Republican natural resources chief Rep. Rob Bishop is tasking the government’s watchdog to investigate Department of Interior “obstructionism” in August’s toxic wastewater spill in Colorado.
The Utah lawmaker, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter Wednesday to the Government Accountability Office, after holding a hearing on Interior’s probe into the Gold King mine spill caused by the Environmental Protection Agency, which Bishop said was unsatisfactory. He wants the GAO to probe how the agency discussed the report with the EPA before initiating its probe. Bishop said the EPA promised the report would hold the agency accountable, but the report did not.He used the hearing to prod Interior Secretary Sally Jewell over her agency’s refusal to provide information requested by the Natural Resources Committee. What the panel did receive was so heavily redacted as to be unusable, he said.Immediately after the hearing, he sent the letter to the GAO asking that it investigate the agency’s process in developing the report.Interior “must be held accountable for its obstructionist tactics regarding its involvement and lack of objectivity surrounding this disaster that spilled 3 million gallons of contaminated water into the Animas River, affecting four states and multiple tribes,” Bishop said. “I hope the GAO report will shed light on areas that [Interior] refuses to answer.”
