The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's subcommittee on water and the environment heard testimony yesterday from  EPA assistant administrator Mathy Stanislaus on the toxic spill at the Gold King Mine in Colorado last summer. Speciically, Chairman Hugh Thompson Rice wanted to know if anyone had been fired for the spill, or if anyone at EPA had been disciplined for it:

Rice: "Let me ask you this: since there is no accountability in this administration, was anybody fired for this 3 million [gallon] spill of toxic chemicals into this river."

Stanislaus: "From an accountability perspective, we have done an internal review … ." Cut off by Rice, who asked "was anybody fired?"

Stanislaus: "No."

Rice: "Was anybody disciplined?"

Stanislaus: "Well again, so we're waiting for an independent investigation by the Department of Interior and the Office of the Inspector General to determine whether … or not ... ." Cut off by Rice, again.

Why should we expect more from this crew? Four Americans die in Benghazi and the State Department temporarily demotes 2 scapegaots that were only tangentially involved in the incident. A few months later, they're back at their jobs.

The VA kills hundreds of vets who waited in vain to be treated and it's only months later that the agency head resigns, and two lower level managers are disciplined.

The biggest screw up by this administration was the rollout of Obamacare. It was six months before HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebilius resigned. No other HHS employee was disciplined.

No one has yet been held accountable for any of the several policy failures we've had in Syria, or the precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Has anyone at ATF or the Department of Justice been fired for the Fast and Furious gun walking scandal? (Director Jones resigned years after the scandal came to light.)

So it shouldn't surprise us that those clearly responsible at the EPA for a toxic spill should escape punishment. In the Obama administration, only if something can be blamed on Republicans will the they admit that anyone is culpable.