Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler escalated a dust-up with the media Monday by accusing New York Times reporters of colluding with a major environmental group by retweeting a “made-up” quote of his.
“Makes me wonder if the two reporters for the New York Times were colluding with the Sierra Club,” Wheeler said Wednesday, addressing the agency’s Scientific Advisory Board.
He told the board’s members to use “caution” and “to be careful what you read in the media” after the incident.
The controversy started when EPA slammed a reporter from Yahoo News on Tuesday, saying he made up a quote from a National Press Club address he gave on Monday. The story reported that Wheeler said the news media does a disservice by reporting on global warming.
EPA clarified that what Wheeler said Monday was: “The media does a disservice to the American public and sound policy-making by not informing the public of the progress this nation has made.”
Wheeler called the Yahoo News story, which he said was then retweeted by two New York Times reporters, “made up.” The EPA did not identify the specific reporters, but the climate reporters Kendra Pierre-Louis and Lisa Friedman retweeted the tweet in question.
Later, the Sierra Club used the story in a tweet of its own.
Wheeler told the science advisers to come to him directly if they have any questions about what they read in the media.
