Friday, February 20, 2004

House Investigators Complain of EPA Stonewalling House Democrats are charging that EPA headquarters has instructed regional officials not to talk to committee staff investigating the cleanup of perchlorate contamination at Defense Department sites. In a Feb. 5, 2004, letter to EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt, ranking Energy Committee Dem John Dingell (MI) and ranking Environment Subcommittee Dem Hilda Solis (CA) said EPA staff in several regions had told committee investigators headquarters had instructed them to give no information. The committee has legal oversight authority over EPA, and has spoken freely with EPA staff since the agency was formed. The investigators from Dingell's staff, in fact, are the same ones whose probe caused the downfall of EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford in 1983. Text of Dingell letter. 10:04:10 AM

Special Counsel Opens Whistleblower Probe on NPS Police Chief   The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has found sufficient evidence of a 1st Amendment violation to open an investigation into the firing of National Park Service Police Chief Theresa Chambers. Chambers was fired in December 2004 for talking to the press. The Special Counsel's office, which is responsible for enforcing federal whistleblower protection law, found grounds to believe Chambers' speech may have been protected under the 1st Amendment and whistleblower law. The Special Counsel's Feb. 11, 2004, announcing the opening of the investigation was released by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). PEER release. Prior story in WatchDog of Dec. 19, 2004. 9:32:50 AM

Utah Hides Maps of Its Road Claims on Federal Lands   Environmental groups are appealing a Jan. 2004 refusal by Utah's attorney general to disclose maps of roads that the state claims to own on federal lands. Then-Utah-Gov. Michael Leavitt made a controversial secret deal with the Interior Dept. last year under a long-unused 19th-Century law called RS 2477, giving the state control of the federal land. The claims are only supposed to apply to existing publicly traveled and regularly maintained roads -- but environmentalists fear the deal is a ruse to transfer wilderness-quality lands to the state in order to prevent their conservation. Utah's Attorney General refused a request for details of the claims from Earthjustice, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and The Wilderness Society. The groups had requested the information under Utah's open records law. The state refused claiming that the records were part of deliberative process and litigation -- even though it is involved in no litigation on the matter. Earthjustice release of Feb. 12, 2004. 9:02:24 AM