House Republicans say the Obama administration’s investigation into last month’s toxic spill in Colorado is “susceptible to political influence” that could cover up facts surrounding the accident.
The GOP is teeing up for a round of hearings in the coming weeks meant to get to the bottom of an Aug. 5 spill of toxic sludge caused by an Environmental Protection Agency contractor that contaminated the waterways in three states.
The spill released three million gallons of contaminated wastewater from an abandoned mine in Colorado. Local, state and federal officials are still trying to ascertain the extent of the damage. The GOP has been critical of the EPA for both causing the spill and its handling of the response.
Chairmen of the Natural Resources and Oversight and Government Reform committees, Utah Republicans Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, respectively, sent a letter to Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell Thursday, asking her to explain why the EPA chose her agency to conduct an investigation into the spill.
The committee chairmen questioned the wisdom in assigning one executive branch agency to conduct oversight of another. “The decision to assign that job to another executive branch agency raises concerns that the reviewers are not sufficiently independent, and therefore susceptible to political influence or liable to limit the scope of the review.
“Moreover, the spill raises serious questions about the steps [the Department of Interior] has taken to protect its natural resource and trust interests,” the Sept. 4 letter reads.
The EPA’s inspector general started its own investigation of the spill, but the EPA also asked Interior to conduct a departmental investigation into the mine accident, since there is overlapping jurisdiction of mines.
The committee chiefs also asked for all data and related reports and materials on the Gold King Mine and the spill ahead of a joint oversight hearing Sept. 17 on the toxic mine blowout. EPA and Interior officials are slated to testify, as well as with the government contractor blamed for causing the spill.
The EPA contractor had warned the agency a year earlier that the Gold King Mine was likely to experience a catastrophic blowout. The chairmen will ask EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy why it appears her agency did not heed that warning, according a letter they sent earlier to the agency.
House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, also will be holding a hearing on the spill Wednesday, just two days after Congress returns from its month-long break.
