Congress demands EPA’s secret email accounts

The Washington Times ^ | Saturday, November 17, 2012 | Stephen Dinan

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

A House committee has launched an investigation into whether EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used an email alias to try to hide correspondence from open-government requests and her agency’s own internal watchdog — something that Republican lawmakers said could run afoul of the law.

The science committee has asked Ms. Jackson to turn over all information related to an email account under the name of “Richard Windsor,” which is one of the aliases identified by a researcher looking into the EPA.

The committee has also asked the White House’s lawyer and EPA’s inspector general to look into the matter and report back by the end of this month, saying that the secret email accounts could have been used to keep key information from official watchdogs as well as the public.

EPA did not respond Friday night to a request for comment.

The researcher who uncovered the “Richard Windsor” alias email, Christopher Horner, has repeatedly battled the administration over its global warming efforts.

Earlier this year he his colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued to demand the release of emails from “secondary” accounts from EPA, and cited a memo saying the practice began during the Clinton administration under then-administrator Carol Browner.

[Gil4]

You're right, I don't know what the rest of the federal government does. I initially assumed they did something similar to DoD, but that might not be the case

I really think you're still operating under the assumption that we're dealing with smart, tech-savvy people. I have serious doubts. Some of it sounds like they just did government email over personal GMail accounts. These days it might not even take a subpoena to get the info from Google.

[piasa]

bump