EPA Oversight: One-Year Review

In 1982, majority members in the House convened a hearing to review the EPA, about which there were a variety of concerns. The Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources, Toby Moffett, stated, “The Administration of the EPA, even some Members of Congress, claim that all is well at EPA. Frankly, some of us don’t believe it. That is why we are here today.” While the hearings ranged across many aspects of the agency, a key focus was enforcement, which many members of Congress believed had been struck a ruinous blow by Administrator Anne Gorsuch. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and his staff, for example, conducted a study of the agency and concluded that “the effectiveness of the enforcement division of the Environmental Protection Agency was virtually destroyed by a combination of mismanagement and mixed signals.” As a result, “good environmental legislation passed with bipartisan support over the last 20 years… and strong public support, is being repealed in a back-door manner by not enforcing it.”