Inhofe continues pushing on EPA promotion efforts for WOTUS rule

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, recently sent three letters related to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) promotional efforts surrounding the Waters of the United States rule — some of which were deemed illegal by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“According to the Thunderclap site, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) signed up to be one of the supporters of the EPA Thunderclap, resulting in more than 142,000 people receiving the message through NRDC’s social media accounts,” Inhofe said in a letter to the NRDC. “GAO determined EPA’s Thunderclap message constituted covert propaganda because EPA was not sufficiently identified as the author of the message.”

Inhofe also wrote to the Surfrider Foundation, through which the GAO found that the EPA was conducting illegal grassroots campaigning. Both the Thunderclap message and the grassroots campaigning were in violation of the Antideficiency Act, and compliance with that legislation is partially governed by the Office of Management and Budget, the recipient of Inhofe’s third letter.

“Under section 1351 of the Antideficiency Act, the EPA Administrator is required to ‘immediately’ report ‘all relevant facts and a statement of actions taken’ to the President and Congress,” Inhofe’s letter stated. “More than two months have passed, but no such report has been transmitted to Congress despite the Antideficiency Act’s requirement that a violation be reported ‘immediately.’ Instead, representatives of the executive branch have repeatedly sought to minimize the significance of the GAO legal decision.”