Eliza S Collins

The Courier-Journal

OXON HILL, Md. — Gov. Matt Bevin took his Kentucky sales pitch to a national conservative audience Thursday, repeating his talking points on charter schools and his disdain for government regulations.

He particularly hit on the EPA, accusing it of overreach.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has truly become a regulatory Frankenstein,” Bevin said. “It began arguably with good intentions. You go back and read (Mary) Shelley‘s book, and it too began with good intentions and then it turned on its creator.”

Bevin was speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington, D.C. He was on a panel with Govs. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Doug Ducey of Arizona and Scott Walker of Wisconsin that was titled “The States vs. The State: How Governors are Reclaiming America’s Promise.”

Bevin said it was hard to pick just one area of government encroachment but said that since taking office in December 2015, he’s had to engage in countless lawsuits “on behalf of the Commonwealth of Kentucky against the federal government, pushing back against the federal government.”

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He cited lawsuits against the government on transgender bathrooms and locker rooms and doctors who don’t want to perform sex-change operations as examples.

He also said charter schools would soon be operating in the Bluegrass State. “We’re going to bring charter schools to Kentucky — that will happen this year,” he said.

While charter schools legislation has strong support in the Republican-dominated state legislature, it still faces many legislative hurdles and some disagreement over exactly how Kentucky’s charter schools would be structured.

Bevin passed out “cut the red tape” buttons to the other governors on the stage. He said Kentucky has pledged to cut 30 percent of all of the “red tape” in the state’s bureaucracy.

“I’ve never been elected to anything in my life prior to being the governor," Bevin said. "Frankly it’s everything you imagine it to be in terms of bureaucracy, but there is the ability for us to influence things in a positive way.”

Courier-Journal reporter Tom Loftus contributed to this story.