Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the federal agency that’s supposed to be looking out for the environment is more focused on looking out for itself. Grassley says there will be debate and a vote on the Senate floor as soon as today on legislation that aims to reel in the power-grabbing bureaucrats.

Grassley says, “This is a response to the ongoing effort of the Environmental Protection Agency circumventing Congress with stupid regulations that would drive up the cost of gasoline and electricity for individuals, families and employers nationwide.”

Grassley says the EPA’s “over-regulation” of things like carbon dioxide emissions will hurt Iowa, the agricultural industry and eventually, the entire nation’s still-fragile economy.

Grassley says, “The agency has tried to manipulate the Clean Air Act of 1990, and that happens to be a bill I voted for, and give itself more power than the law allows.”

 During recent public meetings in some 20 Iowa counties, Grassley says people at virtually every gathering raised concerns about the EPA’s actions, including agency efforts to more tightly regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

“Why do they regulate? Well, why do cows moo? Why do pigs squeal? Regulators regulate. That’s what they’re for. They’re bred for that,” Grassley says. “These policies should be debated by Congress, not by faceless bureaucrats. Congress is there to reflect the will of the people.”

He says Congress is held accountable for its decisions, not the “unelected bureaucracy” of the EPA. “Costly and burdensome regulations,” he says, will “get in the way of job creation.”