Republicans accelerate probe into Biden administration’s actions to house migrants on federal lands .
Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., the top GOP member of the panel’s oversight subcommittee, sent a series of new questions and document requests to White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chairwoman Brenda Mallory in a letter Monday.
According to Republicans, the White House’s migrant housing plans appear to disregard environmental concerns.
The pair opened the probe in November, issuing their first request for additional information regarding the environmental approval process for leasing Gateway National Recreation Area’s Floyd Bennett Field — property located in New York City’s Brooklyn borough and managed by the National Park Service — to the local government for migrant housing. Mallory, though, ignored that letter.
The Republicans also expressed concern the White House Council on Environmental Quality allowed the DOI to bypass the normal eco review process mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The 1969 law requires federal agencies to review the environmental impacts of projects and proposals on federal land before approval.
“Despite concerns with the legality of housing people on national park land, the Biden administration ultimately moved forward with using national park land to establish a migrant housing encampment,” Westerman and Gosar wrote in November. “Alarmingly, to secure the FBF Lease, NPS requested and received alternative arrangements for National Environmental Policy Act compliance.”
They added that national parks are designed for recreation and are “not a place to house people, temporarily or permanently, who lack shelter.”
Has anyone had the backbone to ask our Senators and Congressmen about their wanting to disregard for our country’s current immigration laws and or why do they believe that the WORKING American taxpayer should fund the care and transportation of these criminals throughout the United states?