Tell Congress to Stop the EPA Grants to Foreign Countries

Dear FreedomWorks member,

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your Members of Congress and urge them to co-sponsor the Accountability in Grants Act of 2013, S. 558 in the Senate and H.R. 959 in the House.  Introduced by Senator Rand Paul (Ky.) and Congressman Ed Whitfield (Ky.-1), this legislation would stop the EPA from using Clean Air Act funds to give grants to programs outside the United States.

Each year, the Environmental Protection Agency issues hundreds of millions of dollars in grants through the Clean Air Act for the purpose of studying ways to reduce air pollution. However, a 2011 inquiry into the nature of these grants found that the EPA had awarded tens of millions of dollars of these grants to foreign countries.

Among the grants that were awarded, according to 2012 testimony by Rep. Whitfield, were “$141,450 to China to study swine manure”, and “$1,226,841 for the United Nations to promote clean fuels”. Disregarding the larger question of whether the federal government should be funding these sorts of programs at all, the government certainly should not be sending taxpayer dollars to subsidize research overseas.  That money would surely be useful here at home addressing such spending items as our $16.75 trillion debt.

Thus, I urge you to contact your Members of Congress and ask them to support common sense limits on federal spending and to co-sponsor the Accountability in Grants Act (S. 558 or H.R. 959) today.

Sincerely,
 
Matt Kibbe
President and CEO
FreedomWorks