EPA Under Scrutiny for Biased Treatment

Posted by Tina

The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are now investigating allegations that the EPA has been charging fees for freedom of information requests to conservative groups while exempting requests by liberal groups. FOX News reports:

Research by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, claims that the political bias is routine when it comes to deciding which groups are charged fees. Christopher Horner, senior fellow at CEI, said liberal groups have their fees for documents waived about 90 percent of the time, in contrast with conservative groups that it claims are denied fee waivers about 90 percent of the time.

“The idea is to throw hurdles in our way,” charged Horner, who says he decided to look into the fee structure after the EPA repeatedly turned down his group for waivers.

“In 20 cases of ours, since the beginning of last year, we were expressly denied, or denied by them simply refusing to respond, in 18 out of 20 cases,” said Horner, explaining that the batting percentage for fees waived in favor of liberal groups is overwhelming.

“Earth Justice was batting 17 out of 19, the Sierra Club was the worst, at 70 percent granted, 11 out of 15. You add up some other groups and we found that 75 out of 82 groups granted, because these are the groups that the EPA has decided are the favored groups.”

The EPA has denied any favoritism.

You may recall Obama saying: “We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.”

Seems like the administration has been “working” very hard “to ensure” just the opposite.