“This is an egregious example of fraud on the highest levels of management at the EPA,” said Chairman Issa. “It’s disappointing that a civil servant got away with bilking the American people for so long. The IG has acted to make sure better controls are in place to keep this from happening again and Americans deserve that. ”

“Six months have passed since Senator Vitter and I wrote your Agency seeking documents related to our ongoing investigations of EPA activities,” Issa explained in a letter sent to Administrator McCarthy in conjunction with the subpoena. “Given the EPA’s continued lack of cooperation, I am left with no choice but to issue a subpoena to compel the production of documents relevant to the Committee’s oversight obligations.”

“The Committee has continued to uncover troubling evidence that administration officials have engaged in an intentional and systemic practice of violating federal transparency laws to communicate with lobbyists and other private interests using non-official or alias email accounts,” said Issa.

“We’ve seen EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s ‘Richard Windsor’ e-mails, and now we have a regional administrator who appears to be dodging the agency’s mandatory recordkeeping policy,” said Vitter. “The American people have to be wondering where this will stop."

“When EPA chooses to regulate at the extreme, it also casts a net over job creators, further curbing economic expansion and job growth. This rule will inhibit economic growth for businesses and communities, stopping new projects until compliance with the rule is proven,” said Chairman Issa.

“This report details numerous specific rules and regulatory actions advanced by the Obama Administration which will severely restrict the development of abundant and reliable energy resources,” Chairman Issa said.

“The rule finalized today by the Obama Administration will hurt American consumers by forcing them to drive more expensive and less safe automobiles. The Administration drafted these standards in secret, strong-arming automakers and short-circuiting the deliberative regulatory process to achieve a purely political result..."

“Higher fuel efficiency standards is a goal I share—but not at the expense of consumer safety and not when those rules are implemented under a cloak of secrecy in a manner outside the law," Chairman Issa said.

Issa & Jordan: “Taken together, these documents suggest that CARB was heavily invested and highly involved in the development of the nationwide heavy-duty standards. Indeed, it appears that CARB helped to initiate and then substantially dictated the discussions that culminated in national heavy-duty standards. It is not clear to the Committee, however, why CARB exercised such outsized influence in this process, with apparently more input into the development of the rule than other ...

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will conduct two hearings Thursday to assess the Obama Administration’s record in implementing a domestic energy production program.