EPA stimulating environmental regulations abroad

[Geee]

Daily Caller:

China and other foreign interests have been significant beneficiaries of stimulus money through the Environmental Protection Agency, to the tune of some $27 million, since the law passed in February 2009.

Congressional investigators with the House Energy and Commerce Committee found that the EPA engaged in practices such as giving a $718,000 grant to the China State Environment Protection Administration to help it comply with the Stockholm and Long Range Transport of Air Pollutants Convention among others.

The EPA also gave a $150,000 grant to Interpol, the international police organization made famous in countless old movies, in “support of a climate-change project which will ensure that markets operate properly, and that fraud is detected promptly with regard to carbon trading.”

But a 5-year, $1.5 million project known as “Breath Easy Jakarta”, which intends to help implement the city of Jakarta, Indonesia implement air-pollution prevention has raised the ire of House Republicans led by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton.

The EPA announced the “Breathe Jakarta” program in February 2010 at a meeting between EPA Assistant Administrator Michelle DePass and the governor of Jakarta, and the administration has already pledged an initial investment of $250,000, according to an EPA request for proposal from earlier this year.

“What kind of message are we sending to out of work families when the Obama administration’s response to soaring unemployment and the looming debt ceiling is ‘Breathe Easy, Jakarta,’” Upton told The Daily Caller in an emailed statement. “The days of the EPA acting as a global ATM for the United Nations and foreign governments must come to an end. Our top priority should be helping put folks back to work here in America rather than sending millions overseas to subsidize international companies.”