House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, scolded the head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday for her “arrogance” and “hubris” in asking not to sit next to victims of the toxic spill that the EPA has taken responsibility for in Colorado.
“I understand [EPA] administrator [Gina] McCarthy agreed only to come if she testified first and on her own panel,” Bishop said in his opening remarks at a hearing to probe the Aug. 5 toxic water spill that impacted three western states.
McCarthy did get her way, and was alone on the first panel in the hearing. Other witnesses were to follow on a second panel. That prompted Bishop to remark that McCarthy is “lucky this is a joint committee” hearing between the Natural Resources and Oversight committees.
“That is something we would not do in my own committee,” he said of the arrangement. Bishop added that McCarthy’s “refusing to sit alongside representatives of the states and tribes that have travelled across the country to discuss this disaster is simply unheard of, and is wrong.”
“It is arrogance, and it is hubris that goes through the agency,” he said. “And it should not take place.”
Bishop’s committee was joined by the House government oversight committee to probe last month’s spill that sent 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into the waterways of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. It’s the third hearing this week in which McCarthy testified on the spill.
Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, blamed Republicans for piling on against the EPA, and said the spill is “being mined like a political gold mine. And the rush is on.” He said the GOP can’t “pass up a chance” to attack the EPA.
