Sen. David Vitter, R-La., says that he has caught the Environmental Protection Agency in a lie about the extent to which their officials are breaking transparency rules by using non-official emails to conduct government business.
“EPA should start owning up to the facts piling up before them,” Vitter said as his office announced that the “EPA lied” by saying that a regional administrator was not using one of the banned email accounts. “Their blatant disregard for proper procedure and transparency is now being regularly exposed, and EPA’s leadership must be held accountable.”
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The accusation pertains to former regional administrator James Martin, who resigned in the midst of an investigation into his use of non-official emails.
The EPA denied that he used his non-official email for work. “That Mr. Martin responded to one email sent to his personal email account to confirm a meeting that appears on his official government calendar does not alter that fact,” an EPA spokesman said, as The Washington Examiner notes.
Vitter’s office published several emails between Martin and an attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund, as well as a brief exchange on the non-official account between Martin and José Valvano, the EPA Deputy Chief of Staff, which “rais[es] expectations that the EPA had knowledge of the email practice when they made the statement,” Vitter’s office suggested.
