House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) blasted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday, claiming it had failed to take steps to allow a federal watchdog to conduct investigations.
EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins and his staff have testified three times before Congress since May that the EPA’s homeland security office blocked access to information, impeding probes into employee misconduct.
{mosads}“Unfortunately, it appears that EPA has not resolved these issues, and thus the work of the OIG continues to be compromised,” Issa wrote in a Thursday letter to EPA head Gina McCarthy.
Issa requested a number of documents and communications regarding the EPA’s homeland security office and Steve Williams, an employee who is allegedly the target of many complaints by Elkins’s staff.
At a May hearing, Patrick Sullivan, one of Elkins’s deputies, told the Oversight Committee that the EPA’s homeland security office believes that “intelligence” information can be kept from the Office of Inspector General. The homeland security office was created after the 9/11 terror attacks and reports directly to McCarthy.
In June, McCarthy issued a memo to resolve the standoff, but Issa said she wrongly put the inspector general’s office on par with the homeland security unit. She promised to continue working to resolve the problems.
But in September, Elkins told Issa’s panel that the obstruction persisted.
“The EPA office of homeland security continues to impede the investigations of this OIG,” he said. “This impairment by the EPA … is still not resolved.”
A spokeswoman for Elkins said the circumstances haven’t changed since his September testimony.
“The committee remains deeply concerned about the apparent lack of progress on any of these fronts,” Issa wrote Thursday.
“It has been three months since the hearing at which you appeared and four months since the committee first learned of these issues and urged the EPA to address them.”
EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said the agency received Issa’s letter and will review it.