Unearthed emails expose how Obama-era EPA plotted 'massive' energy regulations from day one: watchdog

By Fox News · Fox News

A government watchdog is accusing the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of pre-determining the legal basis for its climate framework . In an amicus filing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals , the Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO), a nonpartisan nonprofit, unearthed communications from inside the EPA in 2009. Those communications, the GAO argued, show that climate-minded officials treated Obama’s Endangerment Finding as a foregone conclusion and later used it as the foundation for vehicle emission standards, power plant regulations and permitting restrictions. In particular, GAO pointed to communications from Lisa Heinzerling, who served as the climate policy counsel at the EPA at the time. In a 2009 email, she claimed the right findings would create a legal mandate for regulation. HOUSE GOP LAUNCHES PROBE INTO ALLEGED CLIMATE GROUP INFLUENCE ON FEDERAL JUDGES "We expect to be able to issue a proposed finding of endangerment for greenhouse gases within the next 100 days," Heinzerling wrote on Feb. 8. "Within the same document, we expect to find that certain major categories of greenhouse gases — in particular motor vehicles — cause or contribute to air pollution which endangers public health and welfare." "An endangerment finding … will trigger regulatory obligations under the Clean Air Act," Heinzerling added. Her email was sent just two weeks after President Barack Obama's inauguration. Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Public’s Trust, another government accountability group, said the communications appear to telegraph a pre-determined outcome. "The records from that time period merely confirm what many had suspected. The Obama administration’s Endangerment Finding was flawed from the start. It is clear that the new EPA appointees entered office determined to enact this massive bureaucratic overreach," Chamberlain said. The unearthed communications come as the Trump administration has made moves to end O…