http://hotair.com/archives/2018/07/16/cummings-slams-politically-charged-trump-epa-program-turns-obama-epa-program/
On Friday evening there was a story at Politico which didn't seem to gain much traction, what with all of the Trump activity going on. Congressman Elija Cummings (D-Md) is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee and he's demanding that committee chair Trey Gowdy issue a subpoena to the EPA over their handling of both FOIA submissions and requests from Congress for documents, saying that Scott Pruitt's administration was "screening" requests based on political sensitivity. ...
Cummings goes on from there to discuss his committee's discovery of something called a "FEAT Team" at the EPA which reviews incoming requests. So what sort of devious political chicanery was Scott Pruitt up to and what is this mysterious new "FEAT Team" doing? ...
As it turns out, it was a program set up more than five years ago under the Obama administration to prioritize the handling of such information requests when they too fell far behind in responses. And Obama's crew was running late with far fewer requests to handle. It turns out that since President Trump took office, FOIA requests to the EPA (including many fishing expeditions from the media) have increased by a whopping 400%. ...
So this is the program that Cummings has "discovered" and determined to be involved in assigning special handling to requests deemed "complex or politically sensitive." Turns out that's exactly why the program was set up ... by Barack Obama's EPA. The letter goes on to cite various incidents where they were handling requests carefully and with great sensitivity. These include FOIA requests relating to Bristol Bay, Alaska, the spill of polluted water from Gold King Mine, EPA's response to Volkswagen's use of defeat devices and drinking water contamination in Flint, Michigan.
Gee, do you think any of those issues were "politically charged" and in need of special handling? But somehow nobody seemed to care that the Obama administration EPA was lagging in response time on those subjects even though they were only facing one quarter the number of requests received while Scott Pruitt was in charge. ...
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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