EPA Battens Down the Hatches
Posted on | July 29, 2008
An EPA chief of staff issues gag order to employees:
“Please do not respond to questions or make any statements,” the June 16 e-mail said, advising staff to direct questioners to senior staff members cleared to answer questions from outside the agency.
Robbi Farrell, chief of staff of the EPA’s compliance assurance division, sent the e-mail to 11 managers in the department.
The e-mail was posted on a Web site of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The group, an alliance of state and federal environmental professionals, labeled the communication a “gag order”…
EPA press director Roxanne Smith rejected that characterization, saying the e-mail was about efficiency, not secrecy.
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, The Associated Press reported. The audit, however, did not make any recommendations governing communication between staff and the Inspector General’s Office.
The agency has become a toothless collection of aparatchiks in service to the Bush Administration’s relentless corporate cronyism.
Comments
Leave a Reply
