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TechnoratiEPA Gagged: What Does Agency Have to Hide?
It seems the Environmental Protection Agency has something to hide.
If it didn't, there would be no need for the memo e-mailed June 16 to EPA employees directing them to keep quiet if they are contacted by a reporter. More startling, the memo tells EPA staff to stay mum if they are approached by the EPA's own inspector general's office or investigators from the Government Accountability Office.
"Please do not respond to questions or make any statements," the e-mail advises agency staff. It states that questions or requests for information or documents should be directed to senior staff members who, apparently, know how to keep the agency's ducks in a line.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental group that calls itself an alliance of state and federal environmental professionals, obtained the e-mail and posted it on its Web site.
The gag order is especially troubling since the EPA has come under fire recently for inappropriate political entanglements. The Associated Press reported that the memo was a response to a May 2007 audit by the inspector general's office that found the EPA did not respond earlier to IG reports on problems with water enforcement and other issues.
Moreover, the agency has done nothing to regulate CO2 emissions despite a Supreme Court ruling clarifying that the EPA has authority to do so. On Tuesday, four Democratic senators, all members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called for the resignation of EPA administrator Stephen Johnson and asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether Johnson lied to another Senate committee and put politics ahead of its mission.
In January, Johnson testified that he alone had made the decision to prohibit the state of California from regulating vehicle emissions more stringently than the federal government. A former EPA official has disputed Johnson's statement, saying Johnson had been about to grant California a partial waiver but had been pressured by the White House to change his mind.
During World War II, the term "loose lips sink ships" meant the war could be jeopardized by letting secrets out. The EPA is not fighting a war, but it obviously fears that the truth could put it in a bad light. If there is a battle, the agency should be on the side of full disclosure, not lined up with the Bush White House and polluters against the environment and the health of Americans.
© 2008 The Salt Lake Tribune
11 Comments so far
Show AllWhat the Salt Lake Tribune failed to mention was the pathetic record of Utah's congressmen. Hatch and Cannon are the main two that come to mind. President Bush has had a lot of help over the last 7and1/2 years. Changes need to be made beyond the White House.
The dedicated civil servants in the EPA are supervised by those whose environmental qualifications include participating in the 2000 recount in Florida. Gag orders for various projects have been there since early on in this administration. As studies were completed that were not to the administration's liking, all copies were confiscated and hard drives removed.
It is worse than you think. The bushies political minders try to filter everything that is said by government scientists through their PR channels. (ask Dr. Hansen whose outspoken dedication to the American public is higher than his fear for his job at NASA)
The EPA IS fighting a war...and we're the enemy.
USAn August 1st, 2008 4:37 pm
Excerpt:
Basically, the agency managers act like they are a business whose clients are the regulated industry bosses, But the the scientists, engineers, technicians, and inspectors under them remember that their "clients" are the US public and US workers.
Thus most agencies are in considerable internal conflict - be they the EPA, State Environmental Agencies, MSHA, OSHA, NHTSA, FAA, FCC, etc… … END Excerpt.
***
USAn, the "internal conflict" you describe here is what I have been concerned about for some time now.
As "an employee of a federal regulatory agency" I would like to ask you straight-up what, if anything, concerned citizens can do to help. To whom in a regulatory agency would it be best to direct a letter of concern? I am thinking specifically of writing to the EPA. I want to show support for what I (still) believe they are trying to uphold as regards the mission for which they were created in the first place.
Thank you.
...
Do you really think that Obama would do this to the EPA or do you think we're stupid enough to believe it?
The scientists of this gagged department of the EPA, recently publically announced, "that humanity is the cause of the current Greenhouse effect in our atmosphere and that humanity is casuing that Greenhouse effect, specifically by burning fossil fuels, ___ especially coal."
The Bush administration does not wish to hear, that they have been telling it otherwise, so a gag order is put into place.
I'd "guess" that the NASA and NOAA atmospheric scientists are next to be gagged, as they report the same thing the EPA scientists have reported.
Does our MSM cover this important story? Ha ha ha. Does M. Jasckson still have a nose, is Cheney a nice guy, does Bush have a lick of common sense?
As a employee of a US regulatory agency, I fully understand where the EPA leadership is coming from.
Since Reagan, the job positions in charge of formulating and interpreting the regulations, and the upper administrators, have become gradually filled with right-wingers who are openly cozy with the industries they regulate - my boss even has pro-industry bumper stickers, and autographed pictures of Bush and right-wing radio jockeys on his office walls. Whether this is the result of some kind of Cabinet-Secretary-on-down pressure to hire right wingers, or just a reflection of the hard-right attitudes the well-paid managerial class, I don't know.
In sharp contrast, the scientific and technical support people hired to advise the regulators are, like most higher-degreed scientists, distinctly to the left in their politics - and a lot more professional in how they view their jobs in public service.
Basically, the agency managers act like they are a business whose clients are the regulated industry bosses, But the the scientists, engineers, technicians, and inspectors under them remember that their "clients" are the US public and US workers.
Thus most agencies are in considerable internal conflict - be they the EPA, State Environmental Agencies, MSHA, OSHA, NHTSA, FAA, FCC, etc...
Probably a politically directed and scientifically indefensible decision. OR, if the new climate change report is as scary as Barbara Boxer says it is, maybe Dubya wants to let Obama tell us we're all gonna die.
We obviously need a new crop of Ellsburgs.......
as americans were told when it was discovered that bush was committing a felony (a felony is a crime, punishable by impeachment. ask nixon) by spying on americans without a warrant...
...if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.