Auditors: EPA broke law in social media blitz on water rule

According to the GAO report, EPA used Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other social media from February 2014 to July 2015 to generate a positive campaign about the waters of the USA rule.

A thunderclap message was used to reach out to 1.8 million people to urge them to support the clean water proposal.

“The GAO findings vindicate those, like the American Farm Bureau Federation, who have claimed all along that EPA’s tactics advocating for this rule stepped past the bounds of proper agency rulemaking”, Stallman said.

Inhofe and other lawmakers have vowed to block the rule by the Obama administration as an example of overreach.

Federal courts have already put the regulations on hold as they consider a number of lawsuits challenging the water regulations.

The rule, promulgated by the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, broadened those agencies’ authority over navigable waters to include upstream waters and intermittent and ephemeral streams. As I noted here, the WOTUS rule has sparked significant opposition and is now subject to legal challenge in court.

We disagree with their assessment, and we will fulfill whatever reporting requirements are necessary. We use social media tools just like all organizations to stay connected and inform people across the country about our activities. However, the watchdog agency found that the agency’s #DitchtheMyth and #CleanWaterRules social media campaigns did not violate the rules. Users were told the deadline for submitting public comments and the way to do so, said spokeswoman Liz Purchia.

At no point did the EPA encourage the public to contact Congress or any state legislature.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines said he would support any measure to curb the EPA’s clean water rule.

“GAO’s finding confirms what I have long suspected, that EPA will go to extreme lengths and even violate the law to promote its activist environmental agenda”, Inhofe said.

TheBlaze has previously reported on the heavy secrecy and lack of transparency at the EPA. “But these facts-the continued debate surrounding the rulemaking, the inclusion of the hyperlinks to websites of environmental action groups within a blog post announcing a campaign created to recruit public voices to indirectly support finalization of the rule, and the pendency of legislation that would directly prevent the rule from moving forward – preclude a good faith characterization of these hyperlinks as mere citations”.

Federal agencies are allowed to promote their own policies, but are not allowed to engage in propaganda, defined as covert activity meant to influence the American public.

As it promoted the Waters of the United States rule, also known as the Clean Water Rule, the EPA violated both of these laws, a 26-page report signed by Susan A. Poling, the general counsel to the GAO, concluded, in an investigation requested by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

The phrase “sick from pollution” includes a hyperlink to the Surfrider Foundation, a California-based advocacy group that supports the EPA rule.

Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk.