Last weekend, I ran a two-part interview I did with Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). (Part 1 / Part 2) This week, PEER announced that the Obama EPA had ordered two EPA attorneys to take down a youtube video they had posted--"The Huge Mistake - Climate Change Solutions 2009"--criticizing the Obama-supported cap & trade approach to climate change as fatally flawed. PEER has reposted it for them. The two attorneys, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, are married to each other, and each has worked at EPA for over 20 years. In the video, Zabel, speaking for both of them, refers to their experience as EPA attorneys, but immediately states that they are not represeenting the EPA:
ALLAN ZABEL: Our opinions are based on more than twenty years each working as attorneys at the US Environmental Protection Agency in the San Francisco regional office. However, nothing in this video is intended to represent the views of EPA or the Obama administration.
According to PEER:
The couple had received clearance for posting the video but EPA took issue with its content following publication of an op-ed piece by the two in The Washington Post on October 31 .... On November 5, 2009, EPA ethics officials ordered the two veteran employees to -
"Remove your climate change video from You Tube by the close of business on Friday, November 6, 2009";
"Edit your You Tube video...by:
(i) Removing the language starting at 1:06 min - 'Our opinions are based on more than 20 years each working as attorneys at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the San Francisco Regional Office.'
(ii) Removing the images of EPA's building starting at 1:06 min...
(v) Remove [sic] the language starting at 6:30 min - 'In my work at EPA, I've been overseeing California's cap-and-trade and offset programs for more than 20 years.'"
"All future requests for approval of an outside writing activity must be accompanied by a draft of the document that is the subject of the approval request..."
"EPA is abusing ethics rules to gag two conscientious employees who have every right to speak out as citizens," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who has re-posted the original video and its script. "EPA reversed itself because someone in headquarters had a tantrum about their Washington Post essay."
Here's the video, so you can judge for yourself (more about the incident, as well as the couple's argument, on the flip):
