Quantcast
728 x 90
728 x 90
728 x 90
728 x 90
728 x 90

EPA social media machine put on hold

This is the first presidential transition of complete social media saturation, and it should come as no surprise that the Trump Administration wants control of social media accounts from activist agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where some staffers have threatened to undermine the new administration.

According to an online media report, the Beachhead Team also wants to review upcoming events and carefully screen incoming media requests. What nerve!

On Monday we reported how some EPA staffers plan to thwart what they perceive as attacks on the agency’s mission and how some others plan to “fight actions they deem ill-advised or illegal by quietly providing information of what is happening inside their agencies to advocacy groups and the media.”

Who could forget this threat from an anonymous a senior enforcement official in the compliance office that was reported on December 2:

“You can probably anticipate a lot of leak-type warfare coming up,” said the staffer. “But some of that will depend on who the [new EPA] administrator will be. If there’s a reception that the administrator is an industry hack, employees will do anything they can do to undermine credibility of the administration.”

Make no mistake, the EPA is allied headquarters for the Climate-Industrial Complex and their anti-energy allies on the left. According to a report from the Republican majority of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:

“EPA officials routinely corresponded via email with NRDC leaders with whom they also held meetings away from government property, thereby evading transparency requirements, since the start of the rule making process for the power plant regulations in March 2011.”

Social media is their arsenal.  Some of these same staffers who are making threats may have access to the EPA’s vast social media network and digital assets, including 34 Facebook pages, 37 Twitter accounts, nine blogs, three discussion forums, 55 widgets, one YouTube channel, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, Storify, Medium, and the Web site.

Remember just over a year ago, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) ruled that the EPA “engaged in ‘covert propaganda’ and violated federal law when it blitzed social media” lobbying the public to support the controversial Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), as the New York Times reported.

To recap, the EPA has a history of irresponsible and illegal use of social media. Some staffers have threatened to undermine the Trump Administration. Of course, the new administration should assume control of the EPA’s social media content and external communications. It’s not shocking. It’s smart policy.