New Mexico, Colorado Senators Welcome Environment and Public Works Oversight Hearing on the Gold King Mine Spill

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) welcomed an announcement that the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold an oversight hearing on the harmful impacts of Gold King Mine spill that occurred in southwest Colorado.

The hearing, titled “Oversight of the Cause, Response, and Impacts of EPA’s Gold King Mine Disaster,” will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015 at 10 a.m. ET in Dirksen Senate Office Building 406 with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy as the witness. 

Last week, the senators wrote a letter to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe and Ranking Member Barbara Boxer requesting the hearing. 

“. . . we believe that Congressional oversight of the spill should be done to ensure that Congress has a full understanding of the events that led to the release, the response to the release, measures to provide clean water and reimbursements for affected communities and ongoing monitoring to ensure clean water into the future,” the senators wrote in the letter last week. “This knowledge will enable Congress to better understand and respond to the issues involved with ongoing cleanup of thousands of abandoned mines throughout our nation.”