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Brief
Politicians of both political parties in Washington are scrambling to defend their support of the pork-barrel-laden budget bill that funds the federal government for the rest of the year—and predictably gives Wall Street a huge break.
North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry defended his support of the bill in an especially troubling way, bragging in his weekly update to constituents that the bill slashed funding for the EPA.
Additionally the funding legislation passed Thursday includes a number of important changes including cuts to EPA funding and staffing, cuts that will drop the agency to levels last seen in the 1980s.
That’s quite an accomplishment McHenry is touting, reducing the funding for the agency that protects our water and air and land to the level it was funded 30 years ago.
Wonder if McHenry checked with Governor Pat McCrory before he boasted about slashing the funding. It was only three months ago when he signed the coal ash bill passed by the General Assembly that McCrory promised to partner with EPA to “hold Duke Energy accountable for violations of the federal Clean Water Act at the Eden facility and its 13 other coal plants in the state.”
It will be hard to count on the EPA to do its job as a “partner” in cracking down on coal ash pollution if folks like Rep. McHenry keep crusading to make it unable to do its job.
Unless of course that was the plan all along.
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