American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016 - 29

EPA Broke Law Lobbying For WOTUS
WASHINGTON-The U.S. Government Accountability Office has found
the Environmental Protection Agency
guilty of unlawful grass-roots lobbying and
covert propaganda in its use of social media to promote its "Waters of the United
States" rule making. The opinion was announced in a Dec. 14 letter to Senator
James Inhofe, R-Ok., who chairs the
Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee and requested the GAO investigation in June.
EPA issued its proposed WOTUS rule
on May 27, which critics contend will "increase (Clean Water Act) jurisdiction
over nearly all waters . . . (and) create substantial permitting and compliance burdens
(AOGR, July 2015, pg. 169). The rule was
to be implemented on Aug. 28. However,
the day before, the U.S. District Court for
North Dakota granted a preliminary injunction to 13 states, which was later expanded to the entire country by the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the 6th Circuit (AOGR, November 2015, pg. 34).
"GAO's finding confirms . . . that
EPA will go to extreme lengths and even
violate the law to promote its activist environmental agenda," Inhofe responded to
GAO's letter. "This GAO opinion should
serve as another reminder that EPA officials are not above the law."
GAO's ruling, as revealed in its letter to
Inhofe, zeroes in on EPA's so-called Thunderclap and #CleanWaterRules campaigns.
GAO describes Thunderclap as a
"crowd-speaking platform" that allows a
single message to be shared simultaneously across multiple Facebook, Twitter and
Tumblr accounts. GAO estimates Thunderclap enabled EPA to promote its WOTUS
rule to 1.8 million people.
The agency explains that a Thunderclap campaign requires supporters to
post the campaign message. So, even
though EPA's role in constructing the message was clear to Thunderclap's supporters, it was not evident to their friends and
followers, whom GAO determined were
the true targets of the message, despite
EPA's argument that it made no attempt
to conceal its identity or otherwise mislead recipients.
Consequently, GAO's letter says, "We
conclude EPA's use of Thunderclap constituted covert propaganda."
EPA's #CleanWaterRules campaign,
GAO continues, involved an April 7,
2015, blog post in support of the rule making by the agency's director of communications for its Office of Water, which contained hyperlinks to websites for the Nat-

ural Resources Defense Council and
Surfrider Foundation. Both of those Web
pages "made clear appeals to the public to
contact Congress in support of the proposed (WOTUS) rule making," GAO reasons, thereby constituting prohibited
grass-roots lobbying.
"The use of appropriated funds associated with implementing EPA's Thunderclap campaign and establishing hyperlinks

to the NRDC and Surfrider Foundation
Web pages violated prohibitions against
publicity, propaganda and grass-roots
lobbying contained in appropriations acts
for fiscals years 2014 and 2015," GAO's
letter to Senator Inhofe concludes. "Because EPA obligated and expended appropriated funds in violation of specific prohibitions, we also conclude EPA violated
the Antideficiency Act."
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JANUARY 2016 29

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