding the agency turn over records regarding the taxpayer resources a high-level official used on travel to promote the so-called Clean Power Plan.
“She continues to devote extensive resources and taxpayer money to traveling around the country promoting EPA’s overreaching regulatory agenda while this Committee’s request lingers with no anticipated date for a response,” Smith wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy regarding Janet McCabe, the head of the agency’s air and radiation office, in a letter obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
This is the second request Smith has sent the EPA regarding McCabe’s travelling to promote the Clean Power Plan — a regulatory scheme to cut carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Smith said the agency has yet to respond to his last request and hand over the records he’s requested. Smith is the chairman of the House science committee.
Smith wants to know if McCabe is in compliance with President Barack Obama’s executive order to reduce the carbon footprint federal agencies. Flying from Washington, D.C. to Indiana every weekend seems to violate this, Smith wrote.
“In light of President Obama’s 2015 Executive Order, as well as McCabe’s role as the EPA’s chief proponent of the Clean Power Plan, McCabe’s routine travel raises significant questions as to her commitment toward furthering the reduction of carbon emissions that she promotes in her official capacity on the taxpayer’s dime,” Smith wrote.
Smith noted that other top EPA officials have been caught jet-setting to and from work every weekend as well and may be violating Obama’s executive order.
Smith wrote that “former Region 9 Administrator traveled home to southern California from his office in San Francisco, accumulating $69,000 in excessive trips from October 2006 through January 2009.”
“The former Region 9 Administrator claimed ineligible expenses associated with his travel, such as meals, mileage, and incidental expenses at a cost of nearly $4,000 to taxpayers,” Smith wrote.
McCabe also reportedly flies home every weekend in addition to her flying around the country to promote the CPP. McCabe has been described as the “public face” of the EPA’s global warming effort, traveling the country to promote the agency’s agenda.
“Ms. McCabe pays for all personal travel. She is fully committed to upholding the mission of the agency and serving our country,” an EPA spokeswoman previously told TheDCNF.
Likewise, Administrator McCarthy’s weekly trips home likely resulted in tons of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere.
EPA released a photo album in 2014 titled “A Day In The Life of the EPA Administrator” that shows what McCarthy does on a typical day, including the fact that she flies home nearly every weekend to spend time with her family.
“Yes, Administrator McCarthy flies home regularly to see her family. And yes she is a leader in fighting to protect our environment and improve public health,” the EPA told TheDCNF in 2014.
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