Higgins Opens Hearing on Biden’s Weaponized Environmental Enforcement Targeting Americans and Businesses

WASHINGTON- Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins (R-La.) delivered opening remarks today at a hearing titled "From Protection to Persecution: EPA Enforcement Gone Rogue Under the Biden Administration." In his statement, Subcommittee Chairman Higgins highlighted the Biden Administration's use of overly aggressive enforcement tactics to intimidate small business owners, including raids conducted by teams of armed EPA agents. The Subcommittee will conduct a comprehensive review of all regulatory agencies' "badge and gun" authority to determine whether these powers should be curtailed.

Below are Subcommittee Chairman Higgins' prepared remarks.

Today the Subcommittee is going to hear about the aggressive enforcement tactics employed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice to intimidate small businesses into consent agreements and other enforcement actions.

Today's hearing focuses on one specific issue: the overly aggressive enforcement tactics, many of which are better suited for hardened criminals, used by the Biden Administration to intimidate hard-working small businessowners and set an example through regulatory terror against everyday American entrepreneurs.

The Clean Air Act clearly provides the EPA with criminal enforcement authority. Like it or not, Congress granted the EPA that authority.

What is in question is whether the agency-which has seen its enforcement program shift from prosecuting industrial polluters to persecuting small businesses-has fairly and consistently applied its use of criminal authority, or if enforcement actions under the Biden Administration were hyper-charged in pursuit of left-wing political objectives under the banner of so-called "environmental justice."

In the 1990s, Congress expanded the EPA's criminal authority. However, shortly after enactment, the EPA conceded it has limited criminal authorities.

In an internal 1993 EPA memo, EPA enforcement personnel concluded that Congress intended criminal responsibility of an owner or operator to be strictly limited to "senior management or corporate officers," or the Clean Air Act violation was "of a 'knowing and willful' magnitude of intent."

That memo went on to state, "Automobile dealer or repair shop tampering with automotive air emission systems still can not be prosecuted criminally under the CAA since the mobile source regulations impose various compliance certification responsibilities only on automobile manufacturers and not on the dealers."

Over time, the EPA's enforcement focus has clearly shifted. Instead of pursuing massive industrial polluters who employ highly paid legal defense teams, EPA under the Biden Administration chose to focus on mom-and-pop shops with limited means to argue their case against the legal might of DOJ.

Often, the EPA's enforcement actions involved raids on shops by teams of armed EPA agents who intimidate small businesses with threats of criminal prosecution. If achieved, these prosecutions would deprive targeted individuals of their right to vote, their Second Amendment rights, and destroy their hard built businesses.

As a former Sheriff's Deputy, I question why the EPA even has the authority to have armed agents raiding Americans' homes and workplaces for alleged violations that are often highly technical and do not suggest any threat of harm or violence to law enforcement. There are plenty of other law enforcement resources at the state and local level that, when truly appropriate, the EPA could employ to help execute a warrant.

But what is clear is that the use of armed EPA agents is not motivated by public safety. Rather, such heavy-handed tactics are clearly aimed at intimidation. For this reason, the Subcommittee is conducting a thorough review of all regulatory agencies' "badge and gun" authority to determine if rogue administrative agencies need their authorities curtailed.

For I fear the EPA's aggressive use of its criminal authority proves the adage "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."