Transparency? EPA Under Investigation for Using 'Alias' Emails to Avoid FOIA Requests

CNSNews ^ | December 18, 2012 | Susan Jones

[jazusamo]

(CNSNews.com) - The Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General says it will investigate

whether EPA officials -- including Administrator Lisa Jackson -- used alias email accounts to conduct official government business, thereby shielding those communications from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Jackson reportedly used the name "Richard Windsor" on an official email account from which she may have sent messages on the administration's coal policy.

Chris Horner of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute says he discovered Jackson's "false identity"

while doing research for his book, "The Liberal War on Transparency.”

Horner said he came across an "obscure" EPA memo indicating that the alias email accounts were instituted by former EPA Administrator Carol Browner, who designed her own secret address for an account that was set to 'auto-delete.'" (Browner, who served as EPA administrator in the Clinton administration, also served President Obama as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy from 2009 to 2011.)

Horner says the Justice Department, in response to a lawsuit filed by CEI, has acknowledged that 12,000 emails from Jackson's "secondary" email account discuss the Obama administration's "war on coal."

“'Richard Windsor.' That is the name — sorry, one of the alias names — used by Obama’s radical EPA chief to keep her email from those who ask for it," Horner wrote

last month on National Review Online.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, says it's possible that other EPA officials also are using secondary email accounts and aliases, thereby hampering Congress' ability to conduct oversight of the EPA.

“In addition to interfering with transparency at the EPA, these practices could be used to avoid requests made under the Freedom of Information Act and congressional scrutiny,” Stearns wrote

in a recent letter to Lisa Jackson. Stearns and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) have asked Jackson to "describe fully the nature and extent of this practice.”

The EPA's Office of Inspector General said it is conducting its audit "to determine whether EPA follows applicable laws and regulations when using private and alias email accounts to conduct official business."

Among other things, it will examine whether EPA "promoted or encouraged the use of private or alias email accounts to conduct official government business."

"Hopefully the IG and House committees can get to the bottom of this and other deceptive, unlawful and in some cases criminal practices to hide what the Obama administration and its allies are up to," CEI's Horner said on Monday.

[jazusamo]

Previously posted thread, 12-17-12:

Congressmen Confront EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Over Use of Alias 'Richard Windsor'

[NormsRevenge]

Tricky Dick sure stepped in it when he let this entity loose on the land.. what a corrupt immoral agency. they respect no one save their masters of deceit and betrayal., all on our dime. some legacy.

[COBOL2Java]

[jazusamo]

Absolutely, the EPA has cost the country, business, industry and citizens billions of dollars on arbitrary rules that have done little or nothing for the environment.

The EPA should be eliminated or at the very least stripped of it regulatory rule making power.

[NormsRevenge]

I hear ya, I grew up in a wetland and woodsy area that got decimated by a interstate freeway and interchange, a great place to hunt at one time, over the years the wildish area left adapted and new commercial ventures have sprouted up there .. I can only imagine the hell folks go thru today , just digging a ditch in a low lying area to drain a little runoff may get you on the dronewatch list.. the epa uses ‘em. ol’ tricky dick is keeping an eye on us, from the other side, I reckun,, is it legal to grow cattails , do you need a permit, ? crazy times.. just abolish it and save the dough, let states take care of their own messes.

[factoryrat]

EPA=obama’s jackboot thugs. The EPA is full of unelected administrative bootlickers. They have no real legal authority. Their goal is nationalization of all energy production. Tell the EPA to get F*****. If those in the EPA or government protest, cut them off at the knees. If the oil producers and refiners went on strike for 2 weeks and shut off the spigot, they would bring this country to its knees. Any threats of nationalization would be met with total destruction of the infrastructure by the people who built it. Never give up, never give in. If you cave in for security like a boehner, you have already lost.

[Eagle of Liberty]

BTTT

These things will continue, unfortunately, until those that voted for Obama a second time decide that they have had enough. Will keep posting these type of stories to social media outlets in the hopes of hurrying that along.

[freeangel]

“These things will continue, unfortunately, until those that voted for Obama a second time decide that they have had enough”

The problem is that they will never GET enough.

[TurboZamboni]

“most transparent and ethical administration....EVAH!”

[American in Israel]

Puts the premeditated into the criminal actions. Prison time would be warrented. We need accountability for the sake of the country, too long the government has not lived by its own rules.

They should also be liable for personal fines equal the the economic damage their criminal actions caused.

[lowbridge]

Bump

[jazusamo]

Totally agree...Some past administrations have been laced with corruption and ethics problems but its gotten to the point we can't trust what they do or say, especially with this administration.

It seems most everyone Obama picked is ethically lacking or down right ignores existing law. The only way to stop it or at least slow it down is to start prosecuting and jailing these people but the existing DOJ sure won't do it.

The Republicans are going to have to call for special prosecutors and follow through but am not holding my breath.

[marsh2]

This Administration routinely corrupts “science” to support its political agenda.

Here is a lengthy video on the corruption of the National Park Service concerning the Drake’s Bay Oyster farm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7NiX5QrO24&feature=player_embedded

Here is Siskiyou County’s public comment exposing corruption in the science used by the Dept. of Interior and CA DFG on the Klamath Dams
http://www.co.siskiyou.ca.us/BOS/DOCS/KBRA/Comments_of_SiskiyouCountyandCities_to_KlamathFacilitiesRemoval_EIR_EIS%2011_21_11.pdf

Dr. Paul Houser, former DOI scientific integrity officer, was fired when he called the Administration on its manipulation of the facts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxmPSzDp9sw

[publius911]

Bookmark

[MrB]

Instead, they were just giving how many 10’s of thousands of rounds of ammunition?