EPA Tells Agency’s Enforcers to Zip It
According to an internal e-mail obtained by the AP, the chief of staff of the EPA's enforcement wing has issued a gag order, telling staffers in June exactly what to do should a reporter, the inspector general or the Government Accountability Office call: "Please do not respond to questions or make any statements."
According to an internal e-mail obtained by the AP, the chief of staff of the EPA’s enforcement wing has issued a gag order, telling staffers in June exactly what to do should a reporter, the inspector general or the Government Accountability Office call: “Please do not respond to questions or make any statements.”
Before this disclosure, the EPA was already under fire for, in the words of Sen. Barbara Boxer, acting as “a secretive, dangerous ally of polluters.”
Your support is crucial...AP via Google:
The Environmental Protection Agency is telling its pollution enforcement officials not to talk with congressional investigators, reporters and even the agency’s own inspector general, according to an internal e-mail provided to The Associated Press.
The June 16 message instructs 11 managers in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the branch of the agency charged with making sure environmental laws are followed, to remind their staff members to keep quiet.
“If you are contacted directly by the IG’s office or GAO requesting information of any kind … please do not respond to questions or make any statements,” reads the e-mail sent by Robbi Farrell, the division’s chief of staff. Instead, staff members should forward inquiries to a designated EPA representative, the memo says.
Read the memo here.
As we navigate an uncertain 2025, with a new administration questioning press freedoms, the risks are clear: our ability to report freely is under threat.
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to dig deeper, delivering fearless investigative reporting and analysis that exposes the reality beneath the headlines — without compromise.
Now is the time to take action. Stand with our courageous journalists. Donate today to protect a free press, uphold democracy and uncover the stories that need to be told.
Courts & Law
The department’s site for tracking officers’ discipline is shockingly unreliable. Cases against officers frequently vanish for days — sometimes weeks — at a time.
Editorial Cartoons
The odds are against anyone ever answering for recent "inadvertent" deletions of electronic data at the two agencies.
Policies that chip away at the power, protection and prestige that law enforcement enjoys are crucial aspects in the fight.
We, the people, have more power than we think. To exercise our power, we must insist that our elected representatives serve us. If they don’t, we need to vote them out as quickly as possible.
By keeping us in the dark about how it spends our money, the Pentagon has made it virtually impossible for anyone to hold it accountable for just about anything.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.