Dive Brief:
- The top Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has published emails he alleges show the Environmental Protection Agency and advocates at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) getting too cozy in the development of the Obama Administration's carbon rule.
- Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) released the emails he says show the two organizations working together to develop the carbon rule in 2011, two years before EPA said the public had an opportunity to provide input. Vitter, along with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), have been investigating the relationship between the environmental group and federal regulators.
- The EPA, for its part, says there was no improper relationship between the organizations and that the agency met with more than 300 stakeholders before releasing the proposed rules in June.
Dive Insight:
The EPA has faced scrutiny since the summer, when the New York Times reported the agency's carbon rule was heavily based on a proposal by NRDC.
"Even though both sides have vehemently denied it, these discoveries clearly demonstrate the EPA and NRDC's beyond-cozy relationship," Vitter said in a statement following the email release. "The key example in all of this is the settlement agreement on greenhouse gases when the NRDC sued the EPA, the EPA settled, and the two celebrate the agreement. It doesn't get any more blatantly obvious than that."
Vitter refers to an email where now-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy tells an NRDC official, "This success is yours as much as mine." McCarthy previously led the EPA's air pollution initiatives.
EPA spokesman Tom Reynolds authored a blog post last week saying that "despite the full breadth and depth of the unprecedented outreach EPA engaged in to formulate and develop the Clean Power Plan proposal, some continue to push a flawed, cherry-picked, narrative that simply ignores the well-documented and widely reported and recognized sweep and range of the Agency’s engagement with the public, states and stakeholders over the past 14 months."
