Press Releases
Rogers: EPA Used Federal Funds to Attack Farmers
Washington, DC,
April 22, 2016
Congressman Mike Rogers joined 144 of his colleagues today and signed a bipartisan letter to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Gina McCarthy regarding the agency misusing Federal funding to pay for a campaign used to attack farmers and ranchers in Washington. This is the second time in months that the EPA has misused Federal funds. “In my opinion, the EPA declared war on farmers and hard working families. The agency seems to hurt the agriculture industry and kill jobs instead of helping protect anything. Their recent campaign attacking our hard-working farmers and ranchers in the state of Washington is just down right appalling. I am disappointed in the EPA and hope they will cooperate with an investigation into the matter,” Rogers said. The letter stated, “While we appreciate EPA’s recent admission that wrongdoing occurred and that the campaign should never have been federally funded, we are still confused why EPA would have approved an award clearly violating a number of federal laws pertaining to funding propaganda, advocacy, and lobbying efforts. We find this revelation particularly disturbing, as it follows closely to both the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) questioning of Region 10’s award monitoring and a December 2015 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found EPA had committed similar violations on social media advocacy campaigns supporting EPA’s Water of the United State (WOTUS) regulation (also known as the “Clean Water Rule”).” Rogers is a senior member of the House Agriculture Committee. - ### - |