During a confirmation hearing for President Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan raised objections to past EPA practices of conducting armed SWAT-style raids on locaal miners and small mechanic shops in Alaska to check for compliance.
Speaking to nominee Lee Zeldin during his Jan. 16 hearing, Sullivan highlighted the 2013 raid on Alaska gold miners.
“We had a raid on placer miners in a place called Chicken, Alaska, under President Obama,” Sullivan said. “Over 30 armed agents – body armor – to do what? Do compliance on the Clean Water Act? They didn’t find one violation. They scared the hell out of the miners.”
Sullivan also objected to raids the EPA has conducted on small Alaska mechanic shops.
“Then, not to be outdone, the Biden administration has done these raids on small mechanic shops in Alaska,” told Zeldin. “They bring up EPA agents from all over the country – 30 armed agents – kicking in doors in mechanic shops in Alaska. It is just an outrage.”
Sullivan asked Zeldin if he would commit to focus the EPA’s efforts on “civil compliance, as opposed to kicking in doors with body armer, assault rifles, helicopters?”
“Look, I believe in an armed citizenry,” Sullivan added. “I believe in the second Amendment. I don’t believe in an armed bureaucracy. The EPA is a SWAT team. Do you believe the EPA should even have armed agents?”
Zeldin said the EPA’s actions were “outrageous.”
“The story that you told, and Senator [Lisa] Murkowski shared with me as well with regards to Chicken, Alaska, it led me – as somebody who’s going through this transition – to be asking questions as to how did that even get authorized,” Zeldin replied. “Who signs off on it? What is the standards that need to be met in order to even say yes to an operation like that.”
Zeldin is a former New York Congressman and Trump ally, who has pledged to help rebuild U.S. energy dominance, revitalize the auto industry and bring back American jobs.
9 Comments
The EPA are part of the deep state permanent government. They don’t belong using any firearms for their jobs. If they need law enforcement assistance because of some perceived danger then seek that assistance. It is egregious what they have been doing.
Sullivan on the right track but needs to be more assertive. He also needs to call out Murkowski on her RINO stance on almost everything!
I’m all for dissolving EPA. The whole agency is about inspections. Every agency of the federal government has the same kind of inspectors that sign on to every inspection they have put out to industry and government for their agency and that of EPA. EPA creates a bottle neck problem and can’t proceed to a conclusive summary without every agency in the inspection group signing off. Their work takes years to get a permit and get the work done to start or finish any project. Look at the NEPA process that they are a part of in a project. Ridiculous and they know they have the control and will obstruct for any given personal reason. Dissolve the EPA and save money for other purposes. They are small, over rated and conflicted on everything they are a part of in government. Its deliberate and destructive to everything they touch in every project and inspection.
Diana. What you won’t accept is that without the EPA’s permitting and enforcement authority plus a cadre of specialists and scientists protecting your world, you and me and all Americans would endure dozens of harms wrought by short-sighted petty developers and mega toxic corporations like Monsanto. Do you eat salmon? The world’s most productive watershed was protected by the EPA. The sometimes clean air in urban areas is monitored by them. They decontaminate the toxic legacy of military sites from 1940s to current.
You’d suffer without them.
Not only is the EPA armed and dangerous! We’ve also had ‘near misses’ with the U.S. Park Service armed apparatus in the Northwest Alaska. They raided an elders’ hunting camp with semiautomatic rifles! That’s unconscionable to say the least.
I have to call BS on dan sullivan. “send me to DC and I’ll fight the swamp”. This sorry ba*tard joined it five minutes after landing in DC. He has been a rubber stamp for everything biden/obama. His votes PROVE this. mayorkas, a supreme court justice WHO CANT DEFINE WHAT A WOMAN IS! No on this general milley type soldier. He is lisa murkowski without the pantsuit. He needs to go. He is everything lisa is. RINO!!!
Yeah, he’s been that way and he’s been called on it. Maybe he is finally realizing that his base no longer views him as their representative, but an enabler of the deep state. Maybe Trump’s victory has something to do with that…
Thank you, Senator Sullivan, for bringing this up. I had no idea!
It seems every federal agency and department has an armed police, and this is ridiculous. No wonder the ctizenry are afraid of the government! This is a relatively new phenomenon and it goes along with the weaponization of the justice department against the average citizens, especially those who prize personal freedom. My dad was a career US Forest Service employee, and I worked for it too in the 70s’; the only weapons employees carried were for bear protection. Now it not uncommon to run into a USFS or USF&W person on the trail who is toting a Smith and Wesson or Glock (and who treats you like you are a trespasser). This is not how it should be.