Bachmann targets EPA ahead of 2012 launch

Her comments follow even harsher words for EPA, an agency targeted by many Republicans seeking to repeal greenhouse gas regulations and delay or soften a number of other pollution rules.

In the GOP presidential debate two weeks ago, Bachmann called for limiting government’s scope by passing the “mother of all repeal bills” to target “job-killing regulations.”

“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,” she said during the June 13 debate in New Hampshire.

Bachmann also attacked White House energy policies during an appearance Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” taking aim last week’s decision to release 30 million barrels of oil from the 727 million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

“It’s ironic and sad that the president released all of the oil from the strategic oil reserve because the president doesn’t have an energy policy,” Bachmann said.

“It has made the United States more vulnerable. There’s only a limited amount of oil that we have in the strategic oil reserve. It’s there for emergencies,” Bachmann added.

She attacked what Republicans and some Democrats allege are undue restrictions on U.S. oil-and-gas drilling.

But Bachmann deflected “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer’s question about an inaccurate comment she made regarding the number of drilling permits the Obama administration has issued.

In late March the independent fact-checking group PolitiFact criticized her statement that the administration had issued just one new drilling permit since taking office, noting it is “ridiculously false” and rating it “pants on fire” on the organization’s “truth-o-meter.”

“I think that what’s clear more than anything is the fact that President Obama has not been issuing the permits that he should have been issuing on offshore drilling. That’s why we’re in the problems we’re in,” Bachmann said Sunday.