In a year the Republican-controlled Congress is expected to take a significant whack at President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda, GOP lawmakers on Wednesday told top environmental officials they should scrap what was once a fairly obscure proposal to define what is and isn’t considered a body of water by federal law.
In an unusual joint hearing involving the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the Republican majority that now controls both houses of Congress showed it is intent on trying to derail the president’s environmental agenda in his last two years in office.
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., ran the hearing, tightly holding senators and representatives to their time limits – and noting that a potential of 79 lawmakers could be on hand to ask questions.
And while not all did so, the ones who did generally followed party lines. Republican lawmakers expressed outrage at what they called a “power grab,” while Democrats countered that opposition to the rule was built on a tower of misconceptions.
TVNL Comment: The GOP truly has no shame. None at all.