House Energy and Commerce Republicans are working on a first-of-its-kind effort that would lay out EPA’s powers in a single piece of legislation.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), chair of the Environment Subcommittee, told POLITICO’s E&E News he is in the early stages of developing a potentially bipartisan bill that would lay out all of EPA’s existing statutory authority.
He said that’s necessary because President Richard Nixon created the agency through a 1970 presidential directive. And even though Congress has since continued funding the agency and giving it responsibilities, lawmakers haven’t done a broad authorization.
“We’ve authorized activity, but we never authorized the agency; that was an executive order,” Griffith said. “We ought to have a place where everybody, not just this Congress, but in future, can reference and say, ‘Well, here’s the definition of what the EPA does, all the different things.’”
