Friday, December 7, 2012

Infamy and the EPA


Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and author of the Liberal War on Transparency has uncovered evidence that Lisa Jackson uses an email account under a false name in her role as EPA Administrator. Horner believes that the alternate email address has been used to evade Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests including several that he and CEI have filed with the EPA. EPA maintains that Lisa Jackson's account under the name "Richard Windsor" is part of a policy dating back to Clinton's EPA Administrator Carol Browner.

That's interesting because there was a Florida environmental lawyer named Richard Windsor who worked for Carol Browner when she was Secretary of Environmental Regulation for Florida. Sadly, that Richard Windsor died four years ago today.

Christopher Horner filed a FOIA appeal (embedded below) today to reverse the EPA's initial decision to deny his November 12th, 2012, request for emails sent to/from Lisa Jackson's "Richard Windsor" email account. EPA objected to Horner's FOIA request on the grounds that it did not sufficiently specify the records he sought. As Horner points out in the letter:
The stated search parameters in this standard format would be, as follows:
  1. Copies of all emails sent to, from or copied to any email address used by EPA’s Office of administrator (OA);
  2. Filtered on: (Time Message Sent Later Than 12/15/2008 12:00:01 AM
    and Time Message Sent Earlier Than 12/10/2012 11:59:59 PM;
  3. and (Display “To:” Contains “Richard Windsor”
    or Display “From:” Contains “Richard Windsor”
    or Display “CC:” Contains “Richard Windsor”
    or Display “Bcc:” Contains “Richard Windsor”
The ease with which this is done, contrasted with EPA’s unsupported claim that a search is not possible, suggests that EPA’s initial determination is no more than a delaying tactic for a request which it found particularly unwelcome.
That and the other examples Horner provides strongly suggest that EPA is stonewalling. What do they have to hide?

CEI Appeal EPA Richard Windsor FOIA

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