From The Hill
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said her agency has been trying to become more “lean,” including cutting a sixth of its workforce, but the GOP, which now controls both chambers of Congress, is going too far.
“Taking away our core budget doesn’t just impact the Clean Power Plan and problems of the future,” McCarthy told reporters, referring to the agency’s highly controversial proposed carbon dioxide limits for power plants.
“It definitely impacts our ability — which I think the general public has relied on — to protect their direct public health and the environment,” she said.
The House will vote this week on an appropriations bill for fiscal 2016 that would cut the EPA’s funding by 9 percent and block Obama administration priorities such as carbon rules and the expansion of federal jurisdiction over waterways.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed its own EPA spending bill that cuts the agency’s funding by nearly 7 percent and has many of the same policy provisions.
McCarthy said the proposed bills would eat into the agency’s ability to protect air and water from pollution.
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