Sam Graves Quotes

There is no better example of the overreach of government than in environmental law.

The EPA has a history of overreaching its authority.

We must, we must cut the EPA's legs off. I hate to say that, because it sounds rotten, but they are choking this country to death with legislating through the bureaucracy in Washington.

Somebody has to tell the E.P.A. that we don't need you monkeying around and fiddling around and getting in our business with every kind of regulation you can dream up. You're doing nothing more than killing jobs. It's a cemetery for jobs at the E.P.A.

We need responsible regulations, not regulations that have gone wild. For example, the EPA has a rule that is going to be implemented Jan. 1, 2012, where they're going to begin to regulate dust. That's right, dust. It's called PM 2.5. That is focusing on the wrong thing.

I would have never run for office if it wasn't for the fact that my biggest threat to my company was the federal government and the overreach of the EPA. They've gone too far, and it's time for them to be pulled back in.

Washington bureaucrats have classified the very air we exhale as a pollutant and have gone unchallenged in this incredible assertion. The logical consequence is that there will come a time when we will have to buy a government permit just to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from our own lungs!

Government is, by its very nature, a destroyer of liberties; the Obama administration, specifically, is promising to interfere with the economy and the health care system so profoundly that Washington will soon have us all in chains.

Activist government overreach and ongoing economic stagnation have shown us why Washington should not try to displace what is best left to civil society.

I don't need a strong EPA. I don't need to fund a lot of money there.

We wonder why we have got the Freemen or the militants. We wonder why we have got unrest in this country. It is because our government, in fact, has got out of hand and out of line, with the Endangered Species Act.

I resent the idea that somebody in Washington will protect our environment better than we can.

Washington agencies are now trying a backdoor approach to regulate our climate by abusing existing laws.

The last thing we need in Washington is more federal hubris.

Our battles against the EPA and other rogue federal agencies aren't about a desire for dirtier air or zero regulation. They are about our right as a state to control our own destiny and resist attempts by the administration to ramrod a wish list of regulations through agency heads instead of garnering approval from Congress.

To forget that the EPA was borne out of public demand is to invite a real backlash.

Without question, I'm not a fan of the EPA. The EPA has overstepped their boundaries each and every day. They get into areas they shouldn't be involved in... the states have the right to regulate themselves if they have the ability to do so - and we do because we have the Department of Environmental Quality.

The EPA has performed a very important role for us all.

Climate change is not an excuse for the EPA to ignore the bounds of law and issue illegal regulations that will cost jobs, shutter industries, and have little to no positive impact on the environment.

Dust is part of rural America. It is completely unreasonable for the EPA to put a price tag on communities for carrying out activities essential to their well-being. This is a prime example of federal regulations gone too far.

As Attorney General of Alabama, I have never hesitated to stand up to the EPA before when it was wrong.

As a kid who grew up in Montana, I resent regulation being formulated and forced in Washington from bureaucrats that have never been to Montana.

I think there is some overreach in the sense that the EPA now says: if Congress doesn't pass greenhouse emissions regulations or testing, we'll simply do it on our own. I think that's an arrogance of a regulatory body run amok.

Environmental regulation looked like it was going to be under serious attack, and they were giving all of those speeches about getting government off people's backs.

And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the 'job-killing organization of America.'