The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t backing down despite a watchdog report saying a social media campaign by the agency violated the law and calling it “covert propaganda.”
Liz Purchia, acting administrator for the EPA’s Office of Public Affairs, wrote Thursday night that a “small but vocal group” is trying to score points against the EPA for promoting the Clean Power Plan. She said the issues raised by the agency’s opponents won’t keep it from promoting its rules and regulations.
“EPA won’t back down from our mission,” she wrote. “We stand by our public outreach efforts on both the Clean Water Rule and the Clean Power Plan. Unfortunately, valuable time and resources are being wasted on empty attacks.”
The EPA came under fire on Monday after the Government Accountability Office released a report calling a Thunderclap campaign run by the EPA to promote the Waters of the United States rule “covert propaganda.”
Thunderclap sends out a mass message on the social media accounts of users who sign up to support a cause. The message that went out on the accounts of supporters did not identify itself as being from the EPA, which the GAO says violated the law.
The GAO, Congress’ investigative arm, 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 Resources 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, according to the GAO.
On Thursday, the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to the EPA questioning whether the agency used similar tactics to promote the Clean Power Plan, President Obama’s signature regulation on new and existing coal power plants.
Purchia says she doesn’t believe the EPA broke the law, as the government watchdog contends.
She said the social media messages that were posted by Thunderclap could have been edited any way users wanted and went to an EPA website with general information about the water rule.
She also said the EPA’s use of links to the outside websites was not illegal. The website about surfers was set up in 2010, four years before the water rule was proposed, and the EPA never encouraged users to write to Congress.
“At no point did the EPA encourage the public to contact Congress or any state legislature about the Clean Water Rule,” she wrote. “Plain and simple. The rule is an agency action, promulgated by EPA. It’s not even about congressional legislation.”
She promised the EPA would continue to work with Congress and the Government Accountability Office to explain its social media strategy.
