EPA Orders Employees to Remove YouTube Climate Video

Re-posted from Twighlight Earth.

The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered two of its attorneys to remove a video they posted on YouTube about problems with climate change legislation.

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:
  • 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.’
  • Removing the images of EPA’s building starting at 1:06 min…
  • 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.”