(CNSNews.com) - Lisa Jackson recently left her job as EPA administrator amid an investigation into her use of alias email accounts. She apparently used those secret accounts to shield official agency business from Freedom of Information Act requests.
In one of those emails, recently obtained by a free-market think tank, an EPA employee mocked proposed coal ash regulations, joking that Jackson "knows which landfill's leaching, She knows which pond might break, She knows they all lack liners, Close 'em down, for goodness sake!"
The Competitive Enterprise Institute says it has now received thousands of heavily redacted emails sent by or to Jackson and her email alias, Richard Windsor.
(CEI sued the EPA to force compliance with its FOIA requests related to the EPA’s coal policies. The second batch of emails was released three hours after most federal offices had closed on Feb. 15 for the holiday weekend.)
According to CEI, "nearly 95 percent of the correspondence from the administrator and more than 80 percent of the email sent to ‘Richard Windsor’ – excluding news stories available to the public – were redacted (blacked out), despite claims by President Obama his was the most transparent administration ever."
To justify 85 percent of the redactions, the EPA used an exception that allows agencies to exempt "deliberative" exchanges with senior staff.
But, as CEI noted, "Some revelations did occur," including the following Christmas poem sent to Jackson from an EPA employee. Meant to be sung to the tune of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," the poem is titled "Coal Ash Regs Are Comin' to Town."
No comments:
Post a Comment