Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) wants to hold a high-ranking Obama administration official in contempt of Congress over his response to an investigation into a contentious water pollution rule.
He is accusing Howard Shelanski, head of the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), of withholding documents related to OIRA’s involvement in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Rule.
Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, subpoenaed Shelanski in July 2015 for a wide range of documents regarding the rule, four months after Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) first formally requested the information at a subcommittee hearing.
While Shelanski has produced thousands of pages of requested documents, he still hasn’t handed over everything Chaffetz has sought.
A video the committee released Wednesday charges that “eleven months later, OIRA has failed to produce all of the requested documents.”
In a resolution introduced Wednesday night, Chaffetz said Shelanski’s “unwillingness and inability to work in good faith to comply with the subpoena interfered with the committee’s investigation” into the regulation issued last year, and he and his staff “are withholding key documents from the committee — the volume of which is unknown except to OIRA, because Mr. Shelanski and his staff refused to provide basic information about the universe of responsive documents.”
Read more:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/283723-gop-chairman-seeks-to-hold-obama-official-in-contempt-over-water
