We don’t know whether the talk of consolidating North Carolina government departments played any role, but U.S. Sen. Richard Burr has announced his support for similar moves at the federal level, according to U.S. News & World Report:

For years, Republicans have talked about dismantling the Education Department. Well, the new push for substantial budget and spending cuts has the GOP thinking even bigger. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr suggests that the Environmental Protection Agency be dumped into the Energy Department. “We ought not to stop right there,” he tells the centrist Republican Ripon Society. He wants to combine Labor with Commerce and give the Education Department back to Health and Human Services. The result could be $4.1 trillion in savings and a cut of some 300,000 federal workers.

HT: A. Vuke