The EPA’s Politics in the Raw The agency, in a dispute over its ‘covert propaganda,’ shows itself to be a political actor. By A.J. Kritikos
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-epas-politics-in-the-raw-1452729229
It’s official: The Environmental Protection Agency has violated federal law by engaging in “covert propaganda” and “grassroots lobbying.” That is the finding of a Dec. 14 report by the Government Accountability Office—though EPA bureaucrats are unrepentant.
The investigation began in June, after Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.) requested that the GAO review the EPA’s online activities, including its aggressive promotion of the new “waters of the United States” regulatory rule.
Investigators concluded that the EPA illegally used Thunderclap, a social media site, “to correct what it viewed as misinformation.” Government use of social media is not unlawful in itself. But the agency crossed the line by asking supporters to share an EPA-written message on Facebook or Twitter without attributing it to the government. This failure to attribute caused the violation for “covert propaganda.” Simply put, citizens deserve to know when messages presented to them were created by their government.
The violation for “grassroots lobbying” stemmed from an EPA blog post that linked to websites encouraging readers to, for example, “urge your senators to defend Clean Water Act safeguards for critical streams and wetlands.” Federal law prohibits administrative agencies from lobbying the public to support or oppose pending legislation. As the GAO report notes, at least a dozen bills in Congress sought to prevent the EPA’s new waters rule from being implemented.
At bottom, the report concluded that the EPA’s overtly political actions “preclude a good faith characterization” of the facts. Sen. Inhofe has now requested that the GAO review the way that the EPA promoted its Clean Power Plan, which requires states to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from electricity-generating plants.
Executive agencies aren’t supposed to be political. The builders of the administrative state imagined that regulators would be unbiased experts, who would come to objective conclusions about the best policy. That notion has been shown to be woefully naive.
Anyone who doubts that the EPA views itself as a political actor should read its response to the investigations. Liz Purchia, a public affairs official, argued in a blog post that the Thunderclap page was properly labeled, and that the EPA never urged the public to contact lawmakers.
What’s telling is Ms. Purchia’s tone. She wrote that critics are “grasping at anything to distract from and derail our progress.” She attacked “those who question the well-established science behind climate change.” And she assailed “backward-thinkers” who want the EPA to “operate as if we live in the Stone Age.”
Who do we have to blame for this state of affairs? Congress, for one. By passing vague statutes with general goals and authorizing executive agencies to come up with the details, lawmakers have delegated away their exclusive power to make law.
Most of the Supreme Court is complicit. Alone among the sitting justices, Clarence Thomas has suggested a willingness to invalidate these unconstitutional delegations. In a concurring opinion last year, Mr. Thomas wrote that the justices “have too long abrogated our duty to enforce the separation of powers.” He lamented the growth of “a vast and unaccountable administrative apparatus that finds no comfortable home in our constitutional structure.”
Hear, hear. The questions facing the country don’t lend themselves to objective, expert answers, and choosing what to do with scarce resources always involves trade-offs. The way to take politics out of administrative agencies is simple: Take from them the power to make policy.
Mr. Kritikos, a former clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, is a lawyer in private practice.
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