The Environmental Protection Agency broke the law by using social media to promote the Waters of the United States regulation, according to a government watchdog.
The Government Accountability Office made the accusation in a letter sent to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., Monday afternoon. The investigators ruled that the use of Thunderclap, a “crowdspeaking platform” that helps a single message be shared across multiple social media platforms at once, was “covert propaganda.”
“We conclude that EPA’s use of Thunderclap constituted covert propaganda, in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition,” the letter said.
The EPA created a Thunderclap page titled “I Choose Clean Water,” the letter said. When the page gained 500 supporters, it posted a message to all of those supporters’ social media accounts. It is estimated the post reached 1.8 million people on social media.
The message said: “Clean water is important to me. I support EPA’s efforts to protect it for my health, my family and my community.” The message also included a link to the EPA’s Thunderclap page.
The letter indicates the message did not identify that it came from the EPA. That violated federal law that requires federal agencies to disclose their roles in disseminating information.
The EPA, while promoting the Thunderclap page, said it was akin to a “virtual flash-mob” and 980 social media accounts posted the message on Sept. 29, 2014.
The watchdog did not take issue with the EPA’s use of Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote the rule. Those communications showed the EPA’s involvement and were transparent, thus not violating federal law, according to the letter.
The report also concluded the EPA broke the law by including links in a blog post to the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Surfrider Foundation. The blog post sought to show why the water rule would benefit beer drinkers and surfers. However, the posts that were linked to by the EPA contained buttons that allowed the reader to contact Congress.
Because those links allowed readers to contact Congress in support of or against legislation, the EPA violated an anti-lobbying provision in federal law, the letter says.
“Both of the external webpages contained link buttons to contact Congress in support of the proposed rule while several bills were pending that would prevent implementation of the rule,” the letter says. “In this context, we view the appeals as urging contact in opposition to pending legislation.”
The letter identifies 12 pieces of legislation concerning the water rule that were introduced in Congress after the water rule was proposed in March 2014.
The EPA, according to the letter, argued its post did not urge people to contact Congress and that is a poor interpretation of the law to hold federal agencies accountable for what outside groups have on their websites.
The letters states EPA posits “it would be ‘a sweeping and unwarranted interpretation of the law to hold agencies’ responsible for knowing every change made to someone else’s webpage over time.”
The GAO countered that the EPA is responsible for its own message and its own decision to link to groups that would seek legislative influence. It encouraged the EPA to report the violations to higher authorities.
“EPA should report the violation to the president and Congress,” the letter concluded. “… The agency should determine the cost associated with the prohibited conduct and include the amount in its report of its Antideficiency Act violation.”
In response to the letter Monday, Inhofe said the EPA will go to extreme measures to promote its regulations and is not afraid of violating the law.
He pointed to a temporary stay issued by a federal judge to stop the Waters of the United States rule from going into effect as evidence of executive overreach.
“EPA’s illegal attempts to manufacture public support for its Waters of the United States rule and sway congressional opinion regarding legislation to address that rule have undermined the integrity of the rulemaking process and demonstrated how baseless this unprecedented expansion of EPA regulatory authority really is,” Inhofe said.
The EPA denied the watchdog’s accusations and said using social media is necessary to educate the public about the agency’s work.
In a statement released Monday, the EPA said the link included in the Thunderclap message went to the general EPA webpage about the water rule. It also denied using the links to the NRDC or Surfrider to encourage individuals to contact Congress.
“At no point did the EPA encourage the public to contact Congress or any state legislature,” the agency said in a statement.
The EPA promised to fulfill “whatever reporting requirements are necessary.”
? This article has been updated.
