{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://palmer.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/epa-email-trail-reveals-alaska-pebble-mine-plot", "EPA email trail reveals Alaska Pebble Mine plot", "2015-11-05", "2015", "2015-11", "Republican", "House", "AL", "Gary Palmer", "P000609", "palmer.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "It didnt take long for Thursdays House committee hearing on theEnvironmental Protection Agencys role in blocking thePebbleMine to start sounding less like a congressional probe and more like the plot of a Michael Crichton thriller.\nStart with a proposed Alaska mine worth untold billions, add a trail of emails linkingEPAstaff with the mines opponents, and throw in an ex-agency scientist now refusing to answer questions inAustralia.\nIm just amazed. When I hear all the questions and the testimony and, quite frankly, the evidence that Ive seen, this reads more like a novel, said Rep. Barry Loudermilk, Georgia Republican.\nAt the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology hearing, Republicans took aim at theEPAs objectivity in assessing the project, producing a cache of emails fromEPAstaffers obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.\nOne exchange from April 12, 2009, showedEPAscientistPhilip Northmaking suggested edits to a draft petition drawn up by opponents of the mine calling for a review of the project under the Clean Water Acts Section 404(c).\nAnother email betweenEPAemployees David Evans and Palmer Hough referred to a press release from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, on theEPAs decision to conduct a Bristol Bay watershed assessment.\nInteresting spin onEPAs announcement/decision. Her communications would suggest no [review] would be done until all the science is in, Mr. Evans wrote in the Feb. 7, 2011, email. Obviously, thats not what we have in mind.\nRep. Gary J. Palmer, Alabama Republican, called the email just another example of theEPAworking outside acceptable parameters, overreaching and, in some cases  and in this case  it just appears to be very manipulative of the process to reach a predetermined outcome.\nWeve seen it in other areas where theEPAs involved  the ozone standard, the Clean Power Plan, the waters of the United States and now withPebbleMine. I just think at some pointEPAs got to be held accountable for actions such as this.\nHouse Democrats pointed out that noEPAofficials were present at the hearing, but Chairman Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said they had been invited to an upcoming hearing in order to avoid problems with ongoing litigation.\nThey argued that theEPAhad little choice but to act given the outcry from opponents in Alaska, including some tribes and owners of nearby sockeye salmon fisheries, and the refusal by thePebble Partnershipto file for a mining permit.\nHow much ofEPAs decision to move forward was based on frustration that emerged from the fishermen who depend on this, from the Native Americans, from the people of Alaska, that this was just a sword of Damocles hanging over their head? said Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., Virginia Democrat. ThatPebblewas not coming forward with a mine permit and there was a lot of pressure on theEPAto do something?\nFormer Defense Secretary William Cohen, author of an Oct. 6 report critical of the process, pointed out that the project lies on state land designated for mining, not federal land.\nThe notion that theEPAcan make you file something that youre not ready to file, and over the objections of the state of Alaska, is, it seems to me, thats quite a stretch forEPAs power, Mr. Cohen said.\nThe report by Mr. Cohen, who was in Democratic President Clintons cabinet, concluded that theEPAhad acted unfairly by using the less comprehensive 404(c) authority instead of evaluating a permit application under the National Environmental Policy Act.\nEPAs unprecedented, preemptive use of Section 404(c) before a permit filing, in my judgment, exacerbated the shortcomings of the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment and inhibited the involvement of two key participants  the Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Alaska, Mr. Cohen said in his testimony.\nHis findings were echoed in a report released Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which accused theEPAof exercising a preemptive veto against the mine by undertaking a rarely used 404(c) review.\nThe report cites a 2010 email in which Mr. Hough, an environmental scientist in theEPAs wetlands division, says that, we have never gone down the route of a preemptive 404(c) action before.\nFormer Alaska Senate President Rick Halford defended the process, testifying that as a resident of Bristol Bay, I can tell you that nothing seems predetermined to me inEPAs actions.\nEPAcollected information and data, met with and listened to both sides and engaged in extensive outreach to all the stakeholders, Mr. Halford said. I do not believe thatEPAs engagement itself was out of the ordinary as it is common for developers and the public to seekEPAs perspective in advance of formal project initiation.\nTom Collier, CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, said theEPAshould have waited until the company submitted a permit application for the mine project before moving forward with incomplete data in its proposed July 2014 regulations.\nWhats going on here is thatEPAis drafting the petitions that they said were then the reason why they launched the process against us. I mean, thats poppycock, Mr. Collier said. They launched this process against us because they always planned to kill this project. Particularly Phil North. Hes helping draft the petitions that he then said were the reasons why he initiated this process.\nSo its not just that they were working together, they then misled the rest of us about why they moved forward with this proposed veto, Mr. Collier said.\nMr. Cohen said thatMr. Northalso sent emails on the issue from his private email account. Now retired and living inAustralia,Mr. Northhas refused to respond to requests to meet with him talk to him, said Mr. Cohen.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://palmer.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/epa-email-trail-reveals-alaska-pebble-mine-plot"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.016787951812148, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}