Rand Paul Wants To Cut EPA Budget By 29%

Rand Paul, left, wants to cut the budget of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from $7.939 billion to $3.238 billion, a 29% cut.

According to Paul:

"Since 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency has worked to enforce greenhouse gas regulations on business without Congressional approval. We have seen EPA’s budgets significantly increase in administrative costs to process and handle the regulations they write. Even with the budget increases, EPA process for assessing and controlling toxic chemicals has continued to stay on GAO’s High-Risk List for potential waste, fraud, and abuse.

From the High Risk List of 2009,

“GAO recently reported that EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) – a database that contains EPA’s scientific position on the potential human health effects of exposure to more than 540 chemicals – is at serious risk of becoming obsolete because the agency has not been able to complete timely, credible assessments or decrease its backlog of 70 ongoing assessments. Overall, EPA has finalized a total of only 9 assessments in the past 3 fiscal years.”

Toxic chemicals are not the only areas EPA is falling behind. Their delay on approving mining and drilling permits has costs thousands of jobs across our country."

(Rand Paul)