Press Releases

Washington, D.C. (May 15, 2013) – Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) announced that it had obtained information that the IRS isn’t the only government agency targeting conservative groups- the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is doing it too. It took a lawsuit filed by CEI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get to the bottom of it, but the findings were shocking. There was a clear pattern of EPA making it more difficult for limited-government groups to access public records, while fees were waived and doors were opened without fuss for liberal-leaning groups. Public interest groups were the intended beneficiaries of the FOIA’s provision for waiving fees. But it turns out that fee waivers are quite common for some groups, and yet scarce for others. Overall, green groups, like Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and EarthJustice, were granted 92% of their waiver requests. Unfortunately, the same courtesy was not extended to groups who’s beliefs don’t line up with those of the Administration- their requests were denied 93% of the time.

Normally, we’d like to think that this is an innocent mistake, but considering recent events, it’s hard to believe that this could be anything but a premeditated attack on groups with differing viewpoints.  It is entirely unacceptable to give preferential treatment to groups who share the same political view as the Administration, but this goes one step further and punishes those who may rightfully disagree with the decisions the Administration makes. This type of discriminatory governing does not represent the principles our nation was founded on, and is a practice that should be immediately eliminated.

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