The ballroom at the Conservative Political Action Conference may be filled with big names and boisterous crowds, but it’s in the small breakout rooms where activists and leaders are plotting how to undo what the Obama administration has done.
Case in point: Battling the White House and its Environmental Protection Agency for their multi-pronged environmental agenda.
As cheers from the ballroom next door bled through the walls, U.S. Rep. Bill Flores of central Texas ticked off a string of environmental regulations President Barack Obama is pushing that he and his Republican colleague will do whatever they can to stop.
Joined in a panel discussion by experts who critiqued prevailing views on climate change and who celebrated the embattled coal industry, Flores discussed several environmental regulations pursued by Obama and his environmental chief, Gina McCarthy.
He even had an alternative name for the EPA: The Employment Prevention Agency.
Chief among the proposed regulations is the high-profile Clean Power Plan, which the EPA is pushing to curtail carbon pollution. But also on the docket is the lower-profile Waters of the U.S. rule, which seeks to clarify which waterways in the nation are covered by the Clean Water Act and which ones aren’t. It’s the kind of technical proposal that has outraged business and farm interests, as well as House Republicans.
Flores is on a key environmental committee in the House.
Of the administration and its voluminous rules: "We’re going to do what we can to put some economic sanity into these, and also to make sure they’re using sound science," the congressman told McClatchy after the panel. "They don’t use real-world economics. They don’t use sound science. They don’t rely on any sort of proven technology. They just make this stuff up… It’s just tragic what they do and what they’re allowed to get away with, and we’re committed to try to stop it."
As for EPA head McCarthy, Flores faced her at a hearing this week.
"Let me just say that she has a really difficult time justifying what they’re doing," he said. "She tries to do everything she can to put a smiley face on it."