An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversight hearing held by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability prompted lawmakers to engage in verbal sparring over claims that EPA rules are costly overreach, and, because of a recent court decision, if EPA still has the authority to enact regulations.

While the hearing—held July 10, 2024—was on EPA oversight, some committee members raised tangential issues with EPA Administrator Michael Regan, including Project 2025, the outcomes of the 2016 and 2020 elections, and the recent Supreme Court decision in the case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo that overruled a 1984 decision in the case Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council which set the Chevron doctrine. Under the Chevron doctrine, if Congress has not directly addressed the question at the center of a statute, a court was required to uphold the agency’s interpretation of the statute as long as it was reasonable. However, the ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo reverses that decision and gives the courts the power to interpret a statute.

Nonetheless, Regan focused on EPA policies and programs, opening his remarks by touting the rule that set limits on the amount of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water, which was announced on April 10, 2024.

“Exposure to PFAS has been linked to deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage to infants and children. The final rule will reduce PFAS exposure for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce thousands of serious illnesses. It is aligned with the goals of the Biden Cancer Moonshot,” Regan said.

The EPA administrator noted that $11.5 billion in federal funding allocated under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—for water infrastructure will be available in 2024 through infrastructure investment programs, including state revolving funds. “Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, communities across the country have access to unprecedented funding through the State Revolving Fund programs for priority water infrastructure projects that upgrade aging water mains and pumps, replace toxic lead pipes, address PFAS drinking water contamination, and improve community resilience to climate change impacts like flooding. Since 2022, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has injected almost $25 billion into water infrastructure projects across the country, protecting public health, preserving water resources, and creating jobs,” he said.

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Congress passed invests a historic $15 billion—of which EPA has made $9 billion available to date—to help every state and territory identify and replace lead service lines, preventing exposure to lead in drinking water. Lead can cause a range of serious health impacts, including irreversible harm to brain development in children. There is no safe level of lead exposure,” Regan said.

The law also “mandates that 49 percent of funds provided through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund General Supplemental Funding and Lead Service Line Replacement Funding must be provided as grants and forgivable loans to disadvantaged communities,” Regan said.

Furthermore, Regan discussed the EPA’s final rules designed to reduce air, water, and land pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants in order to protect all communities from pollution and improve public health, as well as other EPA initiatives.

However, while Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said he agrees “the American people want clean air and clean water…that’s why we have the EPA,” he called the EPA’s rules and regulations that are designed to reduce pollution as “excessive”. In addition, Comer said the EPA under the Biden Administration has pushed a whole-of-government climate agenda, including the implementation of regulations and executive orders “that have raised energy costs on” all consumers and businesses.

Conversely, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) praised the EPA for taking “decisive action to put the health of the people before the profits of polluters and to confront climate change and toxic contamination of our communities.”

 Raskin listed EPA actions, including “new rules limiting pollution from coal and natural gas power plants. It includes a new rule limiting pollution from chemical plants that will reduce cancer risks for vulnerable communities. New rules for cars and trucks that will cut pollutants and reduce premature deaths, heart attacks, asthma, and fuel costs for Americans in sweeping efforts to protect our population from lead and carcinogens in the drinking water.”

Raskin also discussed climate-change denial by some members of Congress, saying, “Americans today face the accelerating ravages of the climate crisis including extreme heat waves. Last year was the hottest year on record, so we’re talking about record extreme heat record, violent flooding, record wildfires, destroying millions of acres of land in the West, record velocity hurricanes and tornadoes, and yet a lot of our colleagues are still in denial.

“In fact, their (some lawmakers) ‘Project 2025’ plan for America would ban the use of the word ‘climate change.’ They want to delete the possibility of even talking about climate change, much less taking any action on it. Millions of Americans are suffering the health effects of legacy pollution, dangerous air quality, and other kinds of toxic contamination.”

In a post-hearing interview, Raskin told The Driller the EPA’s ability to protect the environment depends on the Supreme Court. “I can only speak for the minority side, but the members of the minority are very much behind the EPA and are able to do their job of muscular enforcement of the environmental statutes. The problem, of course, is the Supreme Court; I mean, the chairman (Comer) ended with a statement saying that he wanted common sense enforcement of the laws of the United States, and yet the Supreme Court has incorporated itself with the power to define the meaning of federal statutes.”

However, the legitimacy of the EPA was challenged by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who said the agency “has never obtained formal authorization legislation from Congress.”

In fact, the EPA is an independent agency established by an executive order issued by President Richard Nixon, and that order was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.

Further still, because the Chevron Doctrine—“which the EPA relied on to support its very controversial and costly rulemakings”—was overturned, Boebert asked Regan, “since Congress has never authorized your agency and has since lost most of its legal standing, does your agency still plan to enable rogue bureaucrats to enact unconstitutional regulations?”

Regan said he was “shocked” by Boebert’s question because she has worked with EPA offices in her district and that the “Supreme Court didn't tell us to repeal anything.” The EPA has “all the authority” necessary to do pursue its mission,” he said.

Further still, Rep. Daniel S. Goldman (D-N.Y.) responded to Boebert’s statements about the impact of the decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, saying the ruling establishes that if a statute that rulemaking is based on is ambiguous, the courts should not defer to agency rulemaking. Rather, “the courts get to determine whether or not what the statute means,” he said, adding under that interpretation “would not require any (EPA) regulations to be reversed or overturned.”