WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, announced that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has agreed to Udall’s request for a legal opinion concerning whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the statutory prohibition on the use of agency funds for publicity and propaganda in an April tweet from the agency’s official twitter account.
Udall requested the investigation in a letter to GAO on May 15, 2018.
On April 13, 2018, the EPA’s official twitter account, @EPA, tweeted: “The Senate does its duty: Andrew Wheeler confirmed by Senate as deputy administrator of @EPA. The Democrats couldn't block the confirmation of environmental policy expert and former EPA staffer under both a Republican and a Democrat president.”
As Udall noted, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act provides that agencies may not use appropriations for “publicity or propaganda purposes,” which includes prohibiting purely partisan communications. “In my view, this tweet does not advance an information function of the EPA and is purely partisan in nature,” Udall wrote.
“The appropriations law prohibiting federal agencies from spending on publicity and propaganda was enacted for a reason – to ensure that taxpayer dollars only support official activities, not political speech,” Udall continued.
