House panel probes climate change crackdown on businesses by Biden's Justice Department, EPA

The chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s federal law enforcement panel has opened an investigation into the Biden administration’s harassment of citizens and businesses under its climate change agenda.

Rep. Clay Higgins, the Louisiana Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee, said he is seeking answers for small businesses unfairly targeted by President Biden’s Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency.

“Under the Biden Administration, many American businesses and citizens were the target of politically motivated regulatory enforcement and ‘environmental justice’ directives, with agencies demanding overly restrictive consent decrees with costly requirements as a condition of terminating litigation,” Mr. Higgins wrote to the new leaders at the DOJ and EPA.

The letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described the effort as a probe of “the weaponization of overly burdensome regulatory enforcement against the American people.”

As part of the probe, Mr. Higgins is examining the Justice Department’s Clean Air Act lawsuit against Hino Motors, a unit of Toyota Motors, that ended in a $1.6 billion settlement with the company pleading guilty to excessive diesel engine emissions in more than 105,000 U.S. vehicles.

In the letter, Mr. Higgins requested information from the DOJ and EPA on the steps being taken to “reexamine these tyrannical consent decrees and ensure that DOJ and EPA personnel are enforcing federal criminal and civil laws fairly and without political bias.”

He said that under Mr. Biden, the DOJ and EPA “weaponized consent decrees to retaliate against businesses and individuals who spoke out against the Biden Administration” and, in some cases, the federal consent decrees were based on state laws as opposed to federal laws and regulations.

Mr. Higgins said that by failing to comply with the requirements, which are often expensive for small businesses, it was generally guaranteed that the Justice Department and the EPA would force a business to shutter, resulting in countless Americans losing their jobs.

Mr. Higgins notes that while President Trump did away with Biden-era regulations, litigations and directives, including consent decrees, that have hurt a wide range of businesses.

The committee also requested a staff-level briefing on what is being done to ensure these actions are happening.  

The Washington Times reached out to the DOJ and the EPA for comment.

Another incident being probed is the Biden DOJ and EPA targeting of Power Performance Enterprises Inc. and its president, Kory B. Willis.

Both defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and to violating the act by tampering with the monitoring devices of emissions control systems of diesel trucks.

In March 2022, under the criminal plea agreements and a proposed civil consent decree, the company and Mr. Willis agreed to pay a total of $3.1 million in criminal fines and civil penalties.

Under the civil settlement, the company agreed not to manufacture, sell or install any device that defeated emissions controls.

This was not the only auto shop targeted by the Biden EPA and DOJ.

Under the December 2020 National Compliance Initiative, the EPA focused on the manufacture, sale and installation of emissions “defeat devices.” The agency went after the high-performance auto industry, sometimes sending in armed EPA agents to slap heavy fines on violators.

Cars, trucks and motorcycles intended for the street could not be converted into race cars, according to the Biden EPA.

In December, during the final weeks of President Trump’s first administration, the agency announced it was making a priority of enforcement against high-performance parts in conversion to race cars, including superchargers, tuners, and exhaust systems.

It continued into Mr. Biden’s term.

By July 2021, Lund Racing, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was raided by 12 armed EPA agents.

One month earlier, H Diesel in Bradenton, Florida, and PFI Speed in Fort Lupton, Colorado, were hit with heavy fines by the EPA.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle explored legislation to clarify that converting a street vehicle by emissions-related changes for exclusively competition purposes is legal.

Additionally, it clarified that manufacturing, selling and installing racing parts into a vehicle is a legal act.

Bipartisan legislation, known as the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act, was repeatedly introduced beginning in 2021, but never passed.