WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA) announced the introduction of the Sovereign State Environmental Quality Assurance Act (SSEQAA), which would abolish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and authorize funding directly to each state’s environmental quality agency.
SSEQAA authorizes funding directly to the sovereign states at a baseline equating to 70% of 2019 EPA funding levels. The bill would:
- Authorize no more than $4.4 billion each year for four years to be divided proportionately to each state based upon the most recent decennial census.
- Allocate up to $880 million each year for four years to establish and staff a new office within the U.S. Treasury to administer and audit the disbursement of environmental protection funds to the states.
- Direct a study on the efficacy of the bill and require an annual report of findings to Congress.
- Require Congressional reauthorization each four years.
- Reduce federal spending by an estimated $60-80 billion over 10 years.
- Restore Tenth Amendment authority to the states.
“FedGov has unconstitutionally weaponized federal agencies like the EPA against the American people and American industry,” said Congressman Higgins. “The EPA’s regulatory oppression has unjustly penalized our farmers, petrochemical industry, energy producers, and American families. My SSEQAA legislation abolishes the EPA, restores environmental protection authority to the sovereign states, and saves tens of billions in taxpayer dollars. This bill and several others will be reintroduced in the first legislative days of 2025, and I have introduced SSEQAA in the final days of the 118th Congress as a fair warning to the entire deep state bureaucracy that the 119th Congress will force serious reform upon DC.”
Read the legislation here.
