[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 105 (Thursday, July 14, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H5029]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1210
                          EPA STIMULUS FAILURE

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Madam Speaker, briefly, here are some examples of why the 
$1 trillion in government stimulus spending bill failed to hold down 
unemployment or reinvigorate our economy:
  Over the past few years, the EPA has spent more than $27 million on 
grants to foreign countries. This includes funds for Breathe Easy, 
Jakarta, an Indonesian campaign to improve air quality. Now, President 
Obama may have some affection for a city he lived in as a child, but is 
that any reason to send them Federal stimulus dollars?
  There have been 65 grants handed out since the stimulus bill was 
signed; six of these grants went to Russia and ten grants went to 
China. We already owe China interest on our debt. Why on Earth are we 
giving them grants to keep their own country clean? The Energy and 
Commerce Committee has launched an investigation into this spending. We 
need to know how much has been spent and if the EPA has further plans 
to send money overseas.
  Our growing debt is hurting job growth. This is just another sad case 
of Federal spending wasted on projects that do nothing for the American 
economy.

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